Money and Happiness

Why do we want to have more money?

To make ourselves more comfortable and thereby be Happy. Some smart guys in the investment industry have started to describe themselves as being in the happiness industry.

Latest research by Dresdner Kleinwort indicates that three major components determine the levels of happiness.

They are 1) Genetically inheritied (around 50%) (2) Circumstances, money etc. and (3) Intentional acivity (such as exercising regularly, being kind to others, socialising, trying to see the best, pausing to count how lucky one actually is.

While the first cannot be changed and with the second - people quickly adapt to present conditions/income changes and then take it as 'normal', any hope for being happy on a long term seems to be only with the third factor: i.e., Intentional Activity.

So, folks, get rich, nothing wrong with that. But that won't make your much happier.

Manual on Child Rearing

A comprehensive manual on Child-rearing if we may call it so, by Khalil Gibran.
And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, "Speak to us of Children."
And he said:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.