On Reading Dennis Prager

I am doing something that I should probably do a lot more often – reading something with which I am pretty sure I will disagree. Since reading only works by people with whom you agree leads to a closed mind and groupthink, I am reading Happiness is a Serious Matter by Dennis Prager. A friend of mine, The Artist, loves Dennis Prager and is always recommending this book to me and until now, I have always politely declined. The Artist and I don’t agree about much of anything political so I blew off his recommendation as an attempt to show me the glories of libertarianism. Sorry, been there, done that. He got a mutual friend to read it and she loved it so much that she actually bought me a copy. At this point, I felt obligated to read it. Prager is a libertarian type conservative and a staunch advocate that the basis of our society is traditional judeo-christian values. I did not expect to agree with him about much, but so far I actually like some aspects of his book. We are never going to agree religiously, but we may not end up too far apart on the nature of happiness. I did not expect that. Feel free to remind me that I need to keep an open mind the next time I tell you I am not going to waste my time reading something written by a conservative. Unless it is Ann Coulter - some sacrifices are just too much.

Confessions of a Poltical Junkie

Today is Election Day in Alaska and I love politics. Love it. I have always been a political junkie. I was the weird kid who, at the age of seven, begged to be allowed to stay up and watch presidential election results. Don’t ask me why I was rooting for John Anderson, but my penchant for iconoclasm revealed itself early. I still take the day off after major elections so I can stay up all night watching the results. Partly, I love the game of it all, but I learned to love the way it can affect and improve people lives, and create history in front of us. Through disillusionment and the switching of teams, I have been passionate about it my whole life.

Even so, sometimes I have to take a break and pull back. I have never been successful at getting myself to not pay attention, but sometimes I have to not care so much. I know that the triumph of evil happens when good people do nothing. I know that apathy helps nothing, but I also wonder about the effect of caring on myself. I pull back when I start to feel like I am spending too much time in anger and despair: Anger at the other side and despair at my own. Regardless of what some might tell you, it is a tough time to be a liberal when even winning elections doesn’t guarantee results. As much as I love Rachel Maddow, I find that I am less happy when I watch her five days a week. I spend more time being upset about things I cannot control. Two or three times per week and I feel informed, but there is a point where it is too much.

So the question is, how to I protect my own mental and spiritual health and still stay well enough enformed to try to make a difference? No, I am not saying I get all my news from Rachel Maddow, but I do find her to be well informed, thoughtful, intelligent, and refreshingly civil. She is also a kick-ass role model for my girls.

As an aside, my most evangelical, Bible-thumping, small government, anti-tax, pro-war, Sarah Palin & Dr. Laura loving, social conservative colleague and I are actually voting the same way on a ballot proposition. I do not believe this has ever happened before in the almost eight years we have worked together. It is like a tiny Election Day miracle.

Sing, Sing a Song

I am not the world's greatest singer, but I have always liked to sing and been interested in singing as an approach to life. No matter how many times I had to watch Sesame Street, I always loved the song, "Sing, Sing a Song" no matter who sang it. It's simple, but it says a lot to me.

Lately, I've been coming across several references to singing and its link to happiness. Usually, when I start to notice the same topic occurring or catching my eye repeated, it's time to pay attention. One was Lizard Eater's post, which I've already mentioned, another was on Gretchen Rubin's Happiness Project. And there was a quote I wrote down the week before last at work.

After taking last week off from work, I sat down this morning, turned on my computer and started to read my e-mail with tea in hand when I looked down to see " 'I do not sing because I'm happy; I'm happy because I sing.' - William James" written on the top of my yellow legal notepad like it was the heading for my day. It helped re-frame my entire approach to the day and I actually was much happier to be at work.

At the risk of being a complete cornball maybe I'll make that quote into a sign for my desk so I can be reminded every morning. Sing and be happy; the worst that could happen is you'll look like a dork.