REBTOZ

The Dalai Lama says to be kind wherever possible and that it’s always possible. He talks about ‘cultivating’ attitudes of kindness and to practise empathy and sincere concern for others. Then there’s ‘mindfulness’, practising awareness of our feelings and actions and our underlying attitudes. What are we doing? How are we feeling? How are we behaving? Kindness is catching! Albert Ellis talks about unconditional acceptance of others (UOA). This entails consciously and intentionally being aware of our prejudices and dislikes when considering others and not judging them totally on the basis of a disagreeable (to you) quality or characteristic. Random acts of kindness it is said is as good for the giver as it is for the receiver (givee?) because it engenders feelings of empathy and concern. It enables the release of endorphins which produce the ‘natural high’ we may experience. We can choose to act kindly towards others and the trick it seems is not to accept a...

What is zest and how do you get it? Bertrand Russell used the term in his book the Conquest of Happiness to describe the qualities of optimism and enthusiasm for life. He scoffed at the idea that we should aspire to be happy and successful all the time as an impossible ideal! The expectation that we could achieve such a state of being was an affliction in itself, an unrealistic goal indeed, causing anxiety and depression. So zest is a quality essential to the enjoyment of life, an energy precipitated by what? The literature talks about the role of our genetic predisposition towards having a particular personality type and the importance of our early learning, our socialisation. It is not clear which plays the bigger role in determining our philosophy on life but I think that our early experience goes a long way to formulating the ideas and beliefs that govern how we go about things. I subscribe to the constructivist view that each of us seeks meaning from the world around us and in mak...