The Emotion Machine

Self-awareness is an important part of happiness, but you have to be careful not to focus too much on yourself – to the point where you begin to confuse “self-awareness” for what is actually “self-indulgence.”

Self-awareness is a non-judgmental form of introspection that seeks to better understand yourself. But self-indulgence is a judgmental form of introspection that seeks to feed and protect your ego.

Both are forms of reflection, but they come from very different perspectives.

When your introspection comes from a place of “self-indulgence” it can turn into negative rumination – addictive and excessive thinking about ourselves that leads to depression, frustration, anger, and apathy.

If you want to be happier in your life, pay attention to the happiness of others.

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Stress is a normal part of our everyday existence.

It’s the physical and mental wear-and-tear we all have as we are challenged by the daily obstacles in our lives, whether at work, at school, at home, or wherever.

The truth is life isn’t completely easy for anyone. We all have things we have to deal with that we don’t really want to – and that’s where most of our stress comes from.

Neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky is one of the leading researchers on stress.He says that biologically stress is an adaptive response of our nervous system, fueled by two hormones – epinephrine (“adrenaline”) and norepinephrine – which are evolutionarily designed to be released in our bodies whenever we perceive something in our environment as a potential threat.

The release of these hormones creates a behavioral response known as the “fight or flight or freeze” response. It’s a heightened state of arousal that makes us super energized and focused.

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Taking responsibility is a form of empowerment. It teaches you that you’re more than just a rock stumbling down a hill - you have a say in what direction you go in life.

A lot of people think happiness depends on what we gain and lose in our lives, but the truth is that one of the most important contributors to our happiness isn’t what happens to us, but our perspective of what happens.

There was a ground-breaking study published in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 1978 that compared the happiness of individuals who just won the lottery with individuals who just experienced paralyzing accidents.

At first, the individuals who won the lottery reported much greater happiness than the paralyzed victims; however, the effect was increasingly diminished over time, and after just a few months both reported very similar levels of happiness again.

This concept is known as happiness adaptation theory. The basic idea is that we each have a “baseline level” of happiness, and over time we tend to adapt to both the “good” and “bad” events in our lives – so neither really have a major influence over our overall happiness in the long-term.

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We commonly hear about the fear of failure, but could there also be a fear of success?

Most of us say we want success, but when we actually think about success it can have some major consequences that many of us aren’t willing to face.

Often instead of reaching our full potential as individuals, we sell ourselves short and settle for less, because we don’t feel we’re truly ready to handle the success we’re actually capable of.

The humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow wrote a lot about the concept of self-actualization – recognizing our full potential as individuals – and he shared compelling reasons many of us try to avoid this greatness in our lives.

This article will describe 4 key reasons why people tend to fear success. Simply becoming more aware of these reasons is a great starting point in accepting this fear and working to overcome it.

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Sometimes the best thing you can do to improve creativity or problem-solving is to just walk away. Let your unconscious do some work.

I remember as a young teen when I first heard the words, “Think for yourself and question authority.” It was a soundbite of Timothy Leary being sampled in the Tool song Third Eye – I was probably 13 or 14 at the time.

The swirling guitars and synthesized chaos of the song along with the inspiring words created an atmosphere that was probably as close to an “insightful” or “psychedelic” experience as anything else I had experienced up until that age. It felt meaningful and liberating.

And even today these words carry a lot of meaning to me. The mantra “think for yourself and question authority” speaks to a simple truth, which is: society isn’t always right, and you have to trust your own heart and mind at the end of the day, no matter what anyone else thinks.

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