I have always believed more in the power of rewards than the power of punishment. When you are constantly being punished, no matter what the punishment is, it loses its effect. Rewards, on the other hand, keep growing exponentially, often becoming a bargaining chip, either with yourself or with someone else. Someone I knew went into real estate and every time she sold a house, she bought herself an expensive piece of jewelry. In all the time I knew her, …
Was it ever a wonder that so many people separated by war, keeping their love alive by sending love letters by snail mail, ended up getting married? There is nothing quite so exciting than to see the return address written on the envelope from someone you love, and you can’t wait to find a private moment to read your letter. Emails are nice but they will never replace the handwritten letters. There is just something so personal about a letter …
Since happiness is a state of mind, what if we approached it as a business plan? We could put it into a graph and track our progress, marking the steps along the way as goals that are attainable. It’s not an impossible objective if you look at it as something that is as concrete to track as the quarterly earnings of a business report. We know, just by looking at the graph, whether we have reached the anticipated earnings for …
I wonder if a large part of the Christmas spirit isn’t the anticipation of the gifts they will be buying and receiving. For some, it’s the anticipation of giving gifts to loved ones and to people they will never meet, the recipients of charity. For others, it’s the anticipation of receiving something they have been wanting. If this feeling of anticipation is responsible for lifting the mood of people at Christmas, why couldn’t we use that same strategy for the …