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The true causes of happy and satisfying experiences will be more understandable and the reasons for wanting to achieve them will be more apparent when you have developed new thinking and memory skills based on the new brain science findings. Your hormones and neurons are constantly sending messages to your brain from all parts of your body. Electrical impulses are traveling with lightning speed up and down your spine and in and out of your brain. When you understand how this process happens, you will be able to create more meaningful happy times and satisfying achievements. Your new brainpower knowledge will permit you to change your goals and plans so they will be more compatible with your new values and assumptions. Healthy habits are essential for a lifetime of happy satisfying relationships and creative solutions to life's problems. A good working definition of "happiness" is contained in the following quote from the famous author, philosopher, and feminist Ayn Rand. The quotations were found on Dr. Ellen Kenner's website by googling A Rational View of Happiness:
"Happiness is possible only to a rational person, the person who desires nothing but rational goals, seeks nothing but rational values, and finds his [or her] joy in nothing but rational actions." "There are no victims and no conflicts of interest among rational people, people who do not desire the unearned."
"Some important values are a productive career, romance, friendship and hobbies. Achieving these values requires rationality and takes effort and skill. Two types of skills you can use are thinking skills and valuing skills. Once you learn to have confidence in your own mind and once you discover the virtues [namely, good thinking and feeling habits] that make it possible for you to achieve your values and that make your life worth living, then you will experience the result, which is an earned pride and a genuine self-esteem." List of Happiness and Satisfaction Book Outlines
[2] Find the decision BEHIND the problem [3] Find the CONTEXT for the original decision [4] List the PAYOFFS for the decision [5] Examine your ALTERNATIVES to the behavior that is causing the problem [6] Choose your ALTERNATIVE and decide to put it into practice [7] Support your SELF in carrying out your decision
[2] List all the things and activities that make you happy [3] Once you find yourself struggling to come up with more items, STOP and put your journal aside for a few minutes [4] Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths of air and then go back and read the items on your list of happy things.
(2) We are programmed to seek happiness (3) It is self-evident that the best society is the happiest (4) Our society is not likely to become happier unless people agree that this is what we want to happen
(2) As social beings, we want to trust each other (3) People are also deeply attached to the status quo (4) Human beings are also status conscious (5) Human beings are also very adaptable (6) In any case extra income increases happiness less and less as people get richer (7) In fact happiness depends on your inner life as much as on your outer circumstances (8) Public policy can more easily remove misery than augment happiness
HAPPINESS IDEA #2 --- The Utilitarian ethical principle of the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people is essentially the expression of that ideal. 10 Keys to True Happiness
[2] DESIRE [3] INTELLIGENCE [4] GENETICS [5] BEAUTY [6] FRIENDSHIP [7] MARRIAGE [8] FAMILY [9] CHARITY [10] AGE 10 Secrets of Finding Happiness During the Recession
2) Pursue meaningful life goals. Having life aspirations that you are working to achieve is a major factor in determining happiness. (Sonja Lyubomirsky, a professor of psychology at the University of California-Riverside and author of The How of Happiness.) 3) Be open and receptive to what's happening right now, in the moment. You should expect to have negative thoughts when you have negative experiences but you should also cultivate an open and curious attitude where you direct your attention to what is happening without making judgments on yourself or the situation. (Kashdan) Treat anxious thoughts like uncomfortable conversations and "thank your mind" for the comment and move on to other, more pleasant topics. 4) Nurture meaningful relationships. Happy people are open to the idea of sharing their experiences and emotions with others. (Kashdan) Surrounding yourself with cheerful individuals can make you feel happier too. (British Medical Journal) You only need to have that sense of belonging or acceptance. (Kashdan) 5) Recognize your strengths. In times of difficulty, we get to test our mettle.(Kashdan) Everything can be taken from a person but one thing, which is the last of the human freedoms, namely, to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. (Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl) 6) Count your blessings. Being grateful has been shown to improve happiness. (Lyubomirsky) The key to conjuring those feelings may lie in spending time with others who are less fortunate. 7) Keep an optimism journal. Spend 10 minutes a week writing about their dreams for the future and how to achieve them. (Lyubomirsky) "Of course, I would encourage you to journal a little every day," Lyubomirsky says. "It's like diet and exercise; you get out of it the effort that you put into it." You can start simple. "Every time something bad happens, think of one positive side to it," she suggests. "It's really hard at first, but then it gets easier." 8) Seek advice from your neighbor. It may be more informative than your own best predictions about what will make you happy. (Science Journal) Rely on a friend's or food critic's recommendation rather than the menu you see posted in the window of a restaurant. (Daniel Gilbert) 9) Get out and sweat. Sweat-inducing exercise at least three times each week can reduce symptoms of depression about as effectively as antidepressants. That's most likely because exercise increases the production of "feel good" brain chemicals like endorphins and of proteins that improve connections between brain nerve cells. 10) Do unto others. Practicing acts of kindness has been shown to enhance well-being. (Lyubomirsky) Acts of kindness give you a sense of purpose beyond money that you have earned. (Kashdan) Also neighbors can find ways to connect by trading favors. These acts of kindness are occurring all the time and remind us that we live in a benevolent society. It happened after 9/11 and it is happening again with the economic crisis. (Kashdan) Ten Days to Self-Esteem Book Source: Feeling Good --- the New Mood Therapy Book Source: When Panic Attacks Book Source: From Panic to Power --- the Positive Use of Stress
[Goal 1] You can learn how to measure your many moods as well as your satisfaction in your relationships with others using three tests or "self-assessment tools" on a weekly basis. [Goal 2] You can identify your PERSONAL GOALS for this experiment of self-discovery. You can choose to answer the following questions:
(3) Would you like to be happier and more optimistic? (4) Would you like to enjoy greater self-confidence and a positive self-image? (5) What is on your "wish list" of positive changes in your life? You can choose to decide whether you are willing to pay the price of happiness! The third book, Feeling Good, helped popularize "cognitive behavior therapy" for the intelligent readers in the 1980s. The format and vocabulary were targeted for counselors, but the book, with its rational ethical humanistic values and case studies, has been a persuasive source of clear information for more than 20 years. The books written by Burns about his counseling experiences provide a thought provoking practical context for helping people control their own feelings. They can do that by organizing and anchoring their thoughts around solid values, instead of the classic psychological "defenses" or distorted beliefs about reality: I Need Your Love, is That True? To create your own "turnarounds" by doing critical thinking and applying reasons to explain your feelings and values, you can use the following therapeutic "intervention model" to creative "turnarounds" in your life: If you feel any resistance to learning and remembering the new science-based facts of life about your potential for happiness, it may be useful for you to experience a "turnaround" in your thinking about your brain by asking your SELF the following four turnaround questions:
[2] How did I learn the assumption that my happiness largely depends upon my own positive attitude of gratitude? Remember, moralistic "should" statements are not helpful when you are inquiring about the "reality" or "truth" of something. Try to phrase your ideas without feeling angry or fearful as you seek to understand what you mean by "authentic happiness" and "lasting satisfaction"?
[2] What is my current "self-awareness" of my responsibility for my own happiness and satisfaction? [3] Can I really "know" what is the best way to achieve authentic happiness and enduring satisfaction by knowing more about my own brainpower? [4] Can I absolutely know that I would be happier, or that my life would be more successful, if I decide to learn more about the new brainpower science facts so that I can apply the new brainpower knowledge in my life?
Can I describe it more clearly? What do my feelings reveal to my when I "think" about that thought? (Allow your feelings to "live," and notice how much of your body they take over. Where do those feelings take you?)
[2] What new ideas do I see when I re-read my own descriptions of my feelings about happiness and satisfaction? (Close your eyes and imagine yourself remembering the new brain facts and applying them in your major relationships with others. Describe to yourself how it feels. Write your best thoughts down on paper.) Can you find at least three examples in your life where the "turnarounds" are as "real" or "truer" with respect to the new brain facts than your old beliefs about yourself? (Be as specific and as detailed as you can.)
[2] Where can I experience this "turnaround" in my life now? [3] If I lived this "turnaround," what would I do, and how would I live differently? [4] Do I see any other "turnarounds" that seem as true or truer than when I am applying the new brain facts in I life? The parts of your brain tissue that are responsible for your ability to think are brain cells called "neurons." Neurons are connected in "neuronal networks." Your neurons contain "dendrites" that depend upon your unique experiences and relationships to grow and create new neuronal networks. Also, the chemical switches that send signals up and down your nervous system and inside your brain are called "synapses". If you did not have a healthy brain with a programmable mind, you would never be able to think about your own happiness or anyone else's happiness. The profound truth in this empirically based assumption is that you would never be aware of your SELF as a separate individual person without having a fully functioning "healthy" brain and nervous system. Also you would not be able to read this sentence. Without the ability to empower yourself by using your amazing brain to define and explain your SELF to yourself, you would not be able to think and feel or be conscious of being YOU! The devastation that Alzheimer's Disease causes people when their brain tissues become damaged with sticky plaque is another proof of the relevance of the brain science facts of life. Those patients lose their ability to access their memories and, therefore, they lose their awareness of time and cannot access their memories of their past life. Knowing this fact can influence you to want to know more about how you can maintain and improve your brain health now. As you consciously think about the new meanings that the "brain science facts" of life force you to experience, the new neuron connections in your brain and nervous system will give you the power to change your Self-Creation, Self-Esteem, and Self-Actualization potentials. By adding new memories to your consciousness of your SELF, your brainpower knowledge will result in a true holistic synergy that will create a "mindful mindset" that you can experience as true satisfying self-liberation. Self-Control is Your Goal for Achieving Happiness You will be able to experience a new kind of freedom of choice that will enable you to achieve your goals according to a predictable schedule of enjoyable events in your life. The importance of freedom is especially relevant to the personal creativity of Smart Goal-Setting as described by James Manktelow of Mind Tools at the following link: Smart Goal-Setting When the new brain science facts of life are analyzed and studied with the DNA data from the recent advances in evolutionary biology and psychology, your Brainpower Mindset will nourish your ideas about the importance of the concept of your SELF. There is no need anymore for any "religious dualism" that has traditionally separated your MIND from your BODY when you explain the great philosophical issues to yourself and your friends. Self-Esteem is simply defined as having "good feelings" about your SELF. Even though your Self-Esteem is your "subjective" measure of your own self-worth, it is essential for you to keep it positive! When you perceive your self-esteem as being "high," then your positive attitude about yourself will give you the courage to learn and choose among competing alternative ethical values or behaviors depending upon the consequences you can expect from your perceptions of reality. Simply stated, you need to use your new brain vocabulary and continuously develop your memory so you can think accurately and create your own personal unique identity and lifestyle. That can be your a major purpose in your life, to facilitate your own brainpower through improving your memory. Because you can think for yourself and change your feelings, you can reach your greatest human potential. You can plan to be happier in the future by simply evaluating what you are most grateful for each night before you go to sleep. Each night before you fall asleep, if you think for about five minutes about what activities were most satisfying and important during the day, you can give yourself credit for surviving the day and for accomplishing your most important goals for those particular hours and minutes of your life. This positive recognition that you accomplished worthwhile things can increase your Self-Esteem in a healthy way that will lead to more happiness the next day. This assertion about the power of the attitude of gratitude to increase authentic happiness and lasting satisfaction in your life is based on hundreds of anecdotal psychological reports of historic figures and scholars during the past 3,000 years as well as in books on happiness and satisfaction published during the last few years that report the latest scientific results. You can review the findings in the recent books on happiness and satisfaction by using the following link: You can make the process of memorizing the essential new factual ideas about your SELF an exciting personal research project that can have a lasting impact on the rest of your life. The ultimate issue for you now is to discover how you can determine the quality of life that will give you authentic happiness and lasting satisfaction both today and in the future. You can ask yourself what kind of legacy that you want to leave for those who follow you after you die? This question can help you focus your thinking about what has been and what might be meaningful in your life. What are you happiest about in your past? What do you regret most? Essay-Set #3.2: THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE And the New Brain Science Facts and Ideas Based on Experimentation and Reason If you begin to take full responsibility for your "reason-based" goals and plans, without the need to defer to some greater "faith-based" power, you will be giving yourself legitimate pride in your natural bodily resources. Your brain and nervous system have evolved to near perfection during the past few hundred thousand years of biological evolution. More particularly, the past 30,000 years of human civilization and the creations of institutions has given us a long historical record with which to create the best personal and civic values for making the future better for more humans and the rest of nature on planet Earth. Some scientists now claim that there is evidence that our earliest prehistoric ancestors with "human" characteristics were living as long ago as 100,000 years. To arrive at the present magnificent diversity of smaller animal and plant life forms (compared to the giant dinosaurs) that have survived until now on planet Earth, it has taken about 65 million years. That is the time when all the dinosaurs died out in their big profile form due to the collision of a giant asteroid with planet Earth. If the big dinosaurs had not all died off way back then, human beings may not have been able to survive as a species and might never have develop as we have into the dominate life form on Earth. After many millions of years of further evolution, the smaller mammals and reptiles that survived the devastating cataclysmic collision, including the birds which may have be the direct or indirect descendants of the big dinosaurs, eventually produced humans. It is estimated that as few as one-third or as many as one-half of all the other smaller animals and plants, which were alive before the great dinosaur extinction, survived the collision and continued to evolve. Nevertheless, the dazzling diversity of animal and plant life which inhabit our unique little "blue planet" with us now, have changed or "evolved" over many millions of years with the help of the vast oceans that cover most of our Earth: The Blue Planet --- Seas of Life There are different animals and plants at the edges or borders of the oceans, different ones in tropical seas and different ones in temperate seas as well as different animals and plants in the frozen seas, the open seas, and the deepest seas. Your awareness of the spectacular diversity of the animals and plants in the oceans and on the land of planet Earth can be a pivotal fact in your awareness of having evolved --- with your amazing human brain. The processes of evolution and natural selection make all life possible on planet Earth. This includes your amazing brain which includes your undivided "mindbody." And your brain makes your SELF possible. This is the starting point that makes everything else rational or sensible. The following four links provide a basis for the rational humanistic ethical ideas essential for exploring the "psycho-social" nature of your SELF: The Self --- Explorations in Personal Growth Book Source: The New View of Self --- How Genes and Neurotransmitters Shape Your Mind, Your Personality, and Your Mental Health Book Source: The Evolving Self --- Problem and Process in Human Development Book Source: The Evolving Self --- a Psychology for the Third Millennium Book Source: Self Completion --- Keys to the Meaningful Life By using sound thinking and memory skills, you will be able to evaluate your goals and your plans in a balanced way according to your own personal values. Your values determine your predictable motivational needs. This factual idea makes it possible for you to consciously create more meaning in your lifetime by taking successively bolder steps toward accomplishing your most important goals even when challenged by self-destructive culture-caused values. You are challenged every day by the constant assault on your consciousness by advertisements that associate the idea of instant pleasure with shopping. The global economy entices you to choose instant gratification by purchasing products and services instead of basing your decisions on your core personal values and assumptions. Continuous education or lifelong learning is essential for your personal survival and economic success now and especially in the future. Our "mass media-oriented consumerism culture" and the global economy attempt to both influence you to ignore your own true needs related to the development of your SELF and also to enhance it. Therefore, you need to identify the good influences of our global economy from the bad influences. With the new brain science facts of life, you can create the power to perform at your best against the global mass-media generated cultural forces that tempt you to ignore your own basic human needs and protection or our planet's natural resources. When you consciously combine the three phenomenal potentials of your newly empowered SELF, you will experience new opportunities and possibilities. As long as some of your "unconscious brainpower" is used to make sure that your breathing is strong enough to provide rich new oxygen atoms to your blood and your heart beat is strong enough to pump fresh blood to your brain, your "mindbody" will be able to function optimally. There is no need anymore for any "religious dualism" that has traditionally separated your mind from your body when you explain the great philosophical issues to yourself and your friends. Self-Esteem can be defined as having "good feelings" about your SELF. Positive self-esteem means that you have high energy or spirit since you feel good about yourself. Even though Self-Esteem is the "subjective" measure of your own self-worth, it is essential for you to keep it positive, and realize that your positive attitude must be connected to the other essential components of being free to choose your own values, namely, your "self-creation" and your "self-actualization" potentials. When your Self-Esteem is "high," then your positive attitude about yourself will give you the courage to learn and choose among competing alternative ethical values or behaviors depending upon the consequences you can expect from your perceptions of reality: The Science of Good & Evil ---Why People Cheat, Gossip, Care, Share, and Follow the Golden Rule When you realize how important the ideas of "focusing" and "feedback" are to your feelings of happiness and your ability to achieve success, you will be able to understand how essential the role of language is to your ability to think clearly and do genuine "critical thinking" about your own brainpower potential: Focusing Book Source: Seven Secrets of Inspired Leaders HISTORY OF SCIENCE --- This essential brainpower knowledge involves learning the importance of the history of science and the supreme value of the scientific method. The scientific method should be revered above all other conceivable subjects since it is the single most reliable unifying factor available for studying your brain and brainpower and all other problems of human existence. We must use brainpower to solve the global environmental problems that are becoming catastrophic nightmares, which future generations of children will have to deal with and probably die prematurely from --- if we do not begin solving them now with our brainpower. Man Masters Nature --- 25 Centuries of Science Book Source: The Future of Everything --- the science of prediction Book Source: Introduction to Psychology Gateways to mind and behavior Just as Einstein's famous equation --- "E = MC squared" --- symbolizes one of his main scientific accomplishments, the words in his letters to other people, including other scientists and political leaders and even children, reveal a compassionate ethical person who had the courage to speak out on the most important issues of life and death in the 20th century: Einstein --- His Life and Universe How to Think Like Einstein Simple Ways to Break the Rules and Discover Your Hidden Genius Seven Ideas that Shook the Universe THE SEVEN GREATEST SCIENTIFIC IDEAS EVER THOUGHT
(2) The awesome universe is a mechanism that operates according to well-established rules --- Newtonian physics (3) Energy drives the mechanism --- the energy concept (4) The mechanism runs in a specific direction --- entropy and probability (5) The facts are relative, but the law is absolute --- relativity! (6) You can't predict or know everything --- quantum theory and the limits of causality (7) Fundamentally, things never change --- conservation principles and symmetries Cosmic Landscape --- String Theory and the Illusion of Intelligent Design The following eight most important "encapsulating scientific slogans" derived from the past 500 years and proven beyond any doubt during the past 100 years of the history of science include the following great ideas that are in the book, Cosmic Landscape linked immediately above:
(2) SPACE AND TIME ARE RELATIVE --- from Einstein and Special Relativity (3) THE SPEED OF LIGHT IS AN ABSOLUTE CONSTANT --- from Einstein and Special Relativity (4) THE EQUIVALENCE PRINCIPLE = Gravity is indistinguishable from acceleration --- from Einstein and General Relativity (5) THE HEISENBERG UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE = position and velocity cannot be simultaneously determined --- from Quantum Mechanics (6) THE BIG BANG --- from cosmology (7) SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST, NATURAL SELECTION, THE SELFISH GENE --- from Darwin's Natural Selection and Evolutionary Theory (8) A LANDSCAPE OF POSSIBILITIES POPULATED BY A MEGAVERSE OF ACTUALITIES --- This is the grand organizing principle of both biology and cosmology Today's brain scientists are discovering phenomenal new facts about how our human brains work. They are following in the empirical footsteps of Galileo and Newton and Darwin and Einstein, and thousands of other researchers. Many of them will be identified and celebrated on this website. They all had the courage to contribute to the "scientific way" of thinking by overcoming ignorance as well as debunking many superstitious ideas. Some of the scientists published and promoted the results of their scientific experimentation, even when their discoveries and inventions and conclusions were not in agreement with the political and religious values or orthodoxies of their times. Their willingness to risk their lives and reputations and legacies for the benefit of all mankind is the supreme gift they gave all of us. But now we are all faced with the opportunity to view the tipping point of global warming as a turning point that could begin to improve our global environment by 2050. The new scientific injunction can point us in the right direction: the knowledge of our collective brainpower can save us from self-destructiveness and the total devastation of our planet Earth. Otherwise, we may never be able to restore essential species and geological resources such as the rainforests and polar icecaps in time to prevent a massive environmental catastrophe and major dislocation of global populations. It will actually be Hell on Earth because it is like a "war" caused by unrestrained rampant capitalism controlled by millionaire and billionaire oligarchs who desire uncontrolled profits at the expense of the rest of humanity and Nature. The imminent drastic devastation of geographic conditions due to "global warming" can only be stopped and controlled if thousands of political leaders and millions of concerned citizens are willing to apply scientific principles to solve the interconnected environmental problems and issues. All people, but especially children, need to be educated about the way their brains work so they will know how important their global environment and the "thin air" atmosphere are to making it possible for their own brains to grow and provide their unique perceptions of life.  flyingeagle@earthlink.net Go instantly to Essay #4: Focus on Your Creative Mind-body Strategy Return instantly to: Self-Liberation Philosophy Index |
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