Happy Soul Food Friday!
This week:
- Creating Our Own Happiness
- The World Happiness Report 2020
- Addressing the Personal Energy Crisis &
- The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards
“People look for retreats for themselves, in the country, by the coast, or in the hills . . .
There is nowhere that a person can find a more peaceful and trouble-free retreat than in his own mind
. . . . So constantly give yourself this retreat, and renew yourself.”
– MARCUS AURELIUS
Global Reality in Many Cases, Mirrors a Personal Reality:
Humanity stands at a crossroads.
Depending on the choices we make now, future generations will either look back at our time with anger or with gratitude.
Currently, we are set on the former course. If we continue our reckless over-consumption of resources and destruction of the environment, driven by an insatiable appetite for economic growth, our descendants will face a world of scarcity, uncertainty and conflict.
Not surprisingly, global reality in many cases, mirrors a personal reality, where our careless over-expenditure and mis-management of personal energy inevitably lead to “emissions” (toxic outputs) and “exhaust” (debilitating stress and burnout).
Sadly, neither the dominant economic paradigm, nor the dominant health paradigm of the last 30 years has been the “solution set” we’re seeking…
Both Mother Earth (Pandemic + Climate Change) & Father Profit (Economic Meltdown) at the Macro and Micro levels are saying, “No MAS!”
Want to Be Happier? Make More Free Time (from Harvard Business School):
Enjoying life requires time, but too often we willingly give it away in pursuit of money and career.
Too much work and not enough play is making an increasing number of people feel “time poor”—stressed from having too many things to do and not enough time to do them. In 2011, 70 percent of working Americans reported that they “never had enough time,” and by 2018, that number increased to 80 percent, according to Gallup US Daily Poll data.
https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/want-to-be-happier-make-more-free-time?cid=spmailing-32621043-WK%20Newsletter%2010-07-2020%20(1)-October%2007,%202020
World Happiness Report 2020
The World Happiness Report is a landmark survey of the state of global happiness that ranks 156 countries by how happy their citizens perceive themselves to be.
The World Happiness Report 2020 for the first time ranks cities around the world by their subjective well-being and digs more deeply into how the social, urban and natural environments combine to affect our happiness.
Spoiler Alert: The top ten are clearly dominated by Scandinavian cities: Helsinki (Finland) and Aarhus (Denmark) are ranked first and second, Copenhagen (Denmark), Bergen (Norway), and Oslo (Norway) fifth, sixth, and seventh. Stockholm (Sweden) comes out ninth. Thus, more than half of the top ten cities worldwide according to how positively their inhabitants currently evaluate their lives are located in Scandinavia. Two of the top ten cities are located in Australia and New Zealand: Wellington, the capital of New Zealand, is ranked third and Brisbane (Australia) is ranked tenth. The only top ten cities that are not located in either Scandinavia or Australia and New Zealand are Zurich (Switzerland) and Tel Aviv (Israel).
Stay Happy!
https://worldhappiness.report/ed/2020/#read
The Personal Energy Crisis:
Mobilizing a global movement toward Health, Happiness & Well Being
Inspired by The Happy Planet Index 2.0- Why good lives don’t have to cost the Earth
Who would have “thunk”, 7 years ago, when I put this together, that we would find ourselves here at this crossroad with this complexity…
Finally, this should make you happy!
| The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards: An owl dangling precariously from a branch has scooped the overall prize of this year’s Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards. Out of the 3,500 entries, Tibor Kercz won the overall prize with his series of images showing an owl losing its footing and trying to claw its way back on to a branch. Other entrants included a yawning dormouse, a photo bombing sea turtle and a rather shocked seal. Take a look at all the winning photos from the competition. Tibor Kercz’s photo of an undignified owl was the overall winner |
| Andrea Zampatti won the Land category with a photograph of a dormouse |
| Troy Maynewon Under The Sea category with a photobombing sea turtle |
| John Threlfall won the In The Air category with a bird and an ominous vapor trail |
‘Highly Commended’ photos:
| Daisy Gilardini photographed a polar bear clinging on to its mother |
| Penny Palmer caught a sea otter reaching for the sky |
Carl Henry’s was highly commended for his photo entitled All Dressed And Ready For Church
Olivier Colle spotted a hare munching on grass
Katy Laveck-Foster snapped two cheeky monkeys
Jean-Jacques Alcalay captured the moment it looked as though a wildebeest was riding on the back of its companions
George Cathcart was highly commended for his photo entitled WTF
Douglas Croft caught a fox getting a hole in one on a golf course
| Daniel Trim snapped two mudskippers appearing to be in mid-song |
Thanks this week go to Bob C for the great pics and to all of you investing in our collective happiness!
Please pay it forward.
Love all,
Neville
“The U.S. Constitution doesn’t guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up to it yourself.”– Benjamin Franklin
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Happy Soul Food Friday! 