As a “Certified Happiness Coach,” I wonder about happiness. Is it sustainable or is it intrinsically fleeting and ephemeral?

Is sustainable happiness realistically achievable - without spending most of your life in a Buddhist monastery?

In recent months, I have written on abstract topics: positive psychology, uncertainty, wisdom, Stoicism. It’s time to leave the clouds behind, at least temporarily, and sink our collective teeth into a good story.

Unjustifiably overlooked, Toltec wisdom occupies the dusty back shelves in the metaphysical sections of used-book stores, ignored by the woo-woo nerds who prefer the mini-Zen of Thich Nhat Hanh and the plethora of pop-Hindu put out by Deepak Chopra (Introduction by Oprah).

A verbal contract isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.

Every Tom, Dick, and Harry is named William.

Include me out.

When has the world needed wisdom more?

Never …

Stephen Covey would have called 2022 a year of “sharpening the saw” for me, learning and sharing wisdom and positive psychology, while coaching people along the way.

No doubt, the holidays depress many of us. Indulge me a few more minutes while I suggest some tried-and-true methods to emotionally vaccinate you against the holiday blues. Like all vaccinations, these suggestions may not cure the illness, but application may lead to mitigation of negative symptoms.

On April 29, 2022, I posted “Are You Sure?” In it, I promised a series of articles about how understanding uncertainties and paradoxes leads to increased wisdom. This is Part Two.

The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing.

Marcus Aurelius

Except to the most avid seekers of wisdom, Stoicism is either unknown or misunderstood. To the average person, this vibrant, action-oriented, and paradigm-shifting way of living has become shorthand for “emotionless.” … In its rightful place, Stoicism is a tool in the pursuit of self-mastery, perseverance, and wisdom.

Men are not moved by things but the views which they take of them.

Epictetus

Wisdom can be conveyed in many ways: long philosophical tomes, allegories, myths, poems, literature, parables, fables, songs, and aphorisms.

An aphorism is typically defined as a “a pithy observation that contains a general truth.”

Just when I discovered the meaning of life, they changed it.

George Carlin

None of us knows as much as we think we do. In my study of wisdom, I have concluded the universe consists of little we humans would call certain.

For those of you who know me as a skeptic (I’ve also been called a “curmudgeon” more times than I care to remember) and believe, based upon my other articles on positive psychology, I have drunk the Kool-Aid, this article will reassure you.

From one of my readers (JB): “Congratulations on your positive psychology course! I want your top 10 suggestions for being positive.”

I feel compelled to make sure that none of us are confused by the distinction between “positive thinking” and “positive psychology.”

Ten years before Dr. Dilip Jeste published “Wiser,” a science writer by the name of Stephen S. Hall published “Wisdom: From Philosophy to Neuroscience.” His views on how to define wisdom are so aligned with my own and so well-articulated, the best I can do is quote him (at some length) and provide a very few comments.

You, my friend … are you not ashamed … to care so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul, which you never regard or heed at all? Socrates