Originally published at Am I the Only One Dancing?. Please leave any comments there.

by request, this is hidden behind the cut now

What have you done today to build happiness?  

Starting today, make a commitment to spend five, or ten, or fifteen minutes building happiness by working toward something that matters to you

Too many of us dream of being happy without setting goals that will get us there, or set goals, but don’t do anything to work toward those goals.

I’m too busy.

I don’t have the money this week.

The dog ate my homework.

Poppycock

(and that’s my professional opinion).

Even I can take fifteen minutes to build happiness in my life, working toward that one thing I really want to do

It’s the one instruction I give in therapy that most people are able to follow… and if they aren’t, they are able to give five or ten minutes a day.

If you want to be happy, devote fifteen minutes (or five, or ten) toward it every day.

Every day.

No excuses.

Why not devote fifteen minutes every day for at least one week on any new project that you think might be worthwhile?

Want to diet? Spend fifteen minutes a day documenting your food intake at fitday.com.

Read the rest of this entry »

Originally published at Am I the Only One Dancing?. Please leave any comments there.

Once upon a time I came across a meme on LiveJournal asking people to identify their ten personal commandments.  I like memes. When people participate in them, interesting thought experiments spread across the world.

I took the assignment seriously and took perhaps a full week to think about what ten principles I would like to live by. I wanted them to be universal, to apply in addition to rather than instead of a religious belief, and to address both harm to self and harm to others.

Here is what I came up with:

Read the rest of this entry »