The How Of Happiness A New Approach For Getting The Life...

The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want by Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky is simultaneously an academic book and comprehensive guide about positive psychology and it’s applications in daily life. Dr. Lyubomirsky provides not only facts and figures to back up her science but also includes quizzes and exercises for the reader to learn more about himself or herself in context with the book. The book is broken down into 3 different sections: How to Attain Real and Lasting Happiness, Happiness Activities, and Secrets to Abiding Happiness. In the first part of the book, Dr. Lyubomirsky explains her 40% solution. Think of happiness as 100%. 50% of this is based on genetics and this is a person’s set happiness point. Even when a person experiences extreme emotion like winning the lottery after some time his or her happiness level will return to the set point. 10% is based on a person’s life circumstances such as where he or she lives, how much money he o r she has, how you look, etc. The final 40% is where Dr. Lyubomirsky puts her focus because this is the part of person’s happiness that he or she is able to control; this is ultimately determined by a person’s behavior. If someone wants to be happier, he or she needs to make changes to their behavior not their circumstances. Dr. Lyubomirsky goes into more detail about how a person can make this change in the second part of her book. Firstly, though, she provides the reader with a couple exercises and debunks aShow MoreRelatedThree Steps to the Happy Life: Why this Approach Does Not Work1097 Words   |  5 PagesThe happy life. What does this mean to me? Kristen Linker, a third year student at Redeemer University College. It begins with balance: trusting God, finding Joy, having harmonious relationships with the people in my life and doing the best I can with what I have at this stage in life. If I would have had to write this paper at the beginning of this semester, I would have had a completely different view on the happy life. However, through this course, I have learned what I think are the most important

Comparative Essay The Catcher and the Rye vs. The Curious...

The Struggle to Be Normal In today’s society, many teenagers struggle in their everyday lives due to the fact that they have different qualities than others. The novel, Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, is about a young man named Holden Caulfield, who suffers from multiple mental illnesses, causing him to be treated different by others. Due to tragedies he has suffered from in the past, and all that is going on in is present life, Holden can no longer cope and runs away to New York. Christopher Boone, from the novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon, also suffers from multiple mental illnesses and has experienced life changing tragedies over the years. For many years Christopher’s father has been†¦show more content†¦He rarely socializes when he is at school or out in public, and when he is at home, he prefers to be alone his room with his pet rat. â€Å"And I really like little spaces, so long as there is no one else in there with me.† (Haddo n. 50). In the rare occasion that Christopher associates with people out in public that he does not know, the interaction usually ends quickly due to Christopher feeling uncomfortable and leaving in a hurry. When he had no choice but to engage in conversation with a neighbor who was nothing but friendly to him, he began to think of every possible thing that could go wrong and quickly decided to leave. â€Å"And I thought she might be ringing the police and then I’d get into much more serious trouble because of the caution. So I walked away† (Haddon. 40). Even though Christopher does lack social skills, there are still ways he can learn to become more social and ways of interacting with others to better him. Unfortunately he does not put any effort into increasing his social skills, and neither do any of the few people he has a relationship with, causing him to resource to isolating himself because that is what he has always been used to doing. Overall, isolation plays a major role in both novels, causing both main characters to isolate themselves in similar ways. With both characters choosing to isolate themselves comes a great deal of independence. The amount of independence a person has varies based

A Theological Account Of Death And Dying - 2501 Words

Candidate No: 000648153 TMM2171 Christian Faith Ethical Living Essay Two Martha Grace Weatherill Christian Faith Ethics Essay Two Draft Word Count: 2680 How should a theological account of death and dying shape the morale debate concerning euthanasia The debate on whether it is moral to assist in suicide or euthanasia has been very strong and heated by both sides of the argument, this debate has not gone away although the bill for the arguments for assisted suicide and euthanasia was lost in the UK parliament last year.[footnoteRef:1] Using the works of catholic theologians from the fourth century to the twenty first century, this essay gives the theological account of death and dying and aims to shape the moral debate concerning†¦show more content†¦as one identifies with Christ?s suffering, death and resurrection (Hope). Therefore, the Christian understanding is to accept death as natural even though it is a punishment from the fall. This acceptance will help the Christian?s ?journey? with death in their lives and the lives of friends and family, by treating the dying with care and dignity as a community and by addressing and managing the ?total pain? of the individual as practiced in hospices.[footnoteRef:4] [2: Da vid Albert Jones, Approaching the End: A Theological Exploration of Death and Dying (Oxford?; New York: OUP Oxford, 2007), 24.] [3: Ibid., 37.] [4: Beville, Dying to Kill, 285?301.] For Thomas Aquinas, a thirteenth century theologian, in agreement with Augustine, he maintains that dying is because of sin and is natural when it occurs because of elements in the body that are contrary to existence. He argues that suicide and indeed assisted killing is viewed as death in an ?unnatural state? because what happens is that the individual killed is deprived of their life, the community loses one of its members and the person?s soul is dead in a manner that is not natural. Jones takes this even further by suggesting that it is even worse to kill someone out of mercy because the innocent deserves our protection. Aquinas maintains that this sort of death is against a person?s natural love of self and it questions God?s authority. David AlbertShow MoreRelatedTheology Leads to Interpretation1336 Words   |  6 PagesEmily Dickinson’s extensive collection of poems on the subject of death can be better understood individually once time has been taken to view her works as whole. By viewing the works as a whole, it is possible to conclude a likely theological view point of the author and then apply this theology to the individual works in order to improve interpretation. Emily Dickinson’s poem â€Å"Because I could not stop for Death† is one such poem that when viewed individually is open to a wide scope of readingsRead MoreSignificance Of Christ s Resurrection Essay1630 Words   |  7 Pagescannot be too easy to explain. On the theological aspect, which all Christians should be take into consideration to ponder and come to a realization that this event (the resurrection) has completely changed the course of human history as regarding to the communion between man and God the Father. A necessary step in the reconciliation process between man’s sinful nature and God as a just judge. So it is not whether it is one or another, historical or theological. Whether the audience is believer orRead MoreCritique On The Resurrection Of Christ : Theological Implications By Daniel B. Wallace Essay1478 Words   |  6 Pages In our second article critique we have to critique an article about â€Å"The Resurrection of Christ: Theological Implications† written by Daniel B. Wallace. Before getting to the content in this article we must first talk some about the author. Daniel B. Wallace has taught Greek and New Testament courses on a graduate school level since 1979. 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Paul changes pace from being the angry father to the GalatiansRead MoreThe Theological Doctor Who Delivers Essay1040 Words   |  5 PagesThe theological Doctor who delivers the epilogue underscores the play’s moral lesson: â€Å"And he that hath his account whole and sound, high in heaven he shall be crowned† (lines 916-917). He reminds the audience that this play about dying right is, equally, in the end, about the importance of living right. Our life, our mortality is futile – Everyman seeks to impress upon its audience an awareness of life’s impermanence, and ability to discern the eternal in the midst of the transitory, and a commitmentRead MoreAn Analysis of Christianity1094 Words   |  5 Pagesthat, through the death and resurrection of Jesus,sinful humans are reconciled to God and thereby attain salvation and the promise of eternal life. While there have been theological disputes over the nature of Jesus, most Christians believe that Jesus is God incarnate and â€Å"true God and true man†.Jesus,having become fully human in all respects, including the aspect of mortality,suffered the pains and temptations of a mortal man,yet he did not sin. As fully God, he defeated death and rose to life againRead MoreEschatology2104 Words   |  9 PagesBishop Patteson Theological College Kohimarama 2013 Eschatology and Soteriology Assignment One (What cultural module you would use to explain Eschatology to your congregation) Name: Ellison Gito Course: THEO 235/ESCHATOLOGY/SOTERIOLOGY Semester: One Diploma: Three Year: 2013 Due date: March, Lecturer: Rev. Fox Mark CONTENTS Page 1) Introduction 1 2) Definition of Eschatology 1 3) Traditional Belief to Eschatology in Isabel 2 Read MoreA Case Study on Clinical Pastoral Education Essay7178 Words   |  29 PagesMINISTRY B. PATIENT’S BACKGROUND INFORMATION C. FIRST ENCOUNTER (VERBATIM) D. 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Empowering Others to Empower Yourself free essay sample

People dont like being told what to do. This is a fairly simple concept. If you want people to do what you want them to, explicitly commanding them to do it isnt always the best strategy. Oddly, many companies regularly fail to comprehend or appropriately respond to this idea. Businesses that are out to make a profit are commonly associated with things like salesmen, bosses, CEOs, and in-your-face advertising, all of which carry the idea of telling people what to do. Valve Software is arguably one of the most successful, well-known, and highly commended companies in the video game industry, responsible for incredibly popular titles such as Half-Life, Counter-Strike, Portal, Team Fortress Classic, and their sequels (all of which are just as popular). However, from its very beginnings, Valve has set itself apart from other companies not only through the superior quality of its work, but by the way in which it continually empowers those that are a part of it. This includes staff, as well as community contributors, and even average users of any of Valves services. As Valve continues to empower its supporters, it continues to succeed. This brings a logical theory: empowering people, and therefore not telling them what to do, is a very viable way for a business to increase both its profits and its notoriety. Now, when I think about Valve on a regular basis all of this ambiguous, theoretical junk isnt what goes through my head. When it comes to Valve, the absolute, most important thing for me is that Valve makes amazing games. Valve makes mind-blowingly awesome games. On multiple occasions, Valve has immersed me into video games in ways I had never thought possible. I will never forget one particular section of Half-Life 2 in which I, the player, was required to navigate my way across the underside of a bridge over water, walking carefully on steel girders as enemy soldiers fired at me from the other side. One evasive step in the wrong direction would lead me plummeting to a watery grave below. I had never imagined that a video game could invoke a sudden fear of heights into the player so well. I have played Team Fortress 2 for 300 hours. It was a near daily activity my junior year to play after school with my best friend as we discussed how much we hated our history teacher. I have braved the intense battles against the Combine race, which tried to take over Earth in Half-Life 2. I have spent many late nights fighting seemingly endless hordes of zombies with friends in Left 4 Dead 2. And I have spent hours solving the puzzles in Portal and Portal 2 just to hear the perfectly games perfectly crafted dialogue. I have come to hold Valve in the highest regards among all other developers in the game industry. I have also acquired almost 100 games on the Steam platform, purchasing many games largely because they were heavily discounted (some were only a dollar). I estimate I have spent close to 40 dollars on items for use inside the game Team Fortress 2. I have also recently experienced the thrill in realizing that I can make my own levels for Left 4 Dead 2. I have realized that in many occasions, I have felt empowered by Valve, empowered as a consumer, as a player, and as a community member. In some ways, I could even say I was manipulated, but I am okay with this. In the end, Valves products and services continue to impress me, but I was left wondering if maybe there was a connection between how powerful I see Valve and how powerful they can make their users feel. To start understanding the way in which Valve empowers its patrons, we must first look into the groundwork: Valves employment structure. Valve is known for its complete lack of bosses among its developers. In fact, Valves handbook for new employees refers to this as the â€Å"Flatland,† meaning that every employee has the same level of power. Pay is determined by a system of peer review and â€Å"stack ranking,† which is a system by which employees assign values to their peers in 4 categories: skill level/technical ability, roductivity/output, group contribution, and product contribution. The value of each is added together for an employees total measure of worth to give appropriate compensation. Nobody is directly told what to do in the â€Å"Flatland. † The theory is that projects will form if enough people are interested in an idea, and subsequently, group leaders will temporarily form if needed. Ultimately, the strength in this system is that workers will be producing work which had their full dedication from the beginning. Emphasis is placed on finding your own ways to be productive. The handbook highlights the importance of â€Å"T-shaped† employees, workers that have a large variety of useable skills but are a specialist in a certain thing. Because so much responsibility is placed on individual employees, hiring incredibly skilled people who can easily be their own bosses is of utmost importance to Valve. Anybody may conduct interviews with potential employees and use their own discretion on the matter. The handbook stresses the importance of constantly raising the bar and only hiring people that are more talented than the workers already present. This goes against a usual business instinct, in which hiring many cheap, less talented workers is a cost efficient way to get a project done. However if this were to continue, some of the new employees may hire employees less skilled than themselves, and so-on, continually reducing the quality of workers present. When asked if there was any specific inspiration for Valves corporate setup, Gabe Newell, founder of Valve, actually referenced the 1993 shooter, Doom. He had worked for Microsoft and noticed that Windows was the second highest usage application at that time. The first was Doom, which was created and spread by a company of only 12 people (Suddath, 2012). This would instate the idea that having a concentrated group of powerful employees could be much more effective than a large, widespread corporation. Valves runaway success with their no-boss setup may involve a little bit of luck, but there are other companies out there that are finding the same type of success as Valve by eliminating bosses. General Electrics aviation branch and the software company GitHub both thrive with a single or small number of managers which form general goals for production, with the workers ree to organize their tasks however they feel is best. W. L. Gore, creator of the Gore-Tex material, has used a â€Å"lattice† structure since 1958, in which workers â€Å"take on leadership roles based on their ability to gain the respect of peers and to attract followers, † (Silverman, Linebaugh, 2012). Both Gore and Valve recognize that this system leads to a slower process of getting work done initially, as nobody is sure what to do at first. However, in the end employees are working much more optimally to their strengths. Valves commercial success came along early, with their first release actually; Half-Life would be the game of the year for many, if not the game of the decade. However, the success that Half-Life would bring to Valve would come not only from its initial release, but through Valves wise decision to heavily support those who wished to make mods (modifications) for the game. Worldcraft, the level design tool used for Half-Life was released with the game, and a software development kit for the engine, which would later become known as the GoldSrc engine, was released. In 1999, Minh Le and Jess Cliffe would create one of the most popular first person shooter games of all time. Their project Coutner-Strike rapidly became one of the most popular community mods for Half-Life. Valve seized a good opportunity; they proposed hiring the two creators for an official release of the game. This would start what I like to call mutualism between Valve and its following: a symbiotic relationship which is beneficial to both parties. Valve benefits because it is able to cash in on creative work that it didnt have to pay a cent to conceive or create. However, the creators of the mod are not used, given a quick check, and tossed aside. Alongside the notoriety and publicity, which is likely the extent of most modders goals, they are given a foot in the door to the video game industry, and in a fairly respectable door to the industry. Valve continued this tradition of mutualism by hiring the team responsible for a popular quake modification called Team Fortress to create the game as a Half-Life mod known as Team Fortress Classic. Perhaps the most peculiar instance of Valve hiring a team to expand their previous work is in the case of their highly acclaimed game Portal. Many eople are unaware that the games idea started as a student project at DigiPen Institute of Technology called Narbacular Drop (Kuchera, 2012). Upon presenting the game to Valve, the team was apparently hired on the spot by Gabe Newell in order to transfer the essence of the game to Valves Source engine. The important thing here is that the game started out as a student project. It had no budget, no employees, no marketing target. It was made completely for the purpose of showing off an idea. By hiring the team, Valve has the potential to make money on this genius idea, and they did not have to spend any time or money on its conception. Meanwhile, the team that created the game is given the more than sufficient reward (in my opinion, and probably many others) of a starting job at Valve. Now, I understand, game companies looking for and supporting the best of the best in the field is not a brilliantly new concept. The impressive thing about Valve is that they extend this â€Å"mutualism† to outside of the best of the best. You dont have to be a prodigy among modders or game developers. If you have a passion for 3D modeling or creating custom maps, Valve also has an interest in you, and you should have an interest in Valve! For over two years now, Valve has opened up to the creative community for their â€Å"hat-themed war simulator† also known as Team Fortress 2. In past updates, Valve would take their favorite hats, weapons, and maps from the contributions page and simply put them into the game. The contributor got to feel really awesome about his or herself. Then on September 30, 2010 one of the most important updates to Team Fortress 2 was released: The Mann-Conomy update, which introduced an in-game store for weapons and hats. The purchase of any community made item would show some profit to the contributor. Later, â€Å"stamps† became purchasable; players could buy them at the profit of contributors of various maps to the game. This circles back to my whole thought of â€Å"mutualism. † The community members creating these models and maps work with extreme scrutiny, not because they’re being paid or because they’re being told to; they work hard to create something more eye-catching or fascinating than everyone else so that they can get just an ounce of notoriety. Valve can easily reap all of this pro-bono work to make some money off of suckers who want shiny hats (including me), and because of the nflux of high quality community contributions, the employees have to worry much less about creating content themselves. The benefit for the contributors is that sweet notoriety (and a nice portfolio-filler), as well as a good chunk of cash they likely weren’t counting on anyway. In fact, more than three million dollars has been earned in total by community contributors to the game (Antista, 2012)! The contributions page for Team Fortress 2 has now been replaced with the Steam Workshop, which has expanded to include mods and maps for other games such as The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Civilization V, Portal 2, and Dota 2. At the moment, only contributors for Team Fortress 2 and Dota 2 can hope to see profit from their submissions, but the platform still is a very powerful, centralized step forward in the modding community (which has arguably died down in recent years). It allows for creators of content to be noticed easily by other members of an enormous community. So, Valve has succeeded in empowering the members of the modding, developing, modeling, and mapping communities. But what about the average fan? Well, this is where I believe Valve’s corporate genius really shines. Besides recently being able to say that I’m a student of Game Design and Development, I cannot consider myself any form of developer or contributor of game content right now. However, even I have felt empowered by Valve, have felt truly rewarded by Valve while I was throwing money in their face. Team Fortress 2 is, not only a contender for my favorite game of all time, but what I consider to be one of the most well planned, well executed, well-made, and refreshing games ever made. The game started as a single price-single purchase game, and remained that way for over two years. During this time Valve continued to supply the game with extra content at no cost to the player, and as the amount of content in the game increased, the price actually dropped; its lowest point was $9. 99, disregarding frequent sales. As mentioned, on September 30, 2010, one of the most important updates was introduced to the game, adding the in-game â€Å"Mann Co. Store. † Some people complained, but the reality was that all items exclusive to the store are purely cosmetic or irrelevant to gameplay. Along with introducing the store, Valve also introduced a trading feature between players. Both of these things empowered every player of the game enormously. All new weapons can always be found through random drops in game (and are just as likely to be found as older items). Most of them are able to be â€Å"crafted,† or essentially through the destruction of certain other items. Most of these crafting â€Å"recipes† are completely reasonable in my opinion; regular players will obtain many duplicate items without paying a cent. The addition of trading (and now the ability to trade steam products or items from completely different games) opens near infinite flexibility for those patient enough to find the right trader. The in-game store exists as a means of saving a lot of time, but does not allow for buying of power. Many people will argue that the default weapons a player starts the game with are better than everything else that has been released. â€Å"I think that were going to start to see- maybe not in the next year, but in the near future- games go down the route of smaller up-front experiences and lower prices at the beginning, and then the ability to extend the game through episodic material or future feature material. I think thats a direction were probably heading in. Games are gettting more expensive, and times are tough, and its getting harder to purchase every game you want. So how can we keep people playing and offer them more, but not have to make them break the bank to do it? Its going to be an interesting creative problem for us to solve. † -Jason DeLong, senior producer EA Canada, Gameinformer issue 202 This quote represents a fairly accurate anticipation about player empowerment from two years ago. DeLong believes that episodic content will be the way of the future, reasoning that we need to have multiple ways for people to be able to pay for a game, so that buying a game you’re not even sure you will like is not such a large investment. The point he presents is critical; episodic content is not quite catching on yet, but another flexible business form is: free-to-play. Less than a year after Team Fortress 2 had implemented its in-game store, a surprise announcement was made as part of the June 2011 â€Å"Uber Update. † The game would now be completely free to play for anyone with a working computer. This decision to make this move certainly could not have been an easy one for Valve; switching to free-to-play usually signifies that a game is making a last ditch effort to regain its player base or revenue, neither of which Team Fortress 2 has had a problem with in the past. The decision would end up paying off for everybody. The switch to free-to-play would â€Å"increase revenues by a factor of twelve† for Valve (Curtis, 2012). This would also empower anyone with a computer that could run the game; there was nothing stopping them now. It is crazy to think, but in this case, giving people stuff for free yielded significant returns. The success that Team Fortress 2 has had as a free-to-play game is an excellent case of empowering and almost manipulating customers to gain revenue. Valve did nothing immoral, they gave players a lot of choice, but they gave players so many choices that it became difficult to say no to every single one. I found a highly intriguing blog post from â€Å"The Psychology of Video Games† by Jamie Madigan discussing the mind tricks behind the â€Å"Mann Co. Store;† in short, it brings up two great points. First of all, the item store has implemented a feature letting players test out certain weapons for a week, and putting them at a 25 percent discount for this duration. Valve is in no way forcing you to buy the item; letting you try it out is a pure generosity. However, the sudden discount is tempting along with something the writer calls â€Å"the endowment effect† which essentially states that feeling that you own something makes you value that thing more. If you’ve already tried out an item in a few games, it might seem difficult to part with, when you could buy it for less than a buck! The other point that the writer brings up is that by selling some items at seemingly ridiculously high prices (a ring that makes an announcement to the entire player base for 100 dollars) it makes lower prices seem trivial. One cool hat you really want might be seven bucks, but there’s another decent one next to it for only two. If you imagine how much more money you could be blowing, it makes you feel less guilty for spending a couple dimes or dollars on a nice hat or weapon (Madigan, 2012). The final topic I want to touch on is something I find rather impressive. Valve’s efforts to empower its patrons may well be an effective counter to piracy. This is important to recognize when most companies try to deal with piracy through extreme force, which falls under the category of telling people what to do which will often just provoke them more. Robin Walker, Valve employee and creator of Team Fortress, has stated that countering piracy is best done by attempting to offer benefits that pirates cannot (How to beat pirates, 2011). Obviously, the largest benefit when it comes to Team Fortress 2 is being able to play online with everyone else who has the licensed game, but Robin also points out that the continuous updates to all of Valve’s games would be tedious to access frequently if you pirated the games. Steam itself is also a great asset. There are many who justifiably criticize Steam for its strict digital rights management; namely, it is difficult to play a Steam-purchased game outside of Steam. However, Steam itself is still a great tool for centralizing your gaming experience, staying connected with friends you play games with or even just regular friends. Steam is the easiest and fastest way for me and my best friend to see when we are online and able to talk. It provides powerful tools for creating community content and discovering indie games. The newest community update shows popular screenshots and discussion topics on the community page of each game. Such a centralized and empowered community is something that those who pirate games would have to work very hard to achieve. Some people have their complaints about Valve, and I cant say that Valve is anywhere near perfect. However, I cannot think of any other company that has inspired me on such a deep level. Firstly, Valve is an enormous artistic inspiration; just when I think my creativity is dead; Team Fortress 2 and Portal 2 remind me of how limitless the game industry can be. Second, Valve is a landmark for success. But theres something else; theres just this feeling I get that every person working for Valve has a sense of inherent good. And that is why I have no problem dumping buckets of money on them. Thats the best way I can wrap it up, even if it sounds so stupid. Valve just knows how people work. You dont need to be a psychologist; you just have to have some common sense about what makes people happy. I look to Valve as an inspiration because I want to be creative, I want to be successful, I want people to do what I want them to do (like throw money at me), but I want to make people happy as well.