Vincent était dans mon collimateur à bonheur et pourtant je me refusais à le contacter. Le jour où je le rencontrerai, je me présenterai.
C’est chose faite. Je revenais d’une expo par les petites rues calmes de Belleville quand je croise Arnaud et sa copine. Je leur dis que justement je pensais à l’instant qu’il était bon de se balader seul dans les rues de Paris. Je les quitte et quelques mètres plus loin, dans cette rue peu fréquentée de Paris, je vois Vincent Cespedes qui monte la cote.
Figée en pleine rue! Je lui dis en m’avançant vers lui « Vous devez vous demander pourquoi je vous regarde comme ça… Je suis obligée de vous accoster… je me présente Joanna… »
J’étais aux anges que la vie me fasse encore une surprise pleine de sens, qu’elle mette sur mon chemin les bonnes personnes. La vie est magique, c’est sûr et ces rencontres, hasards à répétition me le confirme chaque jour.
Je sautais tellement de joie que Vincent se tourne vers ses amies et dit « c’est ça le bonheur »
Il me dit qu’il fait justement une conférence sur le bonheur au Philo barrio. Je lui donne RDV là-bas pour une interview que voici.
Fascinant pour moi de rencontrer un jeune philosophe plein de verve. Philosophe, voilà une profession que j’apprends à connaître tant la classe de terminale m’avait habituée à une philosophie, certes inspirante, mais dont les figures de proue doivent au moins avoir mangé un pissenlit par la racine.
Vincent, lui, est bien vivant, jeune et bien dans son temps. Quand il parle, on sent la matière des mots, c’est étonnant. Je suis subjuguée par sa facilité à allier les mots par texture. Ca ne s’explique pas, ça s’écoute.
Vous pouvez le retrouver pour l’abécédaire du Philobarrio et qui sait, peut être acceptera-t-il de venir propager l’onde de charme à un forum Happylab.
When I was younger, I studied Economics at the University. I had to use esoteric terms, complicated theories, hypothesis “all things being equal”, going from micro to macro… I felt I had to understand a monster created by us but not for us.
We have to feed the giant to maybe have a chance to see him do what we want him to do. The pulse of the beast: the GDP. But didn’t we develop all those tools to have a better life? Is it working? What’s the point of all that if human wellbeing is not in the center of our economics?
A small but famous country, Bhutan, is showing us a new way. Bhutan is Famous for it’s measurement of gross national happiness instead of GDP. But measuring happiness is a first step and doesn’t mean that the country is the country of happiness. A wave of suicide has been reported as a consequence of modernization and weaker family links.
Let me introduce you to my friend Gilles who is passionate about emotions and founded an emotion based city guide: Sencities. He is working with specialists in the field of emotions and introduced me to Florent from the Lab LUTIN (Imp in French). They pluged me on a machine that took several data like my heartbeat, my eyes movements and my breathing. The lab is studying and measuring our emotions for industrial purpose, in this lab it’s specifically for the videogame industry but we can easely imagine that it could be used to measure happiness eventhough for the moment they can’t make the difference between anger and happiness for example.
I tried an other machine/gadget/tool that claims it can raise your happiness level: hearthmath. It helps you monitor your emotions and through exercices coordinate your brain and your heart. It’s called coherence.
Technology is trying to measure happiness but on a world level it seems that happiness became a hot subject. Even the very famous social network Facebook launched an analysis of our happiness level using keywords in users status. Learn more about it with this article or this video.
But in the end do we need so many criterias to measure happiness?
In Hypertension and Happiness across Nations , David Blanchflower and Andrew Oswald measured blood-pressure of 15,000 randomly sampled individuals from 16 countries. They compared well-being with high blood pressure and found evidence that suggests that happier nations report fewer blood-pressure problems. It matched happiness measurements that were made with a simple scale of subjective happiness.
This other study “examined the accuracy of measuring happiness by a single item (Do you feel happy in general?) answered on an 11-point scale (0-10). Its temporal stability was 0.86. The correlations between the single item and both the Oxford Happiness Inventory (OHI; Argyle, Martin, & Lu, 1995; Hills & Argyle, 1998) and the Satisfaction with Life Scale (Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin, 1985; Pavot & Diener, 1993) were highly significant and positive, denoting good concurrent validity. Moreover, the single item had a good convergent validity because it was highly and positively correlated with optimism, hope, self-esteem, positive affect, extraversion, and self-ratings of both physical and mental health. Furthermore, the divergent validity of the single item has been adequately demonstrated through its significant and negative correlations with anxiety, pessimism, negative affect, and insomnia. It was concluded that measuring happiness by a single item is reliable, valid, and viable in community surveys as well as in cross-cultural comparisons.”
We can continue measuring cold data like money but I believe that there is space to use happiness as a legitimate indicator and driver for our society. Who’s in?
Astounding. I have a blog about happiness trying to conceptualise it and now I say there is no recipe.
It’s true. For me. Everything I write on this blog is my path on happiness. Those are the steps I made to understand my truth. I guess there are as many ways to reach happiness as there are individuals.
So yes you can try to squeeze happiness in a book or an application but true happiness is boundless and there could be as many books as people. My happiness is what you may sense in this blog through words. But It’s a every moment appreciation.
Happiness is a cursor. Happiness leads you to your true self.
True self could sound mystic but let’s take out the glitter. True self is for me when my thoughts, my emotions, my acts, my heart are in sync.
Happiness opens the doors of compassion, love, excitement, peace.
It’s the flow of coincidences, the smile, the quick steps on the pavements. Happiness is confidence, the eye quick to catch. Happiness floats around you, generous.
Sure now I can look back and see the books, the people, the events that touched me but take those same books, people, events and throw them at me in a different timing and I would have heard nothing.
There is no recipe to happiness. There is a questioning and a listening to the answer that can come in any shape like a dialogue with yourself.
A few month ago, I had the crazy idea to do world stats on happiness. And now it’s finally live on the Appstore!!!!
You launch the application plug in your mood and discover the mood of others around you. It’s so funny to see happy and sad faces in the street you are walking in. Zoom out and the world is covered with happy faces. Then you can check you happiness level compared to your country and the world with the stats.
It’s also possible to post your mood on Twitter or facebook.
Creating an application was a totally new job for me but it’s so fun to see it out there. So if you have suggestions on how to improve it, send me a message
Happystep is now available at the Appstore:
If you want to develop your own Iphone application, contact me, I will give you the developper and designer contact info.
Arthur Schopenhauer was born on February 22, 1788 in Danzig, Poland. He had a pessimistic personality. He said for example: ““Life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom”
Arthur was not a happy fellow so what a surprise to find after his death, in his personal notes, a manuscript in the writings entitled “Die Kunst, glücklich zu sein” which could be translated as the art of being happy. I couldn’t find any trace of it in English bibliographies. Schopenhauer says that we can’t be happy but at least we can follow rules to avoid pain. He lists 50 rules. The first rule is not to aim for an unachievable happiness but to manage your life as well as you can by avoiding unnecessary suffering for you and others.
The second rule is to avoid jealousy by comparing with others (hum that sounds like positive psychology)
The third rule is to not drift from your natural tendencies. Some are creative others contemplative. Don’t go against your nature
An Other rule is to be self-sufficient: “Happiness belongs to those who are sufficient unto themselves. For all external sources of happiness and pleasure, are by their very nature, highly uncertain, precarious, ephemeral and subject to chance.”
In his essay “on the wisdom of life” from Schopenhauer final work, “Parerga und Paralipomena” (1851), Arthur sees health as the most important factor of happiness that can’t be traded for honors.
“For, after all, the foundation of our whole nature, and, therefore, of our happiness, is our physique, and the most essential factor in happiness is health, and, next in importance after health, the ability to maintain ourselves in independence and freedom from care. There can be no competition or compensation between these essential factors on the one side, and honor, pomp, rank and reputation on the other, however much value we may set upon the latter. No one would hesitate to sacrifice the latter for the former, if it were necessary. We should add very much to our happiness by a timely recognition of the simple truth that every man’s chief and real existence is in his own skin, and not in other people’s opinions; and, consequently, that the actual conditions of our personal life,—health, temperament, capacity, income, wife, children, friends, home, are a hundred times more important for our happiness than what other people are pleased to think of us: otherwise we shall be miserable.”
“It is the possession of a great heart or a great head, and not the mere fame of it, which is worth having, and conducive to happiness”
Schopenhauer has been influenced by Buddhism and believed in the limitation of your desire to lower suffering. Life was for him a painful road and his (limited) happiness rested in avoiding, reducing, coping. None the less, his rules are good guidelines to live a happy life.
I leave you with a sample of a six part series on philosophypresented by philosopher Alain de Botton, featuring six thinkers and their ideas about the pursuit of happiness. This episode is about Schopenhauer.
Click on the painting to discover the artist Bob Row and his gallery of portraits
Today I went to the library to buy a book and I came back with five!
I went by the personal development section and discovered loads of books about happiness. It surprised me because I never realized there was so much literature on happiness.
You have to know that here, in France, people can be very cynical about happiness. Happiness is for fools or it’s a sect’s slogan. When you surf the web, most of the people writing, talking about happiness are Australian or American (it seems)(well I don’t speak Tamoul or Chinese).
But lately my beliefs are shaken. Everywhere I go, the topic comes up. Just this week, I was helping a friend at a festival and happiness was on everybody’s lips at conferences. Then a couple of days later, I was at a red light on my bike, and just there was a friend eating at a terrasse. I joined him for half an hour, only to discover that he was organizing happiness diners. They invite specialists on the subject like Ruut Veenhoven director of the World Database of Happiness and editor of the Journal of Happiness Studies and discuss.
I was in shock. A happiness tribe!
Since there is prolific information on the web about happiness (see my blogroll for exemple), I could contribute better by investigating what French have to bring to the table. I have a few people in mind and I hope that even if France is the world champion antidepressant consumer, it has the capacity to produce great happiness thinkers. To be continued…
In the meantime, he is not talking directly about happiness but he is French and I see an evident link between how we treat our planet and the fundamentals of happiness. As I exposed in a former post, when you start to investigate the subject of happiness, more stuff (when basics needs are met) is not doing the trick. Happiness doesn’t lie in having more, wasting, war, exploitation… Once every man will discover his inner happiness, the need to destroy our environment will not be the logics anymore. Well that’s what I believe but It seems I am an utopist ☺
So don’t miss this sublime movie that has been released for free in several languages for us to team up and improve the life of each one of us.
Visite guidée
by Joanna on 13/10/2010
Un blog au bout de quelques mois, il est dur de s’y retrouver.
Laissez moi vous guider dans cette exploration.
- Happyview*53: David Ken - Photographe
- Happyview*52: Catherine Berthillier - Grand reporter
- Happyview*51: Arnaud Poissonnier - Financier
- Happyview*50: Chistian Gicquel - Formateur MBSR
- Happyview*49: Elizabeth Couzon - Formatrice et auteure
- Happyview*48: Mabrouck Rachedi - écrivain
- Happyview*47: Brigitte et Garmia - mères SOS
- Happyview*46: Bruno Fabre - créateur de la pyramide du bonheur
- Happyview*45: Philippe Streiff - ancien pilote F1
- Happyview*44: Pr Michel Lejoyeux - psychiatre et auteur de “Changer… en mieux”
- Happyview*43: Martin Marceau - auteur de “Pour des moments de bonheur”
- Happyview*42: Marie-Lise Labonté - auteure de “Derrière le rideau” (Québec)
- Happyview*41: Vincent Houba - formateur en communication non-violente (Belgique)
- Happyview*40: Colette Mesnage - auteur de “Eloge d’une vieillesse heureuse”
- Happyview*39: Christian Bourit - dentiste et auteur de “la vibration du bonheur”
- Happyview*38: Florence Servan-Schreiber - journaliste et auteur de “3 kifs par jour”
- Happyview*37: Bertrand Vergely - philosophe et auteur de “Petite philosophie du bonheur”
- Happiview*35: Yolaine de La Bigne - journaliste et auteure de “Le bon sens dans la vie: c’est le bonheur!”
- Happyview*34: Vincent Cespedes - philosophe et auteur de “Magique étude du bonheur”
- Happyview*33: Charlotte Savreux - présentatrice télé
- Happyview*32: Jean-Christophe - avocat et coach
- Happyview*31: Christine Lewicki - coach et auteur de “J’arrête de râler”
- Happyview*30: Christine Michaud - présentatrice télé et auteur de “c’est beau la vie” (Québec)
- Happyview*29: Leo Bormans - rédacteur en chef - “Happiness: le grand livre du bonheur”(Belgique)
- Happyview*28: Michel Vaujour - fauve paisible
- Happyview*27: Luc Simonet - président de la ligue des optimistes du Royaume de Belgique (Belgique)
- Happyview*26: Fabrice Midal - philosophe
- Happyview*25: Frédéric Lenoir - rédacteur en chef du Monde des religions
- Happyview*24: Vanessa Mielczareck - coach et auteur de “Le guide de la personne heureuse”
- Happyview*22: Bénédicte Ann - fondatrice des cafés de l’amour
- Happyview*21: Yves-Alexandre Thalman - formateur en psychologie et auteur de “petit cahier d’exercices d’entrainement au bonheur” (Suisse)
- Happyview*20: Phap Kinh - moine bouddhiste
- Happyview*18: Marc Vella - musicien
- Happyview*17: Bernard Campan - acteur
- Happyview*16: Jacques Lecomte - psychologue et auteur de “Elixir de bonheur”
- Happyview*15: Robert Misrahi - philosophe et auteur de “Les actes de la joie”
- Happyview*13: Etienne Jalenque - psychiatre et auteur de “La thérapie du bonheur”
- Happyview*12: Lilou Macé - journaliste
..
- Sourire: Contrôleur du Bonheur
- Chanson: Pierre le colporteur de chansons
- Créativité: Mandalas végétaux de Lone
- Happyview*23: l’Atelier de charenton - peinture
- Happyview*10: le yoga du rire
- Jeu: Champions du bonheur
.
1. L’hypothèse du bonheur Jonathan Haidt - psychologie positive et philosophie
2. Ce qu’il faut savoir avant de mourir John Izzo - développement personnel
3. Les carnets de la grenouille noire La grenouille noire - BD
4. Comment être heureux et le rester Sonja Lyubomirsky - psychologie positive (article en anglais)
Moodstep c’est aussi ma vision du bonheur:
Ma vision du bonheur
Ma vision du bonheur 2
Faut que ça déborde
Réponse à un bricoleur
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Et si vous êtes ami avec l’anglais: découvrez les articles en anglais
Et tout particulièrement:
The happiness Formula - Deepak Chopra
“Happines is love, full stop”
The chemistry of happiness
Are you synthesizing happiness?
Schopenhauer on happiness
Happiness at school
Mon voyage à travers l’europe
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Joanna