Joe Jaworski, son of the lawyer who indicted Nixon, suggests that by opening ourselves to the possibilities in the world around us and responding to the subtle signs we then see, we can induce predictable miracles to happen around us. That’s how I felt this week.
Having written about the power of smiling and then the benefits of focus over the last couple of weekends, I came across a significant piece of research which links the two. Admittedly there is research and there is research and it’s often difficult to tell which is which, but this has the appearance of the latter, with half a million data points gathered from 15,000 people over the course of more than two and a half years… thus far.
The main findings around the subject of happiness are very interesting, but there was a side bar which suggests that, on average, we allow our minds to wander half of the time. The percentage varies between certain tasks (for example it’s only 10% during sex!), but the crucial working day mirrors the overall average at 50%. It may be worth repeating that, in case you were thinking about something else.
Our minds wander HALF of every working day!
More interesting still is the correlation between focus and happiness. When daydreaming, we can drift onto positive, neutral or negative subjects…mostly personal concerns. Positive daydreaming has a largely neutral effect on our happiness, but neutral and negative daydreaming cause us to be less happy and downright unhappy respectively … and this results in decreased productivity, which I suspect is likely to reinforce the effect.
It is actually when our minds are focused on a task that we are at our happiest and, er… productive too!
With all this going through my mind this morning I can’t say I had a particularly happy run (in running terms), but it was at least a pleasant day… and a fitting close to the mild-mannered Year of the Rabbit which ends today.
I followed the same route as the last couple of weeks… I suppose I should name it my thinking route. The first five miles were relatively hard going and the thought of cutting it short did cross my mind, but at the turn point I was one minute up on last week at 44 minutes. The second five miles were equally tough but I managed to hold a faithful pace and returned another 44 minute time.
So ten miles in 1.28, average 6.8mph.
Lots of chores to do now to get the place clean in preparation for Chinese New Year tomorrow… it’ll be a miracle if we get them all done!