She lists all of her tips for how not to be happy. These include, having too high of standards, avoiding friends, talking about things that make you unhappy, lack of physical exercise, and cultivating bad habits.
What a horrible list. Any 2nd grader could come up with a list of things that are bad. So much for caring about the reader I feel as though I just wasted 3 mineuts of my life reading her blog. As far as her actual reasons that people are not happy, they lack any concrete reasoning for why they make you unhappy. For example, having too high of standards. Some people are naturally very ambition. The fact that they have too high of standards is their shortcoming and greatest achievement. Simon Cowell makes millions of dollars because he has high standards. It's called being a critic. He loves it. I consider myself to be someone of a critic. This article fell short.
I don't think a lack of physical exercise makes you unhappy either, my dad rarely, if ever, exercises and he probably has more zest for life then most people I know.
I would try to see if these things make my life unhappy, but then I realize I wouldn't really be doing anything different. I am not happier today then I was yesterday because I did not criticize a someone for something. Criticism is a large part of what I do in my job. If anything, it held back potential accomplishments that could be done.
I have to agree with you on some of your comments here. But think about who this website and book is directed towards. Not everybody is questioning her or what she writes. They probably won't even think as abstractly as you are. Most of the readers need to hear the list created by a second grader b/c they need to "go back to the basics". Sometimes people get lost and need to have some direction again. A lot of the things she wrote about isn't going to apply to everyone. But the people searching for a website or a book like this one, it's going to apply to them. Thus she's happy about making money telling them something a friend could tell them (if they would only call that friend).
ReplyDeleteI decided to to look at this part of the website, I know what makes me happy and unhappy. I'm glad to see a different perspective on the website.
ReplyDelete*not to look at
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