Week 4

*For explanation of  The Happiness Experiment" go HERE .*

This is the week for secrets 7 and 8 from "The 100 Simple Secrets of Happy People."

Last weeks secrets:
Choose your comparisons wisely.
Cultivate friendships.

Secret #7
Turn off the TV.


"Television is a creamy filling that distracts us from the substance of our lives."


The book says, "Psychologists have found some people who watch so much TV that it actually inhibits their ability to carry on a conversation. In the words of one psychologist, "TV robs our time and never gives it back."


This is going to be a really good one for me this week. We are serious movie junkies in our house. We are always up for watching a good movie. And there are a lot of times we turn on the TV just because it's there. There isn't really anything that great on. The book says, "Ask yourself when you are watching TV, "Is this something I want to see? Would I ask that this program be made if it didn't already exist?"
Those are great questions to ask. Most of the time it isn't really anything I want to see. There are so many other things I could be doing with my time. I am actually excited for this.

"Watching too much TV can triple our hunger for more possessions, while reducing our personal contentment by about 5 percent for every hour a day we watch."


Secret #8
Accept yourself-unconditionally.


"You are not just the size of your bank account, the neighborhood you live in, or the type of work you do. You are, just like everyone else, an almost inconceivably complicated mix of abilities and limitations."


This one will be more of a challenge. I'm beginning to notice similarities in some of these secrets. To me, this one goes back to comparisons. If I wasn't always comparing myself, I would be able to accept myself more easily. Instead of focusing on all the things I need to change and correct about myself, I just need to accept that who I am is who I am. I realize that there are always things we need to change and we always have faults that need correcting, but learning to realize my own self-worth and accepting the fact that I have value will make me so much happier.

"In a study of adult self-esteem, researchers found that people who are happy with themselves take defeat and explain it away, treating it as an isolated incident that indicates nothing about their ability. People who are unhappy take defeat and enlarge it, making it stand for who they are and using it to predict the outcome of future life events."


Review:
Turn off the TV.
Accept yourself-unconditionally.

This has been such a great experiment for me so far. I am really learning a lot about myself and it is forcing me to look at my life and myself in different ways. I hope that it is also helping some of you to be happier, but even if it's only me that benefits, at least the world will be one person happier.