Advice for Today and Every Day

It seems like a good day to finally get around to posting one of the best recent articles from Skeptical Inquirer: Nine evidence-based guidelines for a "good life."

With the usual caveats that these recommendations are premised on assumptions about having the basics of life, I found it useful. The author, Gary Bakker, is a clinical psychologist and lecturer in Australia who has published on the subject of cognitive behavioral therapy. His recommendations mesh well with those of Johann Hari, not surprisingly.

His nine guidelines are:

• Exercise your body and your brain every day.
• Count your blessings.
• Try to see others' points of view.
• People, not things, make you happy.
• Work to live. Don't live for your work.
• Keep reminding yourself: It's not all about me.
• Just teach your kids how to cope. (That is, don't try to make them "happy.")
• Use your conscious reasoning to slowly make the changes you want. 
• When stressed, process your worries consciously.

Each of those has a paragraph or two of explanation in the full article. Definitely worth checking it out. (And I can't resist: doesn't this list look like the inverse of how Mafia Mulligan has lived his life?)