The Lion, The Antelope & The Power of Positive Thinking

A little longer break this time, as unfortunately the Wrinkle was struck down by the flu for a short time. All good now, however, as we’re coming into the holiday festive season the Wrinkle will stretch out the “offerings” a little and you are likely to see this blog every fortnight or so for a while.

Today I thought we might talk a little about happiness or the pursuit thereof. Although I didn’t see it, the ABC has just started airing a series on how to be happy. One of the comments from someone who did see the program was that the trick seems to be how much time you spend in the moment. The more in the “now’ the more happy. Now this could lead the Wrinkle into pages of discussion about non-duality, but I think we’ll settle for an observation or two instead.

If you consider a herd of antelope grazing peacefully, when a lion appears the adrenaline pumps, everyone runs, and it’s all crazy. Then the lion makes its kill, the antelope settle down some distance away and resume their grazing. This is called "living in the moment".

If this were to happen in a human context, everyone would probably spend the rest of their life scared of when a lion is next going to attack.

Extreme examples are good in that they show up the power of two different views, and in this case approaches to life (or death).

I also happened by chance to watch the last half of Austin Powers: Man of Mystery last night (bear with me), and there was a scene where Austin pretends to be in a nutshell.

Sadly isn’t that what we often do, we weave our own “nutshells” out of ideas about who we are, what we like/dislike, who our friends are, what we own, our job, perceived status, what we are afraid of, etc. Until before we know it we really are living in a “nutshell” of our own making.

It’s hard to live in, let alone appreciate the moment when you’re stuck in a nutshell. Here’s a simple test, when’s the last time when you were outside, that you actually paused a thought, and really saw what was around you in that moment, right out to the horizon...

We also ran a little test here in the office recently, according to 59 Seconds: Think a little, change a lot by Richard Wiseman (like the name) one of the best ways to improve your happiness is to write notes to yourself for 5 days. The effect of this is supposed to last for several months, pretty simple really.

Day 1 – List three things to be grateful for in the past week

Day 2 – Write about one of the most wonderful experiences in your life

Day 3 – Write about your ideal future

Day 4 – Write to someone you care about deeply and tell them

Day 5 – Recap on the last week and write down the three best things that happened.

A few of us tried this, and by and large we think it made a positive difference. The Wrinkle for one noted he started singing to himself, which is something he hasn’t done for a long time ;-)

If you have any great ideas let me know, otherwise we could do far worse than “Making Australia Happy”.

Have a good week.