Today's gift

Watch this. You will be touched.

Refugees, online universities and life as we know it

"A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge."
- Thomas Carlyle -

So, you got this desire, burning inside you, and you want to learn, to know more. What you gonna do? Normal people will go to school, and to university after, paying a handful of money, and struggling for half of their life to pay it back. Is this the way? As you can see in this article, there are some good people who actually think about the better good. They created an university for refugees, completely online, where you can get a degree after four years of solid study.

"At its deepest level, I think teaching is about bringing people into communion with each other, with yourself as the teacher, and with the subject you are teaching."
- Parker Palmer -

And how can you do this better than creating online communities to help refugees from everywhere. You can change lives, you can give them the opportunity of their lifetime, when often a local degree is asked before getting accepted for an interview. Al you need is love. And maybe few years of study.

Happiness tips and tricks

This is a 2 stages exercise.

Stage 1
Do one random act of kindness, no matter how large or small, every day for one month.

Stage 2
Do 7 random acts of kindness in one week, for one month, but all 7 in the same day.

In which stage do you think it is more fulfilling for you?

The answer is: Stage 2, because doing all 7 random acts of kindness in same day it is perceived as an extra effort that will provide an immediate durable boost in your own happiness.

Quote of the day

"If you want to be happy for an hour, have a nap,
if you want to be happy for a day, go fishing,
if you want to be happy for a month, get married,
if you want to be happy for an year, inherit a fortune,
if you want to be happy for a lifetime, help others."
(Chinese proverb)

Now we can see that first to are actions with immediate effect and fast hedonic adaptation. Third and forth are major life events, but the hedonic adaptation will still kick in after a while. (Added info: according to recent research, the happiness related to marriage period is about two years.). But the lifetime changing choice is kindness, and more exactly the kindness-happiness loop.

Let me explain more, it is about a research made by Sonia Liubomirsky, where in the phase one, people where asked to remember when they buy something nice for them, paying 20-100$, or when they spend the same amount of money for charity. In both cases they had an increase on overall happiness, but in the case of giving the increase was significantly higher. Now, in the second phase, they were given 20-50$ and asked to spend it on their own or to give in to someone in need. Same as in the phase one, the ones giving had a more significant increase in happiness, but a side effect emerged. The ones that remembered giving where more happy and more likely to spend the money helping others. It is like kindness make you more happy, and being happy make you more kind, in a kind of loop effect.

Conclusion: Be kind with others. Now, according to another experiment, when people where asked to do 5 random acts of kindness in one week, for 6 weeks, some did one every day for five day, some did all five of them on a set day, let's say Friday. Measured, the happiness was much higher at the people who did it on one day, than people who did it most of the days. The theory is that all five acts of random kindness will build a distinguishable experience of that day. When we are making an extra effort, we are gaining in extra happiness. Learn and apply this. You can have a happy life too!

Kind regards
G.