The Dragon Slayer's Guide to Life

The Birth of Personal Paparazzi

Peter sent me this Time Magazine article as grist for my mill. Oh dear God. Where do I begin? In my opinion, it's really just a logical extension of the blogging phenomenon that places everyone's life on their own little stage. (Not to mention the way kids get awards no matter what they do. Have you seen how many trophies they amass in soccer and Little League? Garrison Keilor was right, all American kids really ARE above average.) The lines between reality and fantasy/life as it really is (we do have limits) and life as we wish it to be (but there is a Secret that will erase all those limits) have long been blurred by things like reality television, New Age happy crap and a plethora of online alternate reality games not to mention the popularity point system that the term "friend" now carries in the blogging world. Is it any wonder how much time people spend on-line creating their lives virtually and soothing themselves with personal development reads that promise the tranformation of their lives with be painless once they get really good at imagining and intending? You can surf endlessly without actually doing anything, which seems to me an awful lot like imagining how great you would look in every outfit you see on the rack without trying anything on. You never have to face how big your butt has actually gotten. 

But you have to leave the house sometime, right? How can the cold, cruel world (and it is freaking frigid in Chicago right now) ever compete with what happens here in cyberspace?  And whatever DOES happen in the world, well...if your life is worth it's salt, isn't it continually supplying you with material for the media, personal and otherwise?

Welcome to the birth of personal paparazzi. 

Money, Great Prices and...Oh Snap Out of It!

Stop spending money on things you don't need!  Honestly, it hasn't brought you any closer to happiness.

Of for the love of God, I don't CARE how much you saved on it. It looks terrible on you. Sometimes things end up on the Clearance Rack for a reason. Back away from the yellow tag.  Just....back...away.

And that thing you have hanging in your closet that you keep making yourself wear even though you hate it but it was a gift, (or was it that you spent so much on it? I can't remember...), that thing you wear that always makes you hope you don't run into an old lover while you are wearing it...

Get it gone. 

You know what I'm talking about. 

Gone.

Oh, somethng for the house instead? Why, yes, it IS beautiful. A good price, too. But will you dust it? If you aren't going to take care of it, don't buy it.

Do You Have an Emergency Fund? Tips for How to Start One

As someone who has had $15,000 in unanticipated expenses since April (yes you read that correctly) and whose emergency fund is pretty well...um, okay, completely, gone as a result, I have to tell you this post at Zen Habits is really worth a read.

And for those of you looking for a really nice comprehensive "best of" list of posts on 100 topics to help you improve your life. Zen Habits has filled the bill here at Life Remix.

Need a Budget?

A former client of mine who struggled for a long time with his budget in very significant ways is having great success with this system.  Knowing where he started and where this has gotten him made me want to put this on the radar screen for you if you are researching systems to help you. 

I haven't looked into it myself and probably won't but this is what my client had to say about his experience.

I've been using You need a budget (YNAB) for a few months now. It's not just budgeting software, it's a system you can follow, a discipline to build up. The most important thing is to build up a buffer, so you can live off last month's income, instead of this month's. I somehow managed to do that in the first month.

You construct budget categories, and each one is like a little savings account. Whatever money you budget into it is saved. So, if you have to spend $120 each year for a membership fee, you budget $10 into it each month, and when it comes time to pay it, you don't have a problem. Quicken and Money sure can't do that. If it's a variable category, like entertainment, and you overspend, you don't end up with a negative amount in the category. Instead, the money get's pulled out of next month's budgetable funds. Next month will be tighter, but you decide how to allocate it.

It's mid-month, and I thought about treating myself. It seems like I haven't spent much lately, so I have a little to spend, right? Wrong. Earlier this month I had some things come up, and had overspent. So easy to forget. So the belt stays tight for now. It's easier when you can look at a category and see that you've spent more than half your budgeted funds this month.

The Study of Happiness,Quality of Life and Income

Charles Kenny, a development economist working in Washington, DC  has an interesting blog for those of you looking for in-depth research and historical information on happiness, quality of life and income. He is co-author, with his father, Anthony Kenny of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Utility: Happiness in Philosophical and Economic Thought published in October, 2006.

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Utility relates age-old philosophical discussions of the nature of a worth-while life to the recent growth of interest among economists in criteria for quality of life. The book discusses what philosophers and economists have had to say about the nature and causes of welfare, dignity and contentment.  On the basis of this analysis they draw conclusions for national and international policies.

Money and Happiness: Is It A Matter of Focus?

More interesting research on the psychology of happiness and money (and dates and...)

American Association for the Advancement of Science journal *Science* (Vol. 312. no. 5782, June 30) includes a study: "Would You Be Happier If You Were Richer? A Focusing Illusion."

The article is by Daniel Kahneman, Alan B. Krueger, David Schkade,Norbert Schwarz, and Arthur A. Stone.

Here's how the article starts:

Think Money Wouldn't Change You? Think Again

According to a recent report in Science, even the thought of money changes people, and not necessarily for the better.

Psychologist Kathleen Vohs, now at the University of Minnesota, has been studying the influence of money on behavior with surprising results. Even the most seemingly benign exposure to images of money, such as seeing a poster depicting different types of currency in the research area resulted in increased "self sufficiency" as well as selfishness in the subjects. 

The Trouble with Happiness: Understanding the Difference between Joy and Pleasure

Americans will spend $750 million on self-help books this year and more than $1 billion on motivational speakers. More than 100 colleges now offer classes in positive psychology -- the science of happiness.

This quote from a CNN report earlier this week, adds to the growing body of evidence that Americans are taking the pursuit of "Life, Liberty and Happiness" to unprecedented extremes. But is our tenacious quest to claim our inalienable rights paying off?

According to Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert, not so much

But you probably already know this. Despite our many freedoms, impressive purchasing power and a mind-boggling array of consumer choices (22 blender choices at Target alone), very few of us have been able to grasp happiness in any lasting way. Quite the contrary, in fact, as evidenced by our mounting credit card debt and sky-rocketing use of pharmaceuticals to combat depression, anxiety, insomnia, and a whole host of stress-related health conditions including ulcers, IBS, and high blood pressure.

Could it be that the Declaration of Independence was written on Opposite Day?

Is Marketing Evil?

Is Marketing, in and of itself, evil?

While it is no secret that I think marketing is a very tricky business and frought with ne'erdowells and evil masterminds let me give you a larger perspective.

We ALL market.  I went to a seminar once where the presenter said, "Marketing is simply the transfer of enthusiasm from one person to another."

Excellently stated and I agree.

Happiness, Relatively Speaking

Think you have any clue about what will make you happy?  A review of Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert in the APS Observer sited some interesting examples of why you may be wrong.  Below is an excerpt from Happy in Spite of Ourselves By Wray Herbert. Before you read the full excerpt, just think for a second about which of these two jobs you would choose...

One pays $30,000 the first year, $40,000 the second, and $50,000 the third. Not bad. The other offers $60,000 at first, but then only $50,000, and finally $40,000.

Inexplicably, most people choose the first job, even though in the long run they will make less money. Why? The simple answer is that people hate pay cuts. The more complicted answer has to do with perversity of the human mind, which for unknown reasons favors relative numbers over absolutes. In order to avoid the psychological discomfort of taking a pay cut, these people fail to imagine themselves three years hence, when their actual (and completely avoidable) loss of 30 grand will almost certainly make them very unhappy.