Travel to Siena

Take in the enchantment of the Piazza del Campo, grab a panino, some extra bread, olive oil, and some wine - meander over to the campus of the University, ensconce yourself on one of the benches with a view of the Tuscan countryside, and start eating. And let waves of delight wash over you.

Why periodic sabbaticals are a good thing?

I can vouch for for the life-changing power of sabbaticals. Six years ago, I took 9 1/2 months to travel around the world. One of the best things I ever did. I moved from the consulting business to the media business quite easily.

And last year, I took 7 months off to go learn Spanish. Now, I am enjoying doing freelance work that gives me ample time for personal learning and growth.

Sabbaticals are a time to recharge, refresh, and revitalize yourself. When life expectancy in the Western world is around 80 years, and the average person changes jobs 5-7 times in her career, it is hard to imagine how you can work 35-40 years straight, with almost no breaks in between.

And the fact is, an enlightened employer will look forward to having an employee with diverse life experiences.

So, go ahead, plan your sabbatical.

From http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2005/07/08/notes070805.DTL

We are designed, weaned, trained from Day 1 to be productive members of society. And we are heavily guilted into believing that must involve some sort of droning repetitive pod-like dress-coded work for a larger corporate cause, a consumerist mechanism, a nice happy conglomerate.

But the truth is, God, the divine true spirit loves nothing more than to see you unhinge and take risk and invite regular, messy, dangerous upheaval. This is exactly the energy that thwarts the demons of stagnation and conservative rot and violent sanctimonious bloody Mel Gibson-y religion, one that would have all our work be aimed at continuously patching up our incessant potholes of ugly congenital guilt, as opposed to contributing to the ongoing orgiastic evolution of spirit.

It is not for everyone. It implies incredibly difficult choices and arranging your life in certain ways and giving up certain luxuries and many, many people seemed locked down and immovable and all done with exploring new options in life, far too deeply entrenched in debts and family obligations and work to ever see such unique light again. Maybe you know such people. Maybe you are such people.

But then again, maybe not. This is the other huge truism we so easily forget: There is always room. There are always choices we can begin to make, changes we can begin to invite, rules we can work to upset, angles of penetration we can try to explore. And if that's not worth trying, well, what is?

Guardian Hayao Miyazaki, animation maestro, quoted in The Guardian
"If, as artists, we try to tap into that soul level - if we say that life is worth living and the world is worth living in - then something good might come of it." He shrugs. "Maybe that's what these films are doing. They are my way of blessing the child"

How not to Buy Happiness - buying inconspicuous goods or 'experiences'

Robert Frank in MIT's Daedalus:

Considerable evidence suggests that if we use an increase in our incomes, as many of us do, simply to buy bigger houses and more expensive cars, then we do not end up any happier than before. But if we use an increase in our incomes to buy more of certain inconspicuous

On the best available evidence, reallocating our time and money in these and similar ways would result in healthier, longer– and happier–lives. goods–such as freedom from a long commute or a stressful job–then the evidence paints a very different picture. The less we spend on conspicuous consumption goods, the better we can afford to alleviate congestion; and the more time we can devote to family and friends, to exercise, sleep, travel, and other restorative activities.

Prof. Martin Seligman, quoted in The Guardian:

There are three paths to happiness: the pleasant life, the good life and the meaningful life.

The pleasant life is what most of us think of when considering whether we are happy from moment to moment. There are short cuts to this - such as taking drugs or playing mindless computer games - but sooner or later most people look in the mirror and ask: 'Is this all there is?'

The good life comes through deep engagement in work, family life or other activities. In my case it is writing and playing tennis, but it could be any activity that one finds challenging and rewarding.

... the meaningful life - devoting oneself to an institution or cause greater than oneself. In a now classic exercise Seligman calls 'Philanthropy versus Fun', psychology students in one of his classes undertook to engage in one pleasurable activity and one philanthropic activity, and write about both. The results, he claims, were 'life changing'. The afterglow of the fun activity (watching a film, eating ice cream) paled in comparison with the effects of the kind action (volunteering at a soup kitchen, helping at the school fair). The reason, Seligman suggests, is that kindness is a gratification. 'It calls on your strengths to rise to an occasion and meet a challenge. Kindness is not accompanied by a separate stream of positive emotion, like joy; rather, it consists in [sic] total engagement and in the loss of self-consciousness.'

Happy is he who forgets what can no longer be changed - German proverb

The Hero Journey

One of my favorite books is Joseph Campbell's "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" - where he talks of the hero myth across cultures and traditions. As Campbell says, "Each of us has a Hero, a Sage, a mercenary, a Princess within. Each of these pulls and pushes as we journey through the story that is our life. We need all of these energies to pursue life's adventure."

The hero journey of myth symbolizes personal growth.

A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his/her fellow people.

It involves going away from what Campbell calls "The Wasteland" - "a world where people live not out of their own initiative, but out of what they think that they are supposed to do. People have inherited their official roles and positions; they haven’t earned them…everybody leading a false life.. where the sense of the vitality of life has gone. People take jobs because they have to live, and then they find in mid life that the job does not mean a thing."

This is my favorite passage in the whole book - "we have not even to risk the adventure alone; for the heroes of all time have gone before us; the labyrinth is thoroughly known; we have only to follow the thread of the heropath. And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the centre of our existence; where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world."

Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
Before we too into the Dust descend;
Dust into Dust, and under Dust to lie,
Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and - sans End!

from the Rubaiyat by Omar Khayyam (translation: Edward Fitzgerald)