Essential Excerpts: Become Happier By Questioning Your Norms
Our culture and ingrained assumptions pull us all to make choices. Take stock and change what isn't working.
Hello Bar-setters!
It’s been a busy week, so I’m making it a short, yet wonderful, Essential Excerpt—Dr. Robert Waldinger Jr. quoting and expanding on David Foster Wallace:
“There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What the hell is water?”
Every culture—from the broad culture of a nation down to the culture inside a family—is at least partially invisible to its participants. There are important assumptions, value judgments, and practices that create the water we swim in without our noticing or agreeing to them. We simply find ourselves in this world, and we move forward. These features of culture affect just about everything in our lives, often in positive ways, connecting us to each other and creating identities and meaning. But there is a flip side. Sometimes cultural messages and practices point us in directions away from well-being and happiness.”
Source: The Good Life: Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness
Your family, like every family, makes many choices just because they seem normal. Your ingrained assumptions pull you down paths that you don’t ever choose. Culture is often destiny, but it doesn’t have to be.
What cultural messages and practices point you and your family in a direction away from well-being and happiness?
You’ve got one life. Take stock and change what isn't working.
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Thank you for reading and sharing!
Carry the fire!
Shane