Category: happiness

fate, happiness

My Year of Hopefulness: You get more of what you already have

Christa Avampato

I’ve recently been reading the work of Gretchen Rubin, a lawyer turned writer and happiness researcher. She started a blog call The Happiness Project in preparation for her book of the same name that is due to hit shelves in January 2010. Because of my own interest in the subject, I’ve started following her writing regularly.

Last week, Gretchen published a post about life’s cruel truth: you get more of what you already have. It got me thinking about how we always want something our of reach, something that’s different than what we have, though not necessarily better. And it’s never enough. We want more money, more notoriety, more free time, more love, more, more, more. As Gretchen points out, though we keep striving for something new and different, we end up with more of what we’ve got.

Luckily, this principle can work in our favor as well. I’ve found this year that by seeking out something hopeful every day, I’m finding much more hope than I ever thought I’d have. Once I had a little bit, I was able to gather more. I’d notice hope all around me, just by the being more aware of its presence. It’s always been there – I just wasn’t paying attention. It’s lmost as if a little hope is a magnet for more hope. Happiness, love, friendship, luck, and karma work this way, too.

Turn the tables, and we’ll find just as many examples that work against us. Anger begets anger. Sadness begets sadness. And so on for things like frustration and disappointment.

So the choice is ours for the making: do we want to feel hope or despair? What is it that we want to attract to our lives? It is possible to think ourselves into luck and good fortune. It’s just as easy to turn the tables and make a mess of our lives. Yes there are always outside influences beyond our control, but our lives are largely what we make of them.

One of my mom’s childhood friends tells a great story about a trip she and my mom took to New Orleans when they were in their early 20’s. A fortune teller on the corner asked them if they’d like to have their fortunes read to them. Without missing a beat, my mom responded, nicely, “No thanks. I make my own fortune.” That statement holds more truth for all of us than we realize.

family, feelings, friendship, happiness, mood, personality, technology

My Year of Hopefulness – Get Out of a Rut

Christa Avampato

As I trudged to the subway this morning under the gray, dense skies, I considered my mood over the last week. I’ve been a little down lately. Could be the rainy weather, losing my aunt recently, worry about my mom’s total knee replacement, the state of the economy and our nation’s safety. It’s likely a mixture of all of this. And I’m wondering what I’m really doing with my life every day – am I making a difference, or at least as big a difference as I could make?

Some of my friends and family members have recently expressed the same concern about their own lives. On my subway ride to work, I thought of ideas that might help me and help others out of this little rut. Here are some I came up with. Would love to hear what’s worked for you when you need a little pick-me-up!

1.) Ice cream. There’s something really special to me about getting an ice cream cone and strolling around my neighborhood. It reminds me of being a kid and being a kid inspires me to be a little more wistful and hopeful.

2.) Send someone a present. My friend, Brooke, recently moved from New York City and I’ve had her going away present / new house warming present sitting on my table for about a month. I put it into a padded envelope and sent it off to her today. It helped my mood considerably to be sending her a surprise. Same goes for sending someone a card or doing something nice for someone.

3.) Yoga and running. Both get me moving and remind me of how lucky I am to be in good health. While exercising, I think about building strong bones and muscles, increasing my lung capacity, and solutions to tough situations I’m having at the moment.

4.) Clean my apartment. For me, cleaning is therapy. I don’t like doing it but I love the end result. And my world looks a little brighter from the vantage point of a sparkling apartment.

5.) Communicate with others. Call a friend, send an email, get brunch with someone, click around on Twitter and see what people are talking about today. Breaking out of our self-imposed isolation is a mood lifter in and of itself.

6.) Find someplace to get lost. For me those places are Central Park, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the American Museum of Natural History. Placing myself in the middle overwhelming beauty gives me a new perspective and make me feel connected to something much bigger than myself.

7.) Dive into a book. I’m always amazed at the way literature connects us to people across the world and across time. This reminder of common human experiences makes me feel less alone.

8.) Write. Yesterday I sat down to write a short story about a situation I witnessed on the street a few days ago. I put myself back in that exact situation, saw it all unfolding in my mind, and wrote it all out. When looking back at the story and reading work I was doing a few years ago, I realized how much progress I’ve made in my story telling by practicing every day. It was really gratifying to see myself improving a skill that I enjoy.

9.) Think about my ideal day and consider how I could live at least a little piece of that ideal day every day. Maybe it’s volunteering, thinking about what business I’d like to start, whipping up a really delicious meal with friends, or spending time with someone I love. Even on the worst days we have the ability to incorporate glimmers of happiness.

10.) Spend some time with an animal. Could be your own pup or kitten, a friend’s pet, or taking puppies at the local shelter on a walk. Animals have a natural inclination toward happiness and they take us right along with them.

There are countless ways to get ourselves into a healthier and happier frame of mind. All we need is intention, attention, and commitment to living a better day every day.

Fast Company, happiness

My Year of Hopefulness – Creative Confidence

Christa Avampato

“I really do believe I was put on the planet to help people have creative confidence. I don’t have 27 agendas. I’m not the sustainability guy, or the developing-world guy. My contribution is to teach as many people as I can to use both sides of their brain, so that for every problem, every decision in their lives, they consider creative as well as analytical solutions.”
~ David Kelley, founder of IDEO

David Kelley is one of my creative idols. He forges ahead so confidently not only with faith in his own creativity; he also has great faith in the creativity of others. There are a lot of people out in the world who think of themselves as “idea people” or “great strategic thinkers”. What’s so inspiring about David Kelley is that he believes all people are creative, that we are all strategic thinkers. His goal is to help us make the most of the creativity that we have, and integrate our creativity with out others skills and interests.

There was a great profile of him in Fast Company in January. He could have toiled away as a mildly successful corporate cubicle worker. For some people, that’s the life they want because it helps them live a good life with plenty of energy left for their families, hobbies, outside interests. Their work isn’t their life and they found a way to make that lifestyle work for them. David wasn’t happy in that role and he wanted to create a career that was different than the typical path of many people who work in large corporations.

My point is that we must consider what’s most important to us in order to figure out how best to construct our lives. Is it our work? Our families, friends, hobbies. Do we just want to have time to take advantage of opportunities that come our way. And all of these answers, any of these answers, are correct. The meaning we imbue on our lives, and the priorities we set are our business, not anyone else’s.

I appreciate that David says he doesn’t have 27 agendas – he just has one, clear concise agenda. He might have a number of ways to push it forward, though he really just has one goal: “teach as many people as I can to use both sides of their brain.” What if we could all figure out exactly what our lives are about, state it in one clean sentence, and then relate everything we do back to that focus? Would that lead us to greater happiness and fulfillment? It’s worth a shot.

business, career, happiness, hope, Marcus Buckingham, Oprah, strengths, talents, work

My Year of Hopefulness – Marcus Buckingham Workshop Session 1: Introduction

Christa Avampato

I’ve previously written about Marcus Buckingham on this blog – his writing has been very influential on the way I live my life and build my career. He is a career guru and has dedicated his life to helping people live their best lives. Oprah recently featured him on one of her shows. He did a three-hour workshop with a group of women who want to improve their lives from a career standpoint. These women felt overwhelmed, anxious, off balance, and sometimes very unhappy with their jobs.


As a gift to viewers who want to live their best lives in 2009, Marcus Buckingham and Oprah filmed the entire three hours session, broke it down into 8 different classes, and put all of them on-line for free with resources and class materials. You can download them to your ipod, watch them, or listen to them on your computer. It’s as if you are sitting in a classroom with one of the most world-renowned thinkers on living a strengths-based life. And it’s incredible. 

I just completed session 1 – The Introduction with two of my friends, John and Ellen. Three basic question for everyone in the class: What is your name? What are you paid to do? Why are you here? As part of this blog, I will detail what I’m thinking, experiencing, and feeling in each one of these classes and John and Ellen have agreed to allow me to share the specifics of their situations on this blog. 

To take the class, please visit the link on Oprah’s website: http://www.oprah.com/package/money/career/pkgmarcus/20080401_orig_marcusbuckingham

Here is my own mini-class that will be featured on this blog:
Name: Christa
Paid to do?: Product Development
Here because?: My day is filled with lots of tasks I don’t want to do

Name: John
Paid to do?: Graphic Design
Here because?: Feels like he is wasting time with a company that has no advancement opportunities. Job is mostly executional, not strategic. Culture is siloed and not collaborative. A lot of in-fighting at his current firm. Many people don’t want the responsibility of making decisions, but want credit when something goes right. 

Name: Ellen
Paid to do?: Nonprofit fundraiser
Here because?: Doesn’t feel that her current company is creative, innovative, or motivated to improve. Decision-making processes in the organization are very slow and misguided. Her opinions are not listened to by her boss. She works with great people, though is not enjoying working for her boss as there is very little mentorship. 

Once a week, I will be sharing our stories as we continue through the remaining sessions of this class with Marcus Buckingham. If you decide to take it and would like to share your thoughts on the classes, I’d love to have you comment on this blog! Here’s to living our best lives in 2009!
community, family, happiness, new product development, New York Times

A Charmed Life

Christa Avampato

I took my baby niece to the Magic Kingdom. To be perfectly honest, she is so gorgeous that we always get stopped by complete strangers who want to tell her how cute she is. I think she looks like me.


My sister, Weez, and I were sitting with her on the ferry boat ride over to the Magic Kingdom when, as usual, some stranger sat down next to us and told us how perfect-looking my niece is. We smiled and modestly said thank you, though we really just wanted to respond, “We know. We get that ALL the time.” 

This particular woman was also very curious about us as well. Where are we from?, where do we work?, etc. I told her I live in New York City on the Upper West Side. “You do?” she responded. “Do you go to all of those fancy restaurants and have lots of friends there?” “I do,” I replied. “I have a pretty spectacular life there. I’m very lucky.” “You certainly are!” she cried. “Can I have that life?”

This overwhelming sense of gratitude and appreciation hit me. I really am lucky. I really do live a charmed and happy life. So why have I not been realizing that for the past few weeks? Why have I been silently worrying and fretting?

Take a look at this: http://tinyurl.com/99vpmx. It’s an opinion piece from today’s New York Times about happiness. Recent studies show that our situation relative to others is more concerning to us than our absolute situation. If I lose my job, and everyone else around me keeps theirs, then I feel very, very bad. But if I lose my job, and so does everyone else I know, then my general happiness really isn’t effected too much. Apparently “poor me” feels far worse than “poor us.” If we’re all in this together, then it’s really not so bad. If I’m all alone up the creek without a paddle, then it’s depression city. 

So is the key to happiness not our actual situations but rather surrounding ourselves with people who think we live a charmed life, or at least a life as good as theirs? 
books, career, choices, friendship, future, happiness, relationships

What Now?

Christa Avampato

About a month ago I read Ann Patchett’s book, What Now?. It’s a reproduction of her graduation speech at Sarah Lawrence University, her alma mater. And she talks about crossroads and where you might look when considering your next step. I wonder if she realized how poignant this question would become in the year after the book’s publication. 


In the month since reading the book, I’ve been considering “What Now?” almost daily. It seems that I am at an eternal crossroads in almost every area of my life. As I talk to my friends and my family I realize that many people are doing the same thing. So I thought it might be helpful to detail the way I’m framing up this question to myself in an effort to answer it as effectively as possible. 

Career: My friend, Susan, whom I consider my career guru, is always concerned about the story that our careers are weaving. And this is especially important for us 30-somethings. We have amassed a good deal of experience and expertise and we may be teetering on a taking the plunge into a higher level position a a big company, starting our own company, or making a career switch. How are those pieces weaving together into one cohesive story? When have we been happiest in our careers? What skills are we happiest exercising and what skills do we still want to polish up? These questions help me think about what’s next for me. 

Relationships: A tough one for us single 30-somethings. We’ve likely had a number of relationships at this point. And we’ve gone through the highest of highs and lowest of lows in love. We’ve had our hearts broken, perhaps broken someone else’s heart, walked away, been walked out on. We’ve loved and lost and loved again. Some people think this is the time to find a husband or settle in to be single for a long time to come. I don’t. There’s a calm that has settled in for me around love in the 30’s. Either it works or it doesn’t. And if it doesn’t, I’ve given up the sadness and sulking of my 20’s – it must mean that I had better get back out there because that relationship just wasn’t the right one for me.

Friends: My friend, Amy, and I always talk about how important it is to get energy from our friends rather than have or energy sapped by people. My friend, Kelly, describes it as not wanting to be around people who suck our will to live. A bit dramatic? Sure. Accurate? Definitely. We have just so much time to devote to people in our lives. Make sure that each one enriches your life. It’s not easy to clean out our lives of old friendships that don’t work anymore – for one thing, we may find our lives have more holes than we’d like. But the good news is that if we do that we’ll have more time for the people in our lives who really matter to us, and you’ll be surprised what good fortune finds you when you make room in your life for it to stay awhile.

Happiness: This is the area of my life I work on the most. It effects our health, the foundation for every other area of our lives. It effects those around us. A recent study found that surrounding ourselves with happy people has enormous benefits – physically, emotionally, and spiritually. When I think about what’s next in my life, the greatest consideration I give is a decision’s effect on my happiness. And having that one guiding principle, light’s the way. 
change, habit, happiness, innovation, routine

Change for Notice

Christa Avampato

I had dinner with my friends Chas and Amanda over the weekend and we got into a discussion about the importance of change. On Friday I needed to stop by the post office in midtown and it would be best for me to take the ACE to Times Square. I couldn’t recall where I’d seen the ACE sign though I know I see it everyday when I got off at the subway stop at work. Turns out it’s actually the same stop that houses the 23 (my line) and the ACE. Everyday I look at that sign and couldn’t recall the ACE symbols. Chas was telling me that at his former job they would change the colors of important signs around the office so people wouldn’t get numb to seeing them the way I did with the subway. 


On my way home from dinner I thought about the comforts and dangers of routines. How quickly we can get used to circumstances the way they are and grow apathetic to them to the point where we don’t know how we got from point A to point B. We stop being present and fall into this mental fog that clouds our ability to fully experience our lives. And that fog is heavy to lift, and diminishes joy. 

I’m wondering if there is a time for routines and a time for changing everything up. Are routines ever good for us? Do we have to recognize that they serve their purpose for a short period and then we have to break from them and find a new way? Is renewal critical to happiness?
child, children, family, happiness, kids

The wonder of toes

Christa Avampato

My niece, Lorelei, has recently discovered the wonder of her toes, timed just after she discovered the excitement of rolling over all on her own. It’s the little things. I was considering this during my slog to work this morning, inching along in the rain for an hour and 15 minutes. And I thought about Lorelei playing her little game of rolling over from side to side and then getting those tiny wiggling toes into her mouth. She is excited about the discovery of life. And that made me wiggle my toes a bit too, and smile for being able to do so.

That’s the wonder of children – everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, is an exciting adventure to them. The gift of fresh eyes. So whether we have kids of our own, or in our family, or have friends with kids, or volunteer with kids, or have a job that involves kids, it is a gift to be around them. They’re teaching us, at every moment, about happiness and contentment and the magic that is all around us.

economy, environment, happiness, travel

Gross National Happiness (GNH)

Christa Avampato

I’m starting to feel panic at the pump. In Rhode Island this past weekend, I paid $3.99 for a gallon of gas. When I arrived home, I found this week’s issue of Business Week waiting for me. Some energy sector analysts are predicting $200 / barrel oil by the fall of this year. Wal-mart and Costco are placing limits on the amount of rice any one customer can buy. Food bills, air fares, electricity prices are all climbing. And then there’s the real estate market.


On my long drive home from work, I often consider whether or not we did this to ourselves. Our consumption level is frighteningly high. In this country we seem unable to be happy with what we’ve got – it’s embedded in us, as Americans, that we always strive for more. 


While we are obsessed with measuring GDP, other nations in the world have different benchmarks. The country of Bhutan considers GNH, Gross National Happiness, an indicator of societal well-being. A while back I found the following definition and history of the term GNH:


“Coined by Bhutan’s King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, Gross National Happiness (GNH) measures actual well-being of a country’s citizens rather than consumption, accounting more fully for social, human and environmental realities. Its premise is that basic happiness can be measured since it pertains to quality of nutrition, housing, education, health care and community life. By contrast, the conventional concept of Gross National Product (GNP) measures only the sum total of material production and exchange in any country:


Promotion of equitable and sustainable socio-economic development

Preservation and promotion of cultural values

Conservation of the natural environment

Establishment of good governance    


At the GNH International Conference in 2004, participants adopted a declaration that said that the facilitation of GNH should be accompanied by “the development of indicators that address human physical and emotional well-being. They must be capable of use for self-evaluation, so that individuals and groups may gauge their progress in the attainment of happiness. In addition, indicators should facilitate full accountability, good governance, and socially constructive business practices, both in day-to-day life and in long-range policies and activities.”   


So while we weather this latest economic situation, the consideration of alternate indicators is at least worth a few moments of time. After all, if you’re going to wait out a storm, you might as well have some reading material that gives you hope for a better tomorrow. Learn more at http://www.grossinternationalhappiness.org


The images above can be found at http://www.transitionsabroad.com/publications/magazine/0411/Bhutan_Monastery.jpg

family, happiness

Operating on happiness

Christa Avampato

This time of year, I think of my dad. He would have been 77 this past week. Occasionally, someone will ask me what my father passed away from and I end up pausing a bit, trying to think of how to summarize all of his ailments in one short sentence. Truly, I think he died from unhappiness. And that started me down the road toward my intense interest in studying happiness. 

Recently there have been a number of academic studies and pop culture books on the subject. I’m currently reading Geography of Bliss, the story Eric Weiner’s year-long trip to learn what makes people happy in different parts of the world. And the results are surprising because everything that we strive for in the US apparently makes no difference. Money, stability, success in careers. Even love and long-term relationships. It seems that what matters most are dreams, and their pursuit. 
Now over 15 years since my dad passed away, I know what he didn’t understand is exactly what Weiner didn’t understand either before he set out on his trip. Happiness is not something to be had. You can’t grab onto it so it’s no wonder that it’s such a slippery creature. Happiness isn’t even a journey. Happiness, simply is an operating principle. Some companies choose lean manufacturing. There are a lot of people trying to clean up their lives and live in a more eco-friendly way. These are operating principles, too: At every moment, the participant considers how to make choices, every choice, within a framework, with an operating principle as a guideline for separating good options from less-than-good options.  
So if I think of happiness the same way I think of Green and lean manufacturing, and I believe truly that it is the best way to run my life, I would look at options and make the choice that does the most to increase happiness. Even if in the short-term the choice is more difficult or forces a new way of conceptualizing my life, the long-term result will be worth it. And I hope now, wherever my dad is, he knows that, too.