Progress paradox…living with less and liking it

Great questions posed by Katherine Schulten in the New York Times The Learning Network section.  I recently completed Dr. John Medina Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School.  It was Rule #10 Vision trumps all other senses that…

“vision is by far our most dominant sense…we learn and remember best through pictures, not through written or spoken words”

This statement brought an image to my mind, a New Years Day chess game with my seven year old son which has multiple dimensions both literal and metaphorical to that of Katherine Schulten’s questions.

These questions brought me to a thought provoking book by Gregg Easterbrook called Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse.   However we answered the six questions, they make us stop and collect our thoughts.  My answers pointed me to the three virtues Easterbrook points out that are key to happiness:  forgiving of others; gratefulness and being optimistic about the future.

Enough of my long windedness, here are the questions:

1. WHOM do you know whose priorities have shifted from buying products to doing activities with friends and loved ones as a result of the recession. 
2. WHAT do the Department of Labor’s time-use surveys show about how Americans have changed?  WHAT, according to this article, are people doing for fun now?
3. WHERE have you gone recently to find entertainment that was free or low-cost?
4. WHEN, according to Richard Florida, did Americans react differently to a previous economic crisis?
5. WHY do you think psychologists say that shared experiences like vacations lead to more long-term happiness than buying the latest bauble?
6. HOW long do you think our new habit of buying less will last?