Why It Doesn’t Pay to be a People-Pleaser. People ask me all the time what the secret to happiness is.
“If you had to pick just one thing,” they wonder, “what would be the most important thing for leading a happy life?” Ten years ago, I would have told you a regular gratitude practice was the most important thing—and while that is still my favorite instant happiness booster, my answer has changed. I believe the most important thing for happiness is living truthfully.
Here’s the specific advice I recently gave my kids: Live with total integrity. I’ve spent the better part of my life as a people-pleaser, trying to meet other people’s expectations, trying to keep everyone happy and liking me. People pleasing, in my extensive personal experience, is a process of guessing what other people want, or what will make them think favorably of us, and then acting accordingly. Being out of integrity has pretty serious consequences for our happiness, and for our relationships. 1. 2. 3. Google employees have enjoyed revolving door during Obama administration. Photo illustration from LinkedIn photos ALL IN THE FAMILY: These are among the more than 250 people who have transitioned from Google to government or vice versa during the Obama administration.
At least two dozen among the group have taken jobs in key posts in government or Google in that span. (Pictured, from top left to bottom right, Mikey Dickerson, Robert Manhini, Nicole Wong, Jannine Versi, Michele Weslander, Sameer Bhalotra, Julie Brill, Will Hudson, Michelle Lee, Matthew Bye, Joshua Wright and Renata Hesse.) More than 250 people have moved from Google and related firms to the federal government or vice versa since President Barack Obama took office. Do Crows Hold Funerals for Their Dead? Many who have heard the melancholy cry of the mourning dove might wonder: Do birds grieve for their loved ones?
For this Saturday’s Weird Animal Question of the Week Emilie Bouef commented via Facebook: "I heard that ravens do some kind of funeral when one of them dies. I’d love to know more about this. " Calling to each other, gathering around, and paying special attention to a fallen comrade is common among the highly intelligent corvids, a group of birds that includes crows, jays, magpies, and ravens, says Kaeli Swift, a Ph.D student in environmental science at the University of Washington.
(See "Are Crows Smarter Than Children? ") But it doesn't necessarily mean the birds are mourning for their lost buddy. In a study published recently in the journal Animal Behaviour, Swift found that American crows associate people seen handling dead crows with danger, and can be wary of feeding near such people. "These associations may be renewed" if the threat is seen again, he says.
Poor birds! First Proof That Wild Animals Really Can Communicate With Us. When humans speak up, the little African birds called honeyguides listen—and can understand, a new study confirms for the first time.
Honeyguides in northern Mozambique realize that when a man makes a special trilling sound, he wants to find a bees’ nest—and its delectable honey. Birds that hear this trill often lead human hunters to a nest, receiving a reward of honeycomb. Communication between domesticated species and people is well known, but “the fascinating point in the case of the honeyguide is that it describes such a relationship between a wild animal and humans,” says behavioral biologist Claudia Wascher of Anglia Ruskin University in Great Britain, who was not involved with the new research.
“This has not been described scientifically before.” Though the science may be new, the relationship isn't: Honeyguides and people have been cooperating in Africa for thousands if not millions of years. Science Graphic of the Week: How Magic Mushrooms Rearrange Your Brain. Communication between brain networks in people given psilocybin (right) or a non-psychedelic compound (left).
Petri et al. /Proceedings of the Royal Society Interface A new way of looking at brain activity may give insight into how psychedelic drugs produce their consciousness-altering effects. In recent years, a focus on brain structures and regions has given way to an emphasis on neurological networks: how cells and regions interact, with consciousness shaped not by any given set of brain regions, but by their interplay. Understanding the networks, however, is no easy task, and researchers are developing ever more sophisticated ways of characterizing them. Perhaps some aspects of consciousness arise from these meta-networks—and to investigate the proposition, the researchers analyzed fMRI scans of 15 people after being injected with psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, and compared them to scans of their brain activity after receiving a placebo.
La mémoire de l'eau avec Dr Benveniste.