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Finding “happier”

Whether I’m on the road which is sometimes on the water (because I play cruise ships), I find myself with a fair amount of downtime. I have lots of empty hours when I’m not performing, creating, writing, resting or eating. The audience members are enjoying a night on the town (or boat), but I’m in that odd position of being away from home for a week-ish, but not on vacation.

My preferred downtime activity is reading, and I pack huge amounts of paper so I can catch up on my reading. (Yes, paper. Maybe a little old school, but internet access is spotty at sea.) During my last trip, I came across an article on “how to be happier.” The piece had originally appeared in New York Magazine, but I got a truncated version in a magazine called The Week which summarizes all sorts of information you might wanna know about. Here’s the article.

Happiness?! Who wouldn’t wanna read about, absorb, and learn how to be happier? One of my goals in comedy is to make people happy (right after making them laugh) even if that happiness is just a momentary transition from their state of torpor (a state of reduced metabolic rate) or stupor (a state of near-unconsciousness or insensibility). I’ve always wanted my hour or so on stage to serve as a nice little vacation from the outside world for my audience, but when it comes to life off stage or after the show, how does one get happier?

A college course on how to be happy is the most popular class at Yale (yes, that Yale) and the first step for students is to take the Authentic Happiness Inventory offered by University of Pennsylvania. Anyone can take the quiz, and I plan to when I’m on dry land and can think about about my answers. I might even take the class—without heading to Yale. A version of the famous course is now available online.

I’m a pretty happy guy, but I look forward to finding ways to be even happier and maybe even mine some laughs from my research.

2 thoughts on “Finding “happier””

  1. I had never thought of teaching someone how to be happy. I just thought one was happy.
    Veddy interesting! However I am acquainted with some people that don’t seem to be happy. I’m a newbe to your writings. Plus not a fan of face book. Doesn’t mean I can’t learn to be.

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