By Bridget Grenville-Cleave. "The aim of life is appreciation." - GK Chesterton. When I was a kid, summers were always long, lazy, languid. Time seemed almost to stand still. Contrast that with how I feel today: Always in a rush… The problem, as fans of the Slow Movement would have it, is that we’re all addicted to speed (the temporal eight-days-a-week variety that is, as opposed to the chemical, mind-altering kind), and that is the fault of our unremitting obsession with consumerism. The importance of the Slow Movement philosophy is its emphasis on savoring the good life and making the most of what we already have.

“I’ve been told that I’m incompetent, socially retarded, maladjusted. I still know that I couldn’t function in reality. Los Angeles is a good place for me.” - Diablo Cody, Writer, “Juno” -- Only a very select few ever make it, achieve their deepest dream, here in tinsel town. It is not a hidden secret that the journey to success here is a road filled with rejection and heart ache. What seems painful, limiting or defeating can become a source of strength and inspiration if viewed from a different perspective.

In the Character Strengths and Virtues Handbook, emotion regulation is included within the classification for self-regulation. Self-regulation is conceptualized as self-control, or “how a person exerts control over his or her own responses so as to pursue goals and live up to standards.

By Marie-Josée Salvas. Martha loves to cook and does it beautifully. She is equally talented at home design. Having studied fashion, she can also help just about any lady plan a make-over, including hair, make-up or clothing style. But it’s a real shame to see her go to the same federal office day after day so she can send emails, make photocopies, stamp paperwork, and align numbers in the right columns.

But just as fireflies use an enzyme luciferase to create their glow, Zimbardo believes there may a positive flip side to the Lucifer effect. His new research is focused on the processes involved when a person does the right thing despite the situational influences. He showed video of New York subway hero Wesley Autrey and photos of the famous Tank Man of Tiananmen Square... Zimbardo calls this heroic imagination and stresses that the qualities of a hero must exist before the opportunity to express them is presented. We can all be heroes-in-waiting, ready to shine our light when the situation demands it. (On topics of IPPA - International Positive Psychology Association)

Defined as “the optimal use of your resources and capabilities,” the authors illustrate how greatness is something that everyone can achieve and experience. Their brief and engaging stories of their experiences, and those of others, reflect that greatness is everywhere – in the ordinary and the extraordinary. We just have to open our eyes to see it.

Todd Kashdan: I wanted to write about curiosity because it has been neglected, even though there are few things in our arsenal that are so consistently and highly related to every facet of well-being — to needs for belonging, for meaning, for confidence, for autonomy, for spirituality, for achievement, for creativity... Curiosity is the counter-motivation to anxiety.

Although most therapists would agree that behavior change usually is difficult and does not happen overnight, I disagree with that assessment. About sixteen years ago I developed the first in a series of interventions that literally do produce rapid and permanent change.  The primary one, the Decision Maker® Belief Process (DMBP), eliminates the beliefs that cause our behavioral and emotional patterns. The DMBP and other interventions are based on a single axiom that is grounded in everyday experience:  Events have no inherent meaning. There are three corollary distinctions that arise from that axiom: There is no meaning in the world.  All meaning is in our minds.  All beliefs are merely the meaning we assign to what we observe.

Happiness is a state of being, not merely a moment of pleasure or joy. By committing to your happiness you acknowledge and accept that there will be times of challenge and suffering, but by staying true to who you are you will not just endure but thrive.

By Yee-Ming Tan.  I just finished reading Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book Outliers: The Story of Success. Much of what Gladwell has to say about successful people is little more than common sense: that talent alone is not enough to ensure success, that opportunity, hard work, family, timing and luck play important roles as well. From a coach’s perspective, the point about luck, timing and opportunity has a special relevance to the pursuit of flourishing lives for Chinese people.