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The Secret to Happiness: Stoic Gratitude and the Art of Living

1/23/2014

Did you know that research in the field of positive psychology indicates that your level of happiness is at least 40 percent dependent on intentional activities within your control? With practice, you can significantly improve your overall happiness, even if your natural state is one of pessimism. You can work towards maximum stability and happiness in your life by practicing gratitude and the Stoic Art of Living.

Positive psychology focuses on the wellness and happiness aspects of mental health, rather than on mental illness alone. According to Dr. Robert Emmon's book, How Practicing Gratitude Can Make You Happier, psychological research shows that your “happiness quotient,” is about 50 percent dependent on a genetic set-point that you are born with. Some people are naturally more optimistic than others as a result of their set-point. An additional 10 percent of your happiness quotient is determined by external factors and circumstances in your life.

However, the other 40 percent of your happiness quotient is completely within your control, regardless of your genetic set point or external factors. Intentional happiness practices include taking time to count your blessings, displaying positive character traits such as friendliness and kindness, focusing on the present moment, and by keeping a daily gratitude journal where you express joy for all of the good things that happened to you that day.

Interestingly, this is not new information. The Stoic School of philosophy advocated a very similar perspective beginning 2400 years ago in ancient Greece. Many Stoic philosophers, including Zeno, Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, developed a practical philosophy for increasing happiness and virtue, which they called The Art of Living.

Stoicism is way of life involving constant practice and introspective training, not just a set of philosophical beliefs. Stoics try to live happily and gratefully, regardless of external good fortune. They also aim to take control of their own inner natures, to know themselves, and to root out their destructive emotions in the pursuit of virtue, using a process of introspection or spiritual exercises loosely refered to as Stoic reflective practice.

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Does Your Rational Mind Block Your Intuition?

1/17/2014

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Many North-American hikers and hunters who have been stalked by a mountain lion, give accounts of going into the woods as usual, only to be hit with a sudden inexplicable feeling of fear or dread. They report feeling the hair on the back of their neck standing up for no observable reason. This "gut feeling" that something is wrong, is intuition.

Did you know that your mind can probably access knowledge in two distinct ways? There is the quick way via intuition, and the slow way via the rational mind, or intellect. Intuition involves an immediate grasp of the truth of some proposition. Philosophical, religious, anecdotal and even some experimental sources, suggest that the intuitive faculty is an important part of the mind, distinct from the intellectual faculty.

The neocortex, the brain's grey matter, was the most recent part of the human brain to have formed from an evolutionary perspective. It is responsible for higher order thought, beyond survival based thought of the older limbic brain. The neocortex is divided into two halves or hemispheres, the right and the left, which work together, but are each responsible for different functions.

The division of mind into intellectual and intuitive capabilities, is based on the right and left brain theory of mind. Reason is a left brain function, while intuition is a right brain function. The theory also suggests that each person favors one mode of thought over the other mode, but that some people have a good balance between right and left brain capabilities.

The problem is that society and the educational system have generally devalued right brain and intuitive activities, while encouraging left brain, rational activities and capabilities. Moreover, the rational mind is inherently active, seeking to make sense of things and impose its conclusions onto the individual.

Of course this isn't a bad thing, however, the rational mind inherently tries to trump its more passive counterpart, the intuitive mind. Intuitive knowledge comes in sudden, unexpected bursts, assuming that a person is even aware of their intuition in the first place. A more common term for intuition is a “gut feeling.”

Keep reading, as I will present a case for intuition in a left brain dominant world, and show you how you can strengthen your non-dominant hemisphere to achieve a more a more balanced way of thinking.

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Why Radical Feminists and Radical Men's Rights Advocates Are Both Wrong

1/9/2014

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There is a lot to dislike about the radical, or extreme feminist and men's rights movements. Both believe that they are combating sexism against their respective groups. I argue that by focusing on gender difference as the source of every ill, they are instead promoting a divisive, dominance based paradigm. Both groups tend to have flawed and irrational world views, and to promote a dualistic ideology of dominion and victimization, rather than one of equality, mutual respect and partnership.

The feminists of the the 20th century helped to level the playing field for women in the West. Unfortunately, the gender struggle of the past decades has radicalized a subset of individuals. We need to realize that we will not get equality by pointing fingers and complaining about which gender is or has been the biggest victim of oppression. The result of the present situation, is that both genders currently face sexism in society; women because of troglodyte viewpoints, and men because of feminist backlash.

Perceiving everything in terms of gender difference is a method of divide an conquer, which keeps people from focusing on our common humanity, and from having empathy for one another. The problem lies specifically with the age-old dominion and oppression based world view. Both the extremes radical feminism and radical men's rights, matriarchy and patriarchy, imply an unethical domination of one gender by the other, leading to even more misunderstanding.

Both matriarchy and patriarchy represent a failure of the ancient egalitarian ideal. Contrary to popular belief, patriarchy was not always the dominant paradigm throughout history, and it need not be going forward. Patriarchy is flawed, and matriarchy is also flawed. Neither men nor women should game the system to their advantage, or try to unethically assert power or superiority over other people.

There is another way; egalitarianism. Egalitarians acknowledge that every person, male and female, has equal innate rights. No individual or gender is entitled to special privileges, because that would imply that one individual or group has rights that other humans do not have. The result of true egalitarianism, not one which is forced on people from the top down, is a partnership or equalitarian world view, where each gender's contributions are naturally viewed as equally important to society and part of a larger, all-encompassing whole. Each gender balances and compliments, rather than conflicts with the other.

What does this have to do with ethics, you ask? Much! The true source of domination does not emanate from some abstraction, such as patriarchy or society, but rather, it originates from within the individual. I concede that while oppressive societies can limit free will, individuals choose to promote domination or freedom by virtue of their beliefs and actions. People can choose daily to be ethical, not to use their free will to dominate others, and to eliminate any arrogant and irrational beliefs in their own gender's superiority. Then we will have truly equal partnership and respect between the sexes.

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