Review: The Art of Happiness April 22, 2007
Posted by Daniel in Interesting Reads.2 comments
This is the first part of several entries I would like to make about the book “The Art of Happiness”. I will try to summarize the main ideas of the discussions between the Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutler and I will also try to add my own thoughts about certain topics.
Basic Idea
The purpose of our existence is to seek happiness.
The essential point is that happiness is determined more by one’s state of mind than by external events. It’s always better not to be dependent on external factors to be happy. Your happiness should be a result of your state of mind and attitude. So success may result in a temporary feeling of elation but sooner or later our overall level of happiness tends to migrate back to a certain baseline. After a appropriate time period we always fall back to our day-to-day level of happiness. The length of that period depends on the importance of that event.
The interesting question is: Is it possible to modify the level of this baseline so that our “normal” happiness is on a higher level ?
Comparing Thoughts
Comparing a present situation with the past or comparing ourselves to others is very often the main source of unhappiness. For example let’s take a look at the income of a person and let’s assume that this year it is about $20’000. And let’s further assume that the person is happy right now. After months or maybe a year (that depends on the person) that person normally isn’t happy anymore with his income because he got used to this specific amount. After a pay raise for example to $25’000 he will be happy again, but it will not last forever, so the absolute amount can’t be a factor to be happy. It’s the pay raise itself that makes the person happy, but unfortunately only for a short time period. I think that the more frequent one gets such pay raises the shorter the time will be that the person is happy.
The second comparison we make and which makes us unhappy is the comparison with others. Most people can’t be happy if the neighbor is making more money. The absolute amount is not important anymore even if it is way too much to spend in a life time, people can be unhappy if someone else earns more.
The key thing is to get independent of external factors.
Agloco discussions April 16, 2007
Posted by Daniel in Computer.7 comments
I’ve read so much about Agloco the last days to do some extended research on this topic. There are so many articles about this concept and also so many different opinions.
Most of the things I’ve read are positive and people are looking forward what will happen the next months. There is a very interesting report about the expected money one could earn with a moderate network of people.
However there are some critical points about the concept. They are not really negative but at least not defined enough. For example it is hard to say when people can expect the first money because on the website it says that they have to wait first until there is a balance between income and expenses. Sounds good but it would be helpful to know more about this time period. We will see what happens when the toolbar is released the next days…hope they will do so.
All in all I think I will give it a shot. If it works out it’s great and otherwise who cares ? One has nothing to loose.
Increase passive Income April 15, 2007
Posted by Daniel in Computer.1 comment so far
It’s always interesting to find new ways to increase your passive income. The first method I started was the integration of Google’s Adsense on my website www.oxymoron.li . It’s a nice way to earn some money without actively doing something (except waiting 🙂 ) .
Now I found another very interesting concept from the company Agloco. They will start these days their new toolbar which counts the number of hours the users are in the internet and shows content specific ads on the bottom of your browser.
The cool thing is, that you participate of the success through company shares. For a certain amount of internet-surfing you get shares of the company. And if the company does fine your income increases. Even better is that you can refer people and you participate also on their activity and their referrals.
This goes four level down so you can increase you network of people pretty fast. So just sign up now and tell all friends !
If you sign up directly please use my MemberID as referral Code: BBDF8048
The Law of Attraction April 7, 2007
Posted by Daniel in Interesting Reads.1 comment so far
There is the idea and it is discussed under the topic of The Law of Attraction, that everything in your life and around you (good or bad) like your friends, your house, your job or career etc. was attracted by you and your thoughts.
The problem is, that most people constantly think about the things they don’t want. But this way of thinking gives more importance to the wrong part of your life, so consequently you begin to attract the things you don’t want instead of what you really want. People do have the wrong attitude most of the time.
Two quotes I want to mention concerning this topic are the following:
Whatever it is you are feeling
is a perfect reflection of what is
in the process of becoming.
What you think
and
what you feel
and
what manifests
is always a match.
It sounds strange and I think one needs some time to get used to this concept. This way of thinking means that the type of thoughts you have determine your future. It also means that what you are now is the result of what you thought in the past. Here is very good quote to that point from Buddha:
All that we are is the result of what we have thought.
One way to start to examine The Law of Attraction is to start thinking on what you want. Remove attention from the things you don’t want in your life. That sounds very trivial but that doesn’t mean that it is well known and accepted.
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