When you’re happy, you can start a happiness virus through your social network, according to a Harvard and UC San Diego study.
So update your Twitter and Facebook status with good things and spread the love!
No conclusive info about when you’re down, although I know that’s as good a people repellant as B.O.
I’m grateful for the amazing bounty of fresh fruits and vegetables this year!
A study by Dr. Michael McCollough, of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, and Dr. Robert Emmons, of the University of California at Davis, in which several hundred people kept a daily log of things they were grateful for, concluded that “daily gratitude exercises resulted in higher reported levels of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, optimism and energy.”
At first, listing what you’re grateful for daily could appear to be yet another task you won’t get to. Tim Ferriss points out that “gratitude training” is the way to go, to make counting your blessings as routine as doing sit ups (or perhaps more routine for some!)
So here is a real-world example of how, if you break it down to the tiny things, you really can find things to be grateful for:
In the September 2008 O Magazine, Oprah gives some good examples from her own gratitude journal:
“I am grateful for my breath and the recognition that I am here alive. Breathing. I am grateful for life. And for this time alone.”
OK a little deeper than my examples. But see how easy it is to find things to be grateful for?
What better use of Twitter, or status messages on your social networks, than to blast what you’re feeling grateful for? I know I know…there are better uses but it’s a good one!
A bunch of people have goals on SuperViva to feel more grateful or to start a gratitude journal.
The idea of seeing thousands of things I’m grateful for compiled does seem amazing. For now, I will at least continue counting my blessings to fall asleep. Sheep are so last millennium.
Have you always wanted to make friends around the world? I have. And so I joined the non-profit CouchSurfing site a couple of years ago. But only this summer did I surf my first couch: a truly enriching experience. Even if I never see my “host” again I feel like I’ve made a friend.
It’s not a mere “hotel substitute.” Their goal is as follows:
“CouchSurfing.com helps you make connections worldwide. You can use the network to meet people and then go and surf other members’ couches! When you surf a couch, you are a guest at someone’s house. They will provide you with some sort of accommodation, a penthouse apartment or maybe a back yard to pitch your tent in. Stays can be as short as a cup of coffee, a night or two, or even a few months or more. When you offer your couch, you have complete control of who visits.”
With the momentum of several years, Couch Surfing seems to be hitting the “mainstream,” and now I hear friends mention it all the time. Check out the good energy they’ve created:
CouchSurfers 697,357
Successful Surf or Host Experiences 606,243
Friendships Created 748,720
Positive Experiences 1,219,741
Countries Represented 232
Cities Represented 46,949
They focus on safety. A clever verification process uses credit card authentication to make sure your name matches your mailing address and credit card. (Do I need to add that you’re responsible for your own safety and to use intuition?)
Whether you’re hosting or a couch surfer, you’re automatically going to have commonalities:
I don’t know about you, but just reading what I wrote made me all the more inspired to continue couch surfing and hosting on future travels.
Need I say more?
Yearbook Yourself is an interesting marketing campaign by a mall operator. You upload a pic of yourself, choose if you’re male or female, then can browse through photos from the 1950s through the 1980s, to see your “yearbook” picture.
It’s totally fun to look for your perfect retro yearbook pic….for your Facebook profile photo 
For marketers, it’s a great example of viral marketing to reach the target audience (teens and parents).
Yes if you make one I want to see it!
Joining into the seedy, slithery, tomatoey fun at La Tomatina in Spain was on my life list after I discovered the event last year.
At some point during the year I’d moved this goal to my “backburner.”
But only again after seeing this YouTube video did I come to terms with the fact that going to La Tomatina is really one of my TOP experience goals. I mean, as a tomato loving, Spanish speaking Europhile, how could it not be?
And THAT is why a “backburner” is good, rather than completely deleting goals from your list. It’s a place to stash away the “someday, maybes” as David Allen calls them. I’m glad to have realized that La Tomatina is a “someday soon, definitely!”
In fact at one time, Lisa Peake of Davidco also noted the backburner as being a neato aspect of SuperViva.
Perhaps we can get together a SuperViva tomato extravaganza!
Better yet if you’re clever enough to find a great last minute fare, well….
