HAPPINESS = HAPPENSTANCE? Spoken Word Audio

From a corporate web site, CBS: New Window

The word for happiness is cognated with luck. So 'happ' is the root of happiness, happenstance, perhaps, what happens to you

From a religious man, a Rabbi: New Window

Happiness is what emerges after we have risen above negative happenstances of our own past, our own regrets for our own misjudgments and envy at the good happenstance of others.

From an Assistant Professor of Philosophy: New Window

"Happiness" and "happenstance" share the same key root: "hap," which indicates chance, fortune, and luck. The very word tells us not to trust it, tells us that we cannot control happiness, cannot rationalize it and domesticate it. Sometimes it will simply pick up and leave, though we always think we make such a lovely couple.

SPOKEN - Download

Being Human, Being Unhappy
London School of Economics Professor Richard Layard debates Psychiatrist Raj Persaud in 2005
- Download HiFi Mp3 (right click)
Recovering from Depression
2007 Discussion on Radio National's Life Matters with Richard Aedy.
Graeme Cowan has spoken with 12 Australians who have suffered from depression about their experiences of the illness and their recovery.
One of them you will hear is John Brogden, who attempted suicide upon resigning as Liberal oposition leader in NSW in 2005.
S.H.A.M. - Self Help Actualization Movement
Are you a self-help junkie? Do you believe there's 97% of your brain you're not using, and someone's going to tell you how?
NeWage sceptic Steve Salerno's book is subtitled "How the Gurus of the Self-Help Movement Make Us Helpless" and is interviewed here on Radio National.
Also meet Guru Frank, the host of a reality TV show spoof called 'Boot Camp for the Soul' created by Stace Callaghan who opens with:
"Whether you know it or not, you and I have a secret contract. We signed a deal before you were born, to experience all that you could be. And here's where you start paying and swear. Your soul has brought you here to fight the war on the terrorist within. It's my job to facilitate that process. And the reason I'm so damn good at what I do, and get paid the big bucks to do it, is I don't give a rat's ass if you like me or not."

SPOKEN - Video

POSITIVE THINKING DEBUNKED

In 1994, The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology published a paper called The self-comparison process and self-discrepant feedback: consequences of learning you are what you thought you were not showing that when people get feedback that they believe is overly positive, they actually feel worse, not better.
	In 2009, a study called Positive Self-Statements: Power for some, peril for others" published in the journal Psychological Science says trying to get people to think more positively can actually have the opposite effect. Click here for Time Magazine's summary.

GROWN ADULT ACTUALLY EXPECTS TO BE HAPPY

From The Onion - a satire site: New Window

According to incredulous sources, local hardware store employee and grown adult human being Rob Peterson, 37, actually expects to be happy in life... The baffling man has also reportedly read a newspaper before, interacted with coworkers, knows how economies and political systems work, and is undergoing the process of aging, yet has made no effort to revise his original assumption.

Like the easy no humbug downloading? Then check out other spiritual talks.

________________________________________________________
Debunking of heroes and flags courtesy of
s i d @ p r o p . t a z . n e t . au
t h o n g @ p r o p . t a z . n e t . au
a s l i @ p r o p . t a z . n e t . au
j o e @ p r o p . t a z . n e t . au
i s u s @ p r o p . t a z . n e t . au
Undesirable Propagation Unit