From the category archives:

Happiness

Beware of Pseudo Self-Esteem

by Stephen Mills January 29, 2012

Over the past few decades there has been a vast wave of pseudo self-esteem washing over our culture.  Pseudo self-esteem has displaced true self-esteem and created a nation of the entitled and narcissistic, especially in the less than 45 age group. True self-esteem is based upon an a self-appraisal of one’s own competence and worthiness.  [...]

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Three Unconscious Influences on Our Behavior

by Stephen Mills January 1, 2012

Note from Stephen:  This is a guest article from Dr. Sean Sullivan.  Dr. Sullivan has a book and online course available called “The Mind Masters Silent Journey” which I am currently evaluating.  I will be writing a review of them when I’m finished.  The last part of this article is an excerpt from his material. [...]

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Does Money Buy Happiness After All?

by Stephen Mills December 19, 2011

Interestingly income in the U.S. affects daily emotional well-being (enjoyment, happiness, sadness, anger, worry, stress) up to about $75,000 of household income. That’s not exactly a subsistence level of income and is significant in that 2/3 of U.S. households are below that level. This indicates an increase in stable income would positively impact 2/3 of U.S. households in their day-to-day happiness levels.

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The Means are Destroying The Ends

by Stephen Mills December 4, 2011

So many of us in particular and our culture in general have lost sight of the ends to which we should be striving. Things like freedom, intellectual growth, happiness, social relationships, and general well-being. We have allowed the means to these values to become the ends towards which we endlessly strive. We constantly are piling up the means, but forgetting the ends to which those should lead.

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Rethinking Positive Thinking

by Stephen Mills November 24, 2011

I now believe that much of the current propaganda about positive thinking is at minimum misguided and likely counter-productive for many people. It amounts to self-help snake oil. This represents a change in my own beliefs brought about by my own experience, my observations of others, and a lot of reading and thinking about it.

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How to Deal With Stupid, Needy, Irritating, Toxic, and Generally Crappy People

by Stephen Mills November 13, 2011

These kinds of people are not worth your time or stress. Every second of your life that you spend with someone who is a negative is not only a second you lose from something you value more, it takes something out of you. It’s not not neutral it is a draining negative. The effect of dealing with them will linger with you and continue to take away from your precious life. It’s like a left hook to the head followed by a right. And for particularly crappy people you might as well take an uppercut to the chin as well. You may suffer the effects for days to come.

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What Is Truly Necessary?

by Stephen Mills October 22, 2011

People will argue about how much of what they do really is necessary. I know because I’ve been there. But I don’t believe it anymore. It’s a delusion. You feel important by being busy but in reality you are missing what is truly important. I honestly believe the vast majority of people, and that includes you, could stop almost all of what they think is necessary and would find that most people wouldn’t notice and the world would continue to spin. Arguing about it is a pissing match that I don’t care to engage in. Either you get it or you don’t.

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Don’t Worry

by Stephen Mills October 1, 2011

I thought this from Angus Finlayson was very clever. Get Free Updates to The Rat Race Trap by Email here or via a reader in the top left sidebar.  I would love to have you on board. If you liked this article and think it might be useful to others please share by clicking the [...]

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Viewing Life as Packaged Deals

by Stephen Mills September 17, 2011

Life is made up of a whole set of package deals. It’s the nature of a package deal that you have to accept or reject the whole package, you don’t get to cherry pick the parts you want and reject the others. The good usually comes packaged with some bad. It’s part of the nature of the world we live in.

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The Key to Personal Effectiveness

by Stephen Mills July 20, 2011

What if there was one thing you could do to dramatically increase your effectiveness both personally and professionally? I believe there is. It’s an extremely simple concept, but not so easy to implement, because it is simply not ingrained in our habitual behavior. Our modern culture has mostly eliminated it from our mindset. Implementing it on a consistent basis requires some audacity and commitment that most people simply will not choose to develop. Regardless, I believe virtually everyone can improve their personal effectiveness if they are willing to develop this one habit to a much greater degree.

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