HAPPINESS MAY NOT BE ALL IT'S CRACKED UP TO BE -- Just A Minute Radio for Friday 11-13-09

            Howdy everbody, on this Friday – end of the week….

 

            I ran across an interesting discussion about Happiness. One person has written a book about ‘positive thinking’ may be a curse for America. (I don’t think so.) And another Australian professor in New South Wales Australia has even gotten scientific about it.

 

            He puts people to looking at a cluttered table in various lighting situations… and finds a dingy day brings out more perception and remembrance in people than sunshine.  I wouldn’t have thought it would work out that way. And I didn’t get to read all his research (don’t know if I’d understand it anyway) but I thought it interesting.  He also says people who are somewhat ‘blue’ – pessimistic – are better observers and more persuasive than “happy – happy types.”  Of course all of  these things require a lot of carefully couched words.           

 

            It just seemed a bit startling to me to find that being morose and a bit sad was a help in some cases.  That’s about as much as I can sort out. It was a story in the Weekend Edition of the WSJ last Saturday 11-7-09… if you want to run it down. As they say – “Every dog has it’s day.”  I guess that’s even true for the sad looking Bassett Hounds. (J)

 

            I hope you’ll have a great weekend… we plan to be home for the weekend also.

 

            Cordially, IN HIM

 

            Jack

 

http://www.jebcovoice.net/audio/jama11-13-09.mp3

 

http://www.jebcovoice.net/scripts/jamt11-13-09.doc

 

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“JUST A MINUTE”

HAPPINESS MAY NOT BE ALL IT’S CRACKED UP TO BE

          JUST A MINUTE: We’re often counseled to “Just Let a Smile Be Your Umbrella?” And Americans are always getting an earful to be cheerful when that may not be best for them.

          Barbara Ehrenrich’s book “Bright Sided” takes the view that America’s insistence on positive thinking is delusion, a snare.  While a professor of psychology from Australia University of New South Wales, Joseph Forgas, seems to re-enforce that position with his sadness research which he says puzzles evolutionary psychologists.  He says the obvious benefits from Anger, Fear, and Distrust may take you out of danger’s way in time to survive; but the benefit of sadness is harder to pin down.

          Dr. Forgas finds people who are feeling ‘blue’ are better able to assemble facts and be persuasive with others.  But Icelanders – until recently – were ranked near the top of the scale of the Word Database of Happiness developed by Erasmus University – While at the same time he toys with the inside out maxim: Bliss is Ignorance.

          I guess I’m an incurable cheerful.

¨     I’m Jack Buttram

 (END)

 

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