Older, Wiser, Happier

Happiness is smile shaped
(As published March 9, 2006, BBC.com)

Research into happiness suggests that our levels of happiness change throughout our lives.

People were asked how satisfied they are with their lives.

Most people start off happy and become progressively less happy as they grow older.

For many people, the most miserable period in their life is their 40s.

After that most people's levels of happiness climb.

This graph shows average life satisfaction based on extensive research from the British Household Panel Survey between 1991 and 2003.

It seems men are slightly happier on average than women in their teens, but women bounce back and overtake men later in life.

Women start with lower levels of average life satisfaction than men.

The low point seems to last for longer for women - throughout their 30s and 40s, only climbing once women reach 50.

Then women tend to overtake men.

Men start slightly higher than women on average, and their lowest point is their 40s, climbing again once they reach 50.

Happy Quote of the Day

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.

Mohandas K. Gandhi

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!
Originally uploaded by lorenzodom

We hope that you and your family have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Love,
Lorenzo, Nicky & Enzo

Happy Quote of the Day

Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile,
but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.

Thich Nhat Hanh

I AM GRATEFUL

Page Six NY Post: Be Grateful You Are Not A-Rod or Madge...
Originally uploaded by lorenzodom

“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.”
John Fitzgerald Kennedy

I AM GRATEFUL

Cynthia Rodriguez: 'Soul-less' A-Rod Ditching Kids for Madonna on Thanksgiving

Reads the headline on Page Six of today’s edition of the unscrupulous NYPost.com.

Unlike the news roasting A-Rod and Madge this holiday, I am grateful that my ex and I continue to work things out.

Being that I have now been separated for three years and will be spending Thanksgiving with the ex and our boys at my (ex)-sister-in-law’s home again this year, I am grateful that my relationship with my wife has sustained some degree of amity and understanding and compromise, despite its ultimate demise.

I am grateful that we both agree that spending the holidays together as a faux-family is important, if only for the kids.

I am grateful that albeit we live apart, we haven’t dragged our differences into court and are doing our best to work things out our own way, without the antagonistic prod of attorneys, without the pressing need to formalize the end, without the traumatic inconveniences of splitting everything down the middle.

I am grateful that I am still invited over the in-laws house for the holidays; especially since “my side of the family” all live in California. As some of us have experienced, there is a certain magic about being “home for the holidays,” and a certain onset of depression when you are not.

I am grateful that I have an absolutely wonderful girlfriend who made a substantial effort to celebrate my very own personal holiday this year (i.e. my birthday), even though she is a resident doctor and a mother and a friend to many. Despite these demands and obligations and time-constraints, somehow she found enough time to put together a dinner party for 25 in my honor of my 41st birthday. Once again, I am grateful.

“Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.” Melody Beattie

I am grateful that despite another year of my shortcomings, my shortsightedness, my faults, and my forgetfulness that I can still be forgiven and that jilted friends can still love me; and that, together, we will ring in the New Year with a clean conscience and a clearer outlook on the year to come.

I am grateful for so many incredible things: the little things that mean so much, the life-altering insights, the beauty that surrounds me, the fortune for being alive and well, the inspiration I gather daily from living in the greatest city in the world, and the many moments of glee I get from spending time with my children, my friends and my family.

And I am grateful that I am not a celebrity (yet!) who must endure the prurient watch of the tabloids that feed the less-than-discriminating masses. And thus, I am also grateful that I find my own life interesting enough that I do not waste my time enquiring into the lascivious lives of others.

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Your life here on earth is limited my friend. Make the most of it by making something of it. Don’t waste time worrying about the trespasses of the rich and the famous. Concern yourself with the abundance of wealth you already have—your friends and family, your creative spirit, your experience, your imagination and your worldly wisdom.

In uncertain times like these, it behooves us more than ever and to realize and accept that what is important is NOT what you can or cannot put under the tree or the menorah this year, but how you appreciate and express your gratitude for the daily gifts that surround you.

Thus, hopefully, my little list has inspired a little more gratitude for what you have.

Hopefully, this musing will inspire you to take stock of the all the great, priceless and intangible things you have in your life.

And hopefully, you will share that gratitude with those you love this season in ways that cannot be gift-wrapped or purchased or picked out of a mail-order catalog.

“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.”
William Arthur Ward

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Related Stories:
Madonna, Please Have My Baby
The End is Not The End (it is only the beginning)
Circumstances Change
Thanksgiving, 2007
Looking Back Upon 2007: A Year of Many Perfect Moments

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Other thoughts can be found at The Art of Living and Literary Central on flickr.

Check out 25 Lessons I’ve Learned (about photography) at
www.25Lessons.com

2008 HP Be Brilliant Featured Artist:
http://www.hp.com/go/bebrilliant

Click HERE e to receive e-mail updates whenever new lorenzodom photos and stories are published.

I Believe, Therefore We Can

I Believe, Therefore We Can
Originally uploaded by lorenzodom

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." Mahatma Gandhi

November 24, 2008, New York City:

I Believe, Therefore We Can

Lately, I wake up in the morning and I think to myself, “This is a tough time to think positively in.”

But then I realize, “That’s exactly when optimism counts most,” and I put my legs over the bed and place my feet firmly on the ground.

This morning, with that sort of resolve, I got up and made my usual three cups of espresso. After doing a little work, I grabbed my towel and rushed to get in the bathroom to take my shower.

After 60 seconds of a cold rush of water I realized, “There’s no hot water.” I didn’t get upset, because I figured that it wasn’t just our apartment that didn’t have hot water, and I was confident that it would be resolved by the time I came back home.

Moreover, I had just taken my midnight shower 6 hours earlier.

Thus, knowing that my morning shower was primarily just a refresher, I quickly combed my hair, brushed my teeth, got dressed and ran off to work.

Turning about the corner I noticed all the magazines in the window of the local bodega with President-elect Obama smiling brightly on the cover. I smiled back, thinking “Finally, America has a true leader in place.”

My stride pepped up a little and a few feet further I passed one of the regular charity solicitors, someone from something like the “NY Housing Development Project” or other, who was saying, “You can make a difference! Yes, you can!,” an obvious reference to Obama’s political campaign rhetoric.

As a New Yorker, one of our most immediate and frequent thoughts is to question the legitimacy of all the panhandlers on the street, regardless of the credentials that they have hanging on their necks.

This time however, I was infused with more confidence than doubt.

I was happy to hear that people were mimicking the President-elect, and adopting his optimistic rhetoric.

It has been so long since we actually had a real leader in the White House, 8 years in fact, that it is a great feeling to have someone at the helm that instills confidence in the people, for the people, despite the dire climate that we are all facing.

Thus, even though the hot water wasn’t working in my apartment; even though I need to find another flatmate within the next week to help pay next month’s rent; even though my bills are piling up and the expenditures of the holiday season are looming; even though my nine-year old was crying yesterday because he doesn’t have a cell phone like “everyone else,” and even though I’m having to make a lot of tough decisions on how and where and with whom I need to cut back my spending on and with—I’m still feeling confident that we’ll get through this alive, if not—better off.

In fact, if anything, I truly believe that the more intelligent and prudent of us will thrive amidst the crisis, that therein we will find an opportunity to improve our lives, our selves and hopefully, the lives of others as well, if only because we find ourselves spending more time with them.

I believe that many of us will choose to spend more time inside, rather than outside our homes in a frivolous pursuit of happiness. We will find more ways to entertain each other and will get to know each other better than ever before, if only because we will no longer can afford the mass entertainment that usually serves to distract us.

In turn, I believe that many of us will begin spending more time with our books, our friends, our families and ourselves.

In turn, I believe that we will learn to bide our time in new (or renewed old) ways that are much more self-reliant, much more meaningful and ultimately, much more fulfilling, if only because it means that we won’t be relying on complete strangers to amuse us.

In turn, I believe that many of us will spend more time figuring out what we really want from life, in turn making an effort to realize our greatest hopes and dreams, in turn making this country and the world a better place.

And in turn, I believe that, together, we can and will make a difference. Yes, we can.


"Think globally, act locally." Maybe David Brower, maybe Rene Dubos

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Other thoughts can be found at The Art of Living.

Check out 25 Lessons I’ve Learned (about photography) at
www.25Lessons.com

2008 HP Be Brilliant Featured Artist
http://www.hp.com/go/bebrilliant

Give The Gift of Love: 25 Great Books

Give The Gift of Love: 25 Great Books
Originally uploaded by lorenzodom

November 23, 2008, New York City:

TOP 25 INSPIRATIONAL BOOK LISTS
Give The Gift of Inspiration: Inspire Someone You Love

Following a recommended selection of books that I will be reviewing for The Art of Happiness in the days to come.

With the exception of Peale’s Power of Positive Thinking (which I am currently reading) and Millman’s Way of the Peaceful Warrior (which I will read next), I have read and been inspired by all these books. All of them lie in my top 50 books of all-time and all of them have made a big difference in my life.

Thus, I am suggesting them to you, both as great motivational reads and as gifts to those you love. Although all of them cross-themes, I’ve bundled them into convenient categories as a suggestion of how you might present them to someone.

And since times are tough, money is tight and banks are going out of business, if you don’t mind giving used books, I highly recommend using www.half.com, which I have been using for years because it offers books in excellent condition at deep-deep discounts.

THE GIFT OF HAPPINESS
•100 Simple Secrets of Happy People, David Niven
•Creativity: Unleashing the Forces Within (Osho, Insights for a New Way of Living.)
•Eccentrics, David Weeks
•Exuberance The Passion for Life, Kay R Jamison
•The Art of Happiness, A Handbook for Living, Dalai Lama, Howard Cutler

THE GIFT OF LOVE
•A Natural History of the Senses, Diane Ackerman
•A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr.
•Love: What Life Is All About, Leo F. Buscaglia
•Symposium, Plato
•The Giving Tree, Shel Silverstein

THE GIFT OF INSPIRATION
•25 Lessons I’ve Learned (about photography), Lorenzo
(available exclusively online at blurb.com)
•Citizen Turner: The Wild Rise of an American Tycoon, Robert Goldberg
•Cyrano De Bergerac, Edmond Rostand
•Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman, James Gleick
•The Watershed, A Biography of Johannes Kepler, Arthur Koester

THE GIFT OF WISDOM
•Essays, Michel de Montaigne
•Poor Richard's Almanack, Benjamin Franklin
•The Art of Worldly Wisdom, Baltasar Gracian
•The New Testament
•Way of the Peaceful Warrior, Dan Millman

THE GIFT OF POSITIVE THINKING
•Chicken Soup for the Soul, Jack Canfield
•Courage: The Joy of Living Dangerously, Osho
•How to Win Friends & Influence People, Dale Carnegie
•The Power of Positive Thinking, Norman Vincent Pealle
•The Road Less Traveled, Scott Peck

Introducing: The Art of Happiness

Introducing: The Art of Happiness
Originally uploaded by lorenzodom

November 22, 2008, My 41st Birthday, New York City:

The Art of Happiness

I’ve decided.

I’ve decided to celebrate my birthday by doing something and being someone positive; by giving back to this beautiful life and this wonderful world, so that others might feel as grateful as I am for being and feeling as alive, healthy and wise, as I feel today.

I’ve decided to begin a new blog dedicated to living a life in the pursuit of Happiness, Love and Positive Thinking. It is called The Art of Happiness (aofh/blogspot.com). It is an endeavor that is a long-time coming.

The blog promises not only to bring daily good news to its readers, but it will also inspire and show people how to make the most of our unified existence.

Chock full of wisdom, this blog will not only make you think, ponder, and appreciate all the great things in life, but it will also do its best to make you smile, feel, laugh and inspire you to do the same for others.

So, please help me celebrate by passing on the good news to all your friends and family! The official URL for the blog is: http://AofH.blogspot.com (AofH stands for Art of Happiness)

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To inaugurate the blog I am reposting a classic story and photo of mine, one of my favorites and one that perfectly summarizes why I am launching this new endeavor:

THIS IS MY GOD
August 5, 2005

I was lying in the kiddy pool on my back, admiring the deep blue sky, when I lifted this ball before me, and, immediately, I had my epiphany—perhaps, one of the greatest I have ever had.

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An hour later, Enzo, my oldest son, asks me, "Papa, if you could have three super powers, what would they be?"

It took all but a mere moment for me to realize my answer.

"Well, first I would want the power to always by happy. Second, I would like the power to make others happy, especially those that are seemingly often angry, sad or otherwise discontent."

Alas, when I got stuck on thinking of a third superpower, Enzo interrupted me and blurted, "No Papa! Those aren’t super powers! You have to want powers like 'flying,' 'becoming invisible,' 'shooting fire,' or 'super-human strength'…"

“Oh,” I answered, “I guess I don’t know then,” and lied back again to soak in the sun that was shimmering upon the water, for I had decided that in the pursuit of both sanity and serenity, I was not going to begin a deep philosophical discussion with my six year old—not because he would not fathom its murky depths, but primarily because I knew he would likely take too avid of an interest and interminably ask "Why?" at every turn.

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And it is not until now, upon this epistolary reflection, that I see that the raising of my deity and my response to my son’s hypothetical inquiry were in fact, indeed, connected.

Because, as I have surmised before, I do believe (indubitably I do) that a strong current of optimism runs through me—one that empowers me to believe in self-actualization, the fearsome force of the individual will, and the belief that there is a little good in almost everyone and everything. Moreover, if not more importantly, it is both my belief and my will to share this positive energy with others, if only to alight much the same power in them.

See the original post, with over 90 comments from fellow flickr users:
This is My God, August 5, 2005

See Related Story: Men For Others, November 7, 2008