14,000 things to be happy about

I saw in an article the other day that there is a book called 14,000 things to be happy about. So I searched Amazon and sure enough there it was. The author is Barbara Ann Kipfer. She is also the author of The 1325 Buddhist ways to be happy, 1,400 things for kids to be happy about, and 4,000 questions for getting to know anyone.

Here's my thoughts. Thinking of things to be happy about, great. Making a list and spending some time focusing on them, great. Sharing those things with your friends and family and finding out what makes them happy, great. Writing them in a book and charging people money to read them, lame.

I applaud Ms. Kipfer because she has found a way to make money for herself and she probably feels like her books are uplifting and help people out. However, if I ran a book store I would never carry this book or any of the other three titles I mentioned. I bet any of you reading this blog could write any of these books and have them finished in a week or two. If I was an author I would probably be very frustrated that books like this would make it on the shelf next to mine.

What do you think? Would you be interested in reading these books or do you think you could write them yourself? Am I being to hard on her? Any other ridiculous books out there that you've seen?

No Privacy

I was reading an author's blog the other day and he was referencing a world without any privacy to make a point. It got me thinking that people value privacy to different degrees. Some people keep as much private as the possibly can. Things like pay, what they spend their money on, their past, what's in their closet, what people see them doing, their naked body, their feelings about things...etc. I all areas of our life we all determine how much we keep private and if something we want to remain private gets out then we would be pretty upset about it.

After considering what type of stuff you like to keep private now think about a world with no privacy. This is probably not possible because some stuff you could keep privately in your head but bare with me on this. Imagine everyone knows how much you get paid, how you spend all of your time, what you have purchased and what you paid for those purchases, what you eat, how long you sleep, how well you brush your teeth, your routine in the shower, what you watch on TV, what you look at on the Internet, what is said in your conversations, what you read... etc. The list could go on forever.

In thinking about this no privacy concept I think it could be very liberating. I think a lot of stress comes from keeping things private and if it was all out there on the table you could let go of a lot of feelings and emotions like pride, shame, fear, envy and so on. Everyone would be completely exposed and we would see everyone's shortcomings or oddities as well as things that would probably impress us. It could also enhance all those feelings and emotions because they would not longer be held back by our not knowing certain things.

Not sure if this makes sense but here's the task for you to consider. Think about various areas in your life and where you draw the line when it comes to what is public and what is private. Feel free to explain why certain things are private but I would challenge you to not use the reason "because it is no one else's business". That may be true but I think maybe that isn't the true reason, it is just the easiest one for us to give.

What people are capable of

In Genesis 11 we are given an account of the people of Earth deciding to build a city with a tower that reaches toward heaven. God then has a very interesting reaction.

He says "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other."

The implication here is that if all people are united, no matter what the purpose, we could accomplish it. Nothing would be impossible for us. Things like peace, the end of any starvation, curing cancer and stopping genocide are all possible if everyone wanted them.

The impossible task seems to be getting everyone in the world to come together behind a common cause. The world is so riddled with division that it seems near impossible to get even small groups united behind a cause.

I forget the guy's name but I was reading about him the other day and he believed that the growing population was destroying our advancement and keeping us from ever reaching our highest social and economic goals. A lot of people disagree with that believing instead that more people equates to more mind power and labor that can contribute.

What do you think? Could the world ever overcome its many differences in order to pursue a common goal? Is the constantly growing population hurting mankind or helping it? Take a few minutes to read the account of the tower of Babel, it is in Genesis in the first part of chapter 11 and see how it strikes you.