Happy New Year's Resolution

Like many people I feel a little deflated after the holidays. The company is gone. The tree and decorations are no longer festive, they're a nuisance. For me there is a a slightly dreadful feeling that there is nothing to look forward to but warm weather, which could be many months away.

So it seemed very appropriate that as I drove to work one day last week the Diane Rehm show featured a writer/contributor named Eric Weiner, talking about his book "The Geography of Bliss." In it he examines why some cultures are happier than others. It isn't because of weather (people in Iceland are about the happiest in the world) or money (a little money can buy a little happiness but a lot of money doesn't buy much more).

No, apparently people are happiest when they don't chase happiness, when they don't read self-help books or constantly analyze the source of their unhappiness - like in the U.S. where we suffer from the "unhappiness of being unhappy."

Happiness, it seems, is best approached sideways, like a crab. And as Mr. Weiner put it, it isn't something you obtain, it is a side effect of a "life lived fully and a life lived well."

So, to my friends and family, here's to 2008. May it be a year that is lived fully and well.