New Group Of World Servers in Action - Page Two         July-August 2004 issue

Action Page

Revealed:
Nine ways to find your inner happiness

Ben McConville in New York
 

THE pursuit of happiness has become a major preoccupation of modern life and now scientists have come up with a nine-point plan to find inner peace.

The Journal of Happiness Studies, a quarterly academic publication dedicated to finding out what makes the good life and empirically to investigate well-being, came up with the plan based on the latest findings.

The first was to stop comparing your looks with others, as you can cash in on beauty’s emotional high even if you are no oil painting. The secret is to believe you look great.

The next step is to curb those aspirational desires. Alex Michalos, a political scientist at the University of Northern British Columbia, in Prince George, found the people whose aspirations soared furthest beyond what they already had tended to be less happy than those who perceived a smaller gap.

Scientists have also found that money can buy happiness, but it doesn’t buy you very much. Once you can afford to feed, clothe and house yourself, each extra pound [or dollar] makes less and less difference, said Professor Robert Frank, an economist at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

The survey also said not to worry if you are not a genius. Prof. Frank said, though few surveys have examined whether smart people are happier, they have usually found that intelligence has no effect.

Happiness is also genetic. Personality, which has a strong genetic component, and happiness seem to be linked.

Married people are also consistently happier than singles.

In a 15-year study of more than 30,000 Germans, Prof. Ed Diener, a psychologist at the University of Illinois, found that happy people are more likely to get married and stay married.

Harold Koenig, at Duke University Medical Centre in Durham, North Carolina, said believing in God or an afterlife can give people meaning and purpose, and reduce the feeling of being alone in the world. He said: "You see the effect in times of stress. Belief can be a powerful way of coping with adversity."

Several studies have found a link between happiness and altruistic behaviour. In a study of 3,617 people, Peggy Thoits and Lyndi Hewitt, of Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, found that happy people were more likely to sign up for volunteer work.

The last point is to grow old gracefully. In one study by Stanford University, in California, old people reported positive emotions as often as young people but negative emotions much less frequently.
 

http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1246272003

The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living 
 
Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler

Excerpts from The Spirit of Change Magazine website http://www.spiritofchange.org/fa050602a.shtml

A New Clear Vision

We need to create a new, clear vision of a world as one. A new, clear vision of people working out their differences peacefully. A new, clear vision with the teaching of nonviolence, nonviolent intervention, and mediation. A new, clear vision where people can live in harmony within their families, their communities and within themselves. A new clear vision of peaceful coexistence in a world of tolerance.

HR 2459:
Creating a Department of Peace
 

It is practical to work for peace. I speak of peace and diplomacy not for the sake of peace itself, but, for practical reasons, we must work for peace as a means of achieving permanent security. It is similarly practical to work for total nuclear disarmament, particularly when nuclear arms do not even come close to addressing the real security problems which confront our nation: witness the events of September 11, 2001.

We can make war archaic. Skeptics may dismiss the possibility that a nation which spends $400 billion a year for military purposes can somehow convert swords into plowshares. Yet the very founding and the history of this country demonstrates the creative possibilities of America. We are a nation which is known for realizing impossible dreams. Ours is a nation which in its second century abolished slavery, which many at the time considered impossible. Ours is a nation where women won the right to vote, which many at the time considered impossible. Ours is a nation which institutionalized the civil rights movement, which many at the time considered impossible. If we have the courage to claim peace with the passion, the emotion and the integrity with which we have claimed independence, freedom and equality, we can become that nation which makes nonviolence an organizing principle in our society, and in doing so change the world.
 

This is the work of the human family, of people all over the world demanding that governments and non-governmental actors alike put down their nuclear weapons. This is the work of the human family, responding in this moment of crisis to protect our nation, this planet and all life within it. We can achieve both nuclear disarmament and peace. As we understand that all people of the world are interconnected, we can achieve both nuclear disarmament and peace. We can accomplish this through upholding a holistic vision where the claims of all living beings to the right of survival are recognized. We can achieve both nuclear disarmament and peace through being a living testament to a Human Rights Covenant where each person on this planet is entitled to a life where he or she may consciously evolve in mind, body and spirit.
 

Peace.