There’s something inherently happy-making about being told you’re happy. I mean, what’s more cheerifying than the news that your fellow citizens—and you among them—have been given a berth on a list of the world’s lightest souls? And so it is with Canadians, who were prominently included recently in a ranking of the world’s happiest people. This is the 24/7 Wall St. list of the Countries With the Happiest People, a...
A scientist approaches God and says, “Listen, we’ve decided we no longer need you. Nowadays, we can clone people, transplant hearts and do all kinds of things that were once considered miraculous.” God hears the guy out before replying. “All right,” he says. “To see whether or not you still need me, why don’t we have a man-making contest?” “I’m in,” says the scientist. “Now, we’re going to do this just...
“Your face, my Thane, is as a book where men may read strange matters.” So said Lady Macbeth to her nervous husband on the eve of their planned regicide. And while the rest of us may not have king-murdering schemes written across our features, all of our faces are vast repositories of information about the personalities that lurk behind them. Personology is the science of reading faces, wherein a person’s...
“In our daily lives,” said celebrated author Arthur Clarke, “we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but the gratefulness that makes us happy.” It’s a lesson the world could stand to learn, given the stark absence of gratitude that characterizes the professional landscape most of us occupy. According to a recent Gallup poll, a full 65% of people say they don’t feel appreciated at work. For the...
The world right now seems shrouded in such incredible murk it’s a wonder any of us can put a foot in front of the other. Every new day, every new Anderson Cooper utterance, every new splash of 72-point newsprint ink brings fresh reason for despair. The aftershocks of a devastating earthquake on a pristine strip of humanity in the South Pacific. The ravings of a despot in northern Africa intent on taking a country...