After class, I was returning a cushion that usually sits on stage right behind the guru.
I threw it from five feet away and it dangled, rocked back and forth, and finally fell in the perfect spot.
The Guru looked at me and smiled. "Good shot," he said.
I felt all warm and acknowledged inside.
Penelope Trunk is one of the most interesting and provocative writers about career happiness—and happiness in general. (I think it’s almost impossible to untangle these two issues, but Penelope might disagree with me on that.) She wrote a terrific book, Brazen Careerist
; she writes a very popular blog also called Brazen Careerist; and she’s the CEO of BrazenCareerist.com, an online community and consulting firm. The thing about Penelope is that, yes, she is brazen. She’s unusually honest about her views and her experiences (for example, she wrote a lot about going into marriage counseling), and unlike many highly opinionated people, she packs her writing with solid information and backs up her perspective.
…Is there anything that you see people around you doing or saying that adds a lot to their happiness or detracts a lot from their happiness?
I see a lot of bullshit around me. So I am sort of cynical about the discussion of happiness. I am not sure that I think the discussion of "Am I happy?" is productive. I think life is extremely difficult, for everyone, and that in order to get through life we have tricks for ourselves to continue the journey, and happiness is sort of a trick. I don’t think there is a lot of happiness in life. There is a lot of hopefulness and interest in how things unfold, and there are spurts of happiness. Sometimes I think that happiness is maybe not the most important part of a well-lived life. But I’m not sure.
Have you always felt about the same level of happiness, or have you been through a period when you felt exceptionally happy or unhappy? And why?
Always the same. I have earned $300,000/year in NYC, and I have earned $45,000 a year. And there was no change. I have been married and divorced, and there was no change. I have had lots of friends and very few friends, and no change. I am generally upbeat and optimistic, and I am an optimizer. And nearly none of those things ever changes.
Do you work on being happier? If so, how?
Yes. By reading the research and watching how it applies to my life. Right now I am consumed with the idea that one of the biggest impacts you can have on happiness levels is going from no sex to having regular sex with a regular partner. Working on that one. Forget daily gratitudes. Those don’t impact happiness nearly as much.
Orthodox Judaism, yoga and writer gatherings are ways I make new friends.
Ancient philosophers and scientists agree: Strong social ties are the KEY to happiness. You need close, long-term relationships; you need to be able to confide in others; you need to belong; you need to get and give support. Studies show that if you have five or more friends with whom to discuss an important matter, you’re far more likely to describe yourself as “very happy.”
Not only does having strong relationships make it far more likely that you take joy in life, but studies show that it also lengthens life (incredibly, even more than stopping smoking), boosts immunity, and cuts the risk of depression.
“OK, OK,” you’re thinking, “I get it—but it’s not that easy to make new friends.” Here are some strategies to try, if you’re eager to make friends but are finding it tough:
1. Show up. Just as Woody Allen said, “Eighty percent of success is showing up,” a big part of friendship is showing up. Whenever you have the chance to see other people, take it. Go to the party. Stop by someone’s desk. Make the effort.
Also, the mere exposure effect describes the fact that repeated exposure makes you like someone better—and makes that person like you better, too. You’re much more likely to become friends with someone if you see him or her often. I’ve seen this happen over and over in my life. I’ve become close to unlikely people, just because circumstances put us in constant contact.
2. Join a group. Being part of a natural group, where you have common interests and are brought together automatically, is the easiest way to make friends: Starting a new job, taking a class, having a baby, joining a congregation, or moving to a new neighborhood are great opportunities to join a group. If those situations aren’t an option, try to find a different group to join. Get a dog, for example. Or pursue a hobby more seriously.
I was talking to a beautiful woman the other day at yoga about my study and practice of the Alexander Technique. How I was becoming a teacher of the Technique.
She asked if it enabled me to read auras. I said no. I should’ve said yes. That would’ve really intrigued her.
She said she worried that her aura was all brown and gnarly.
Nice Jewish Girl IMs me:
you reading poynter? every single media outlet is going to go under hello? they all put obama in office all of them tell me one magazine, one place that did not cheer for him outside of WSJ – opinion pages, NYP, and Fox News? they made him their god – the black jesus and you heard about the sf crhon right? chron sorry if they don’t have a buyer they’re going to close and you heard about the nyt, right? wow poynter says murdoch could wind up owning the LAT! now THAT would be great, no? I would be glad about that, pray that he takes it and takes the SF Chron too and the NYT omg, it says that Murdoch could own the NYT as well!!! YES! please G-d! that would be a miracle we need balance Luke, I think he could save our country by doing that honestly it’s the only way our people are sheeple and if all the media says that obama the emporer has no clothes then it will be over over people can not think for themselves and you know what? I’m so glad that the NYP dropped that old lez bag Liz Smith and she’s a lez, you know that right? and a leftie she also had ZERO gossip, it was just regurgitated pr releases from celebs as bad as awful gossip army archerd.
The NJG: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tim-graham/2009/02/24/indiana-profs-oddly-claim-big-three-networks-slanted-toward-gop-presiden
The NJG: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEZB4taSEoA
Here’s a recent email that went out from Shalhevet (Modern Orthodox day school in LA):
In our relentless pursuit of Excellence in Education, Shalhevet School is pleased to welcome Rabbi Rodney Feinerman as its new Educational Director beginning with the 2009-2010 school year. Working closely with our Head of School, the Director will develop, guide and provide supervision for Shalhevet’s progressive model of education. Supporting the work of the Director will be our team of trained and dedicated educators. This team includes our General Studies Principal, Mr. Tranchi; our Director of Admissions Mrs. Cecilie Wizenfeld; our Department Chairs, our Director of School Life Mr. Yossi Kastan who will be responsible, among other things, for the supervision of all co-curricular a nd extra-curricular activities and related personnel; our wonderful learning specialist Ms. Maggie Tack, who is both a liaison to and a trainer of teachers; and our superb social worker from Aleinu, Mrs. Rachel Hecht.
In his personal statement of Jewish education, Rabbi Feinerman writes: "It is my belief that our students most certainly need to be well rooted in knowledge, skills and understanding in all subjects. Yet there is so much more that goes into the mix. Graduates of a quality Jewish school must reflect the internalized values of Torah and Mitzvot, possess proper moral and ethical attitudes, have a strong love and commitment to Zionism and the State of Israel and emerge as devoted Jews. An excellent well-rounded program must also contain a healthy dose of Ruach and diversified extra-curricular activities. Add to the list a thirst for the pursuit of all knowledge and we may behold a fine product of Jewish Education of which we can be proud."
Rabbi Feinerman is currently High School Principal at the Hebrew Academy of Montreal, where he supervises both General and Judaic Studies. In his time there, Rabbi Feinerman has evaluated the entire curriculum and launched implementation of a three-year vision in English, French, HistoryTanach and Geography to include WebQuests, relevancy and inter-disciplinary units. In that time he has al so deepened services for special-needs students and redefined Student Council from being adult oriented to student driven (surely the Shalhevet way!).
He has previously served at the Samuel Scheck Hillel Secondary School in North Miami Beach, Florida for seventeen years. During his tenure at Hillel he filled administrative positions for ten years, rising from a Department Chair to Secondary School Principal (grades 6-12). During those years, he designed, developed and refined the full Jewish Studies curriculum, hired and evaluated performance of faculty, developed, proposed and oversaw a $5 million budget, and created a Mentor Program for new faculty.
A true life-long learner, Rabbi Feinerman’s Continuing Education achievements reads like a list of the best programs out there! To name a few: Harvard University Summer Institute for Principals; Lookstein Center Principal’s Institute at Bar Ilan University; Co-Teaching and Differentiated Instruction at McGill University; Facing History and Ourselves; and many more.
Currently at work on his Doctorate in Educational Leadership, Rabbi Feinerman holds a M.A. degree in Education from Nova Southeastern University where he attended as a fellowship grant recipient, and received Rabbinic Ordination from Yeshiva B’nei Torah in New York.
Rabbi Feinerman and20his wife Raizy will have three children attending Shalhevet next year.
Generous Gift Allows Shalhevet to Deepen Its Department Chair Program, Name New Chairpersons in Elementary Division
With deepest appreciation, Shalhevet is the recipient of a major gift from Joseph Lipner and Abigail Yasgur targeted toward maintaining Excellence in Jewish Education at Shalhevet School. The first phase of the program has involved consultation with faculty from the UCLA and USC Graduate Schools of Education. This spring our Department Chairs and Principals will be trained in the latest best-practices for peer-to-peer teacher observation and techniques in curriculum development. This will be followed by ongoing mentoring and assessment by the university instructors, as well as faculty-wide in-service days to advance our unified approach to Excellence in Jewish Education. Other steps will include visits from other major universities and leading independent day and high schools.
We are all working together every day towards Excellence in Jewish Education!
Shabbat Shalom!
Rabbi Elchanan Weinbach
From LASuperiorCourt.org: Case Type: Contractural Fraud (General Jurisdiction) Case#: LC084499 CASE NAME: JAMES C FEDALEN VS HADASSAH THE WOMEN’S ZIONIST ORGANIZATION Parties: DOES 1 TO 50 – Defendant,FEDALEN JAMES C. – Attorney-Plaintiff,FEDALEN JAMES C. – Plaintiff,HADASSAH THE WOMEN’S ZIONIST ORGANIZATION – Defendant,YOUNG JUDAEA – Defendant Attorneys: Date Filed: 02/20/2009
Doc, when I was sick last week, I really missed this. This is my favorite two hours of my week. You’re present. You don’t say stupid things. You think before you speak and then what you have to say helps me. The only thing that could top this would be really hot sex and you’re my therapist and it would be unprofessional of us to have that kind of relationship and I don’t think it would be beneficial for our work, so considering those points, I’m quite happy with what we’ve got, I don’t want anymore, this is just right. I like how you listen.
About 18 years ago, I complained to my mom that she wasn’t listening. She passed this on to her best friend Katie who replied, "Luke is a wounded young god. If he were healthy and at UCLA, he’d have 500 people paying attention to him."
"So how do you feel about that?"
It’s pretty right on. I know it’s not cool to admit, but I really like attention. I know preachers and rabbis, they are most alive when they are speaking to a thousand people. That’s what I grew up on. They seemed half as alive when they were speaking to 500 people and so on. When they were just speaking to you one on one, they were dead fish.
So yeah, I depend on this. On you. Not in a bad way. I was sick last week, you took a three week vacation for Christmas, life went on. I didn’t do anything daft. But I’m mature enough to be able to say to you that I depend on you and this work is important to me and I appreciate your good work.
"Thank you for the compliments."
So last night I was lying in bed. It’s hard for me to go to sleep. So I almost always play something in the background, either Dennis Prager’s radio show or a book on tape or some music. Last night it was the Beach Boys’ Greatest Hits. And song number fourteen was "God Only Knows."
It touched me. I started feeling things. I started feeling gratitude.
I’m not the most moral guy around. I have pretty loose moorings to good morals some of the time and I am tremendously affected by the people I hang around. When I hung out with porners, I had pretty loose sexual morals. When I hang out with the Orthodox, I have pretty loose sexual morals but at least I feel I should be better.
I depend upon good people allowing me in their life to have a tie to strong morals.
So I started feeling grateful to all my rabbis. I wanted to put their pictures on my blog and then write about how grateful I was, even though they all ejected me from their shuls. Strangely, that just makes me respect them even more and feel more grateful for the time I had in their communities. I feel like their ejections mugged me into leading a better life. Now I’ve got things sorted out. I’m out of porn. I’m earning an honorable livelihood with the help of loans and credit cards. I feel like I’m poised to do some great things.
But I didn’t get up and write anything because I know that other nights I listen to other songs and I get all angry at the rabbis who rejected me and I want to write bad things about them.
The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.
Yeah, I start feeling all righteous and vengeful and I want to lay my vengeance upon them. And I got a blog and I got a brain and I can lay the divine karma down kosher-style.
So I was lying there last night listening to the Beach Boys and thought it’d be a bit daft of me to get up and write about how grateful I am to my rabbis and then a few nights later, I listen to some heavy metal Scorpions and I get up and lay the smack down. Makes people think I’m loony.
Three weeks ago, I was sitting in Torah class and I suddenly got this righteous rage on that rabbis want to be flattered and my problems with rabbis stem from my being a fearless truth-teller and too moral to flatter them and how angry I am that flatterers succeed in the world and get the scholarships and awards, and how much I despise careerists who won’t stand up for what they believe so they don’t hurt their chances at getting on, and I went home and blogged it all out. I was possibly hurt that my rabbi hadn’t returned my email, but he must get tons of emails, it’s not such a big deal, but what if he didn’t want to talk to me? Well, then, he’d be telling me to nick off and that would make me hurt and then shamed and then mad and then I wouldn’t have any obligations to him and the shul, but if he takes the time to talk to me, well then, I take off all the articles he objects to. I’ll meet him halfway. As long as he knows if he kicks me out of the shul that the shul no longer gets my special protection. If it don’t protect me, then why should I protect it?
Can’t get fairer than that?
So I’m meeting him halfway. I took off a dozen articles. I might need his help down the road and he seems like a reasonable bloke and I should be a reasonable bloke and Bob’s your uncle.
So everything started falling together last week. It was only good news aside from being laid up with the flu. But this is what gets me, just when everything is rolling, when I should be kvelling, I have this recurring thought — what would be the single most inappropriate thing I could say right now?
Whenever I’m nervous and am having an important conversation, that loop keeps playing through my head. I never act it out but I’m losing what should be good times thinking about all the horrible things I could say.
"Why do you think that is?"
Well, I’m emotional. I have ups and downs. I’m volatile. But I’m in control. I don’t do anything I can’t control. It’s that so many people think I’m evil.
A good friend of mine called me about two years ago. "Luke," she said. "This has been lying heavy on my heart for a couple of weeks and I have to talk to you about it." And she laid out this conversation she had with someone in the community who told her I was evil and that she should shun me. He said I was volatile and reactive and I was dangerous. Well, I am a bit volatile and I do react, but never out of control. She said all these evil unhinged things this man said about me and they had no basis in reality.
"Do you think you’re evil?"
No! But so many people do. And it gets in my head sometimes and I think what could I possibly do by accident that would precipitate something bad happening just like they predict? I’m powerfully affected by how other people think of me. When someone gives me a good name, I want to live up to it and when someone gives me a bad name, I want to live up to it.
I told my friend that I was 42 and had never been arrested let alone convicted of any crime. That my life had been chronicled and investigated more than 999 out of a thousand and I was a pretty known quantity.
"You felt like you needed to defend yourself?"
Yes. It was crazy. There’s little that is human that is foreign to me. I know I am capable of evil just like most people. I know I have some bad thoughts and bad desires and they need to be disciplined and I discipline them. But I’m in control, Dr. Spielvogel.
On my way here, I listened to "The Kite Runner" on CD. I saw the movie last year. I’ve got a little tear in my eye. It’s heartbreaking about how callously cruel we can be.
In fifth grade, I had this chubby girl who liked me and I kicked her. And one day she said to me, "One day you will love someone and she’ll kick you and you’ll know how it feels."
I left tacks on her seat, pointy end up, for her to sit on.
And I know I am capable of careless cruelty. A lack of precision with my facts or my wording and wham, I’ve wrecked someone.
Then I watched this movie that my yoga teacher was in — Enduring Love. It’s about the havoc one deranged person can have on an otherwise orderly life. It makes me feel vulnerable like driving in traffic you have to depend on everyone else following the rules of the road and employing a bit of courtesy now and again. Our lives are fragile and one wrong fact and I could ruin someone’s life. I don’t want to be carelessly cruel, doc.
What keeps me on track are my friends. I owe them so much. They took chances on me. They heard the bad things said about me and they’ve given me a chance and they’ve invested in me and it is so deeply important to me that I don’t let them down.
Then I grabbed her by the hair and… I can’t make you giggle today.
"I might have to stop you."
Stop me? You mean put on limits? But I haven’t been bad. I don’t deserve limits yet. I wasn’t being gratuitous. I need to work out my feelings about the rough stuff. This is for my therapy. You say you want to stop me. That means I’ve gone too far. You think I’m abusing my privileges as a patient, but I haven’t. This is for my work.
Oy, limits! I hate limits! If you put limits on me, that means I’ve been bad, and now I feel ashamed that I’ve violated boundaries. Oy, I feel shame. I haven’t been bad, have I? Don’t make me feel ashamed. Doc, God only knows what I’d be without you. If you should ever leave me, though life would still go on believe me, the world could show nothing to me, so what good would living do me?
BOBABAILEY: WHATS THE WORD FOR THE EVENING MORAL LEADER
zzzzzZZZZ: He is watching tv
BOBABAILEY: NOW WHAT KIND OF LEADER IS THAT
zzzzzZZZZ: A lazy one
BOBABAILEY: WHERES HES AT WHEN U NEED HIM
zzzzzZZZZ: Why you need him?
BOBABAILEY: JUST HAVE TROUBLE WITH WHERE WE COME FROM
zzzzzZZZZ: Where you come from?
BOBABAILEY: YES
BOBABAILEY: MAN
BOBABAILEY: WOMEN
BOBABAILEY: HUMANS
zzzzzZZZZ: Where’s that then
BOBABAILEY: THATS WHAT I NEED TO KNOW
zzzzzZZZZ: Birds and the bees
zzzzzZZZZ: It’s messy stuff.
BOBABAILEY: BUT BESIDE THAT THE BIG PICTURE
BOBABAILEY: WHERE DID WE COME FROM
zzzzzZZZZ: God created us.
BOBABAILEY: BUT THE SCEINCEST SAY DIFFERENT
zzzzzZZZZ: Ah.. gibberish
zzzzzZZZZ: know-it-alls
BOBABAILEY: CHILDREN OF THE STARS THEY SAY
zzzzzZZZZ: Children of God I say..
User BOBABAILEY left the room.
zzzzzZZZZ: I have that affect on people.
zzzzzZZZZ: I’m going now… I’m going to bang down that Hovel door and jump on you.
zzzzzZZZZ: On my way….
Try to read this New York Times story without tearing up:
LONDON — Ivan Cameron was just 6, a boy with a lovely smile who was born with cerebral palsy and a severe form of epilepsy that deprived him of the ability to walk, talk or feed himself, and caused him to spend much of his time in the hospital, sometimes with his parents sleeping on the floor beside him.
Early Wednesday, when Ivan died, the news resonated deeply in Britain. The BBC made his death the lead item on its main news bulletins for much of the day, ahead of the world financial crisis. For the first time in 15 years, the House of Commons canceled prime minister’s questions, the 30 minutes of pugilistic politics that is Parliament’s main weekly attraction, and devoted the time instead to tributes to Ivan by Prime Minister Gordon Brown and other party leaders.
What made Ivan headline news at his death, and a topic of widespread public sympathy while he was alive, was that he was the oldest child of David Cameron, the leader of the opposition Conservative Party and the man heavily favored by opinion polls to be Britain’s prime minister after an election that must be held by June 2010.
But there was something more, and that was what the British public learned about Mr. Cameron and his wife, Samantha, through the prism of Ivan’s life.
