Water ... Soft Drinks ... and Cancer
The chemical benzene is an aggressive carcinogen. It's known to cause leukemia and other cancers of the blood, even in minute amounts. That's why municipal water supplies must test for it and adhere to strict limits. So what is it doing in soft drinks ... and at levels eight times higher than those allowed for drinking water?
Those are the levels of benzene that the UK's Food Standards Agency (FSA) found in some soft drinks when they ordered tests on 230 different varieties. They took the action after the FDA revealed similar results in soft drinks tested in the States. The FSA will not reveal the identity of the drinks. (It appears they may be more concerned with protecting the soft drink industry than protecting health.)
Scientists believe that benzene is produced when the chemical preservative sodium benzoate is mixed with ascorbic acid (vitamin C) in the drinks. Whatever the cause, this is just more evidence of the potential consequences of ingesting the artificial ingredients and preservatives found in processed foods and drinks.
(Reference: The Times Online )
- Jon Herring
(Ed. Note: This isn't the first time Jon has mentioned the questionable motives of the FSA. If you're interested, go back and read what he wrote in Message #1348 and Message #1462 .)
______________________________
"Happiness is not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort."
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
If You Want to Be Happy for the Rest of Your Life ...
By Michael Masterson
I was happy this morning.
After stretching on my bedroom balcony as the sun came up, I made a pot of coffee and ambled to my writing studio above the garage. There, I put on a disc of Gregorian chants and began my daily work as a story writer, picking up the narrative thread I'd left yesterday and moving the action forward one sentence at a time. Three hours later, at nine o'clock, I had emended a thousand old words, written five hundred new ones, and felt good about what I had done.
It was still early ... and yet I knew that if I did nothing else before bedtime, I'd accomplished something worthwhile. That thought made me happy.
It also fueled my energy systems. I came into the office charged and ready to tackle my next priority - writing this ETR essay on, coincidentally, the relationship between work and happiness.
Last week, I received two e-mails on this subject. The first, from an avid ETR reader, posed the question: "You have said in the past that happiness comes from work. Do you really believe it?"
The second one came from a colleague: "What do you do when the thing you are good at isn't the thing that really turns you on?"
Let's start with some simple observations:
. There's a difference between happiness and pleasure.
. Pleasure is personal and temporary; happiness is inclusive and enduring.
. If you make pleasure your goal, you'll eventually sacrifice happiness.
. If you make happiness your goal, you won't get that either.
Did you get all that? Good. Now let me try to answer both of those questions.
Do I really believe that happiness comes from working? Yes - but only from a certain kind of working. You won't experience happiness if you work at a job you hate or if you do poor work on a project you like. The feeling of happiness I had this morning - the kind that is good while you are working and gives you energy when you stop - comes only when:
1. You believe your work is meaningful.
And ...
2. You work at a relatively high level of competency.
If either of these two conditions is absent, the work won't make you happy. If you don't believe that your work is valuable, you won't feel good about it ... even if you do it well. And if you value what you do but do it poorly, you will be frustrated and upset.
To have that great feeling I had this morning, both factors must be in place: caring about what you do and doing what you care about well.
I'm not the only one who has noticed the relationship between work and happiness. All sorts of smart and successful people, including Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Edison, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Flagler, Warren Buffett, and Albert Einstein have commented on this connection. And a new study, conducted by a Swedish university, concluded that, over the long run, "people who work hard get the most joy."
Dr Bruelde, head of the Swedish study, told the BBC that most people imagine that happiness comes from relaxing on the beach. "But if you do it for too long, our study shows, it stops being satisfying."
Of the hundreds of people interviewed for the study, some mentioned family, friends, and church as factors in personal happiness. But the majority cited "work that takes advantage of one's strengths and allows one to work toward a goal."
In Message #1374 Brian Tracy echoed these ideas. He said that to be happy in life you must work at something "you have a natural gift for." Only when you focus your energies on "unlocking your true potential," he said, "will you be able to claim your ultimate birthright: happiness."
Tracy's advice for a happy life is to "dedicate yourself to the development of your natural talents and abilities by doing what you love to do and continuing to do it better and better."
I hardly ever disagree with Brian Tracy, but in this case we have a slightly different view of things. I agree that if you have natural talents it sometimes makes good sense to develop them - but it doesn't follow that in developing them you will wind up any happier. Our history is riddled with stories of individuals who developed their natural talents to genius levels and yet never achieved even a modicum of happiness. (Think Van Gogh or Anne Sexton or Kurt Cobain.)
Which brings us back to that second question: "What do you do if the thing you do well is not the thing you love?"
One answer - the one that Brian Tracy might give - is to quit what you are doing and devote your heart and soul to the thing you love. But if my colleague did this, I am not sure he would be happy. What would probably happen is this: He would quickly fall into debt - which he wouldn't like at all. And he'd spend a lot of time being unhappy at the work that he was sure would make him happy.
Why?
Remember what I said above: To be happy at your work, you not only need to be doing something you care about, you also need to be good at what you are doing. And at this point, my colleague would be only sporadically good at his work because it would be new to him.
It would actually be easier for him to find happiness by discovering the value in what he already does well. That way, he could have his cake and eat it too. He could make a great living by being good at something he cares about.
We want to be happy all of the time. And sometimes, when we are temporarily unhappy, we want to make a change so that we will never be unhappy again. "If only things were different," we tell ourselves ...
. "If only I had another job."
. "If only I made more money."
. "If only I didn't have to work so many hours."
. "If only I could spend more time working outdoors"
... and so on.
The truth is, we are not designed to be perpetually happy. The natural pattern of life has its ups and downs, its ebbs and flows, its peaks and valleys. As Carl Jung said, "Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word 'happy' would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness."
No, we can't be happy all the time ... but we can be happier than we are.
So how do we do that? Is there a way to be both happy at work and happy when we are not working? Here are a few things to think about:
1. Recognize the importance of being good at what you do.
When my mind is foggy and I can't write a single good sentence, I am not happy - even though I'm doing something that matters to me. To be happier with my work, therefore, I have to become more skillful at it. If I accept the fact that it takes time to develop complex skills (1,000 hours for competence; 5,000 hours for mastery), I won't be too upset with myself when I am having an awkward day.
2. Find the value in your talents.
"If you can't be with the one you love," Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young sang, "love the one you're with." This is true of our work, too. So the advice I'd give my colleague (who makes his living as a financial analyst but secretly yearns to be an actor): You don't have to give up your dream of acting - but if you spend some time trying to appreciate the importance of what you do (if it's so meaningless, why are you so well paid?), you'll be happier.
3. Don't give up your day job.
Practice your passion on a part-time basis until you can make a good living at it. That's what I'm doing with my fiction. And that's what my colleague should be doing with his acting. Spend your evenings and weekends working on what you love - and if the day comes when you can quit your job and make a living from it, so much the better.
____________________
Today's Action Plan
There's something else I've learned about the relationship between happiness and work: Don't work so hard or so long that you neglect your family and friends. If you do that, you will eventually regret it.
Here's how I keep myself from falling into that trap:
. I don't take work home at night. I put in my time at the office - and then I come home, leaving my laptop and papers.
. I don't take work home on weekends. If I want to put in an extra few hours on Saturday, I clear it with my family in advance. But, again, I don't pull out the computer or papers in front of the family. It sends the wrong message.
. Away from work, I try my best to stay "in the present." For me, this was the hardest lesson to learn because my mind is always jumping from one topic (the story someone is telling me) to another (something related that happened at work). When I feel myself drifting - and it happens frequently - I pull myself back.
When I follow these rules, I am happier twice - at work and at home. I recommend that you do the same.
- Michael Masterson
______________________________
It's Good to Know: Better Than Google?
Search engines certainly make research easy. Type in a question or topic, and you get thousands of possibilities. But what do you do when Google fails you? Or when you don't have enough time to try the Google Answers service ? Or when you can't find a reliable online source? Or when you just don't know what to look for?
You could, of course, do it the old-fashioned way and visit your local library. But if you want answers instantaneously, try Mass Answers, an online, 24-hour service that connects you to live librarians around the country. Type in your name and your question, and within minutes you'll be "chatting" with a real person who will provide you with answers from reliable sources both on- and off-line.
Sign up with your name and zip code, and type your question in the question field. Once you hit "connect," you'll be linked to a librarian. You'll be able to communicate with each other on the right side of your screen while she/he researches your question.
Once the librarian finds your answer, she/he will send the relevant articles or Web pages to the left side of your screen. You and the librarian can look at each page simultaneously, and you have the opportunity to ask follow-up questions. If you provided your e-mail address at the beginning of the session, you'll receive an e-mailed transcript of your conversation as well as any results. Should your question prove difficult, you have the option of speaking to another librarian who may have more ideas about how to perform your search. Or you can forward your transcript to a follow-up folder, where it will be reviewed and answered by other librarians over a period of several days.
- Suzanne Richardson
______________________________
Word to the Wise: Cupidity
"Cupidity" (kyoo-PID-ih-tee) is eager or excessive desire, especially for wealth. The word is derived from the Latin "cupere" ("to desire"). It is, of course, related to Cupid, the Roman god of love.
Example (as used by Stephen Bayley in the Independent): "Myself, I have always believed that BMWs achieve their presence (and their grip on the collective imagination and cupidity of the middle classes) because they combine an athletic, masculine bulk and stance with feminine details and lines.”
Michael Masterson
__________________________________________________
These articles appear courtesy of Early to Rise [Issue #1682, 03-21-06], the Internet's most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com/.
Those are the levels of benzene that the UK's Food Standards Agency (FSA) found in some soft drinks when they ordered tests on 230 different varieties. They took the action after the FDA revealed similar results in soft drinks tested in the States. The FSA will not reveal the identity of the drinks. (It appears they may be more concerned with protecting the soft drink industry than protecting health.)
Scientists believe that benzene is produced when the chemical preservative sodium benzoate is mixed with ascorbic acid (vitamin C) in the drinks. Whatever the cause, this is just more evidence of the potential consequences of ingesting the artificial ingredients and preservatives found in processed foods and drinks.
(Reference: The Times Online )
- Jon Herring
(Ed. Note: This isn't the first time Jon has mentioned the questionable motives of the FSA. If you're interested, go back and read what he wrote in Message #1348 and Message #1462 .)
______________________________
"Happiness is not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort."
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
If You Want to Be Happy for the Rest of Your Life ...
By Michael Masterson
I was happy this morning.
After stretching on my bedroom balcony as the sun came up, I made a pot of coffee and ambled to my writing studio above the garage. There, I put on a disc of Gregorian chants and began my daily work as a story writer, picking up the narrative thread I'd left yesterday and moving the action forward one sentence at a time. Three hours later, at nine o'clock, I had emended a thousand old words, written five hundred new ones, and felt good about what I had done.
It was still early ... and yet I knew that if I did nothing else before bedtime, I'd accomplished something worthwhile. That thought made me happy.
It also fueled my energy systems. I came into the office charged and ready to tackle my next priority - writing this ETR essay on, coincidentally, the relationship between work and happiness.
Last week, I received two e-mails on this subject. The first, from an avid ETR reader, posed the question: "You have said in the past that happiness comes from work. Do you really believe it?"
The second one came from a colleague: "What do you do when the thing you are good at isn't the thing that really turns you on?"
Let's start with some simple observations:
. There's a difference between happiness and pleasure.
. Pleasure is personal and temporary; happiness is inclusive and enduring.
. If you make pleasure your goal, you'll eventually sacrifice happiness.
. If you make happiness your goal, you won't get that either.
Did you get all that? Good. Now let me try to answer both of those questions.
Do I really believe that happiness comes from working? Yes - but only from a certain kind of working. You won't experience happiness if you work at a job you hate or if you do poor work on a project you like. The feeling of happiness I had this morning - the kind that is good while you are working and gives you energy when you stop - comes only when:
1. You believe your work is meaningful.
And ...
2. You work at a relatively high level of competency.
If either of these two conditions is absent, the work won't make you happy. If you don't believe that your work is valuable, you won't feel good about it ... even if you do it well. And if you value what you do but do it poorly, you will be frustrated and upset.
To have that great feeling I had this morning, both factors must be in place: caring about what you do and doing what you care about well.
I'm not the only one who has noticed the relationship between work and happiness. All sorts of smart and successful people, including Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Edison, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Flagler, Warren Buffett, and Albert Einstein have commented on this connection. And a new study, conducted by a Swedish university, concluded that, over the long run, "people who work hard get the most joy."
Dr Bruelde, head of the Swedish study, told the BBC that most people imagine that happiness comes from relaxing on the beach. "But if you do it for too long, our study shows, it stops being satisfying."
Of the hundreds of people interviewed for the study, some mentioned family, friends, and church as factors in personal happiness. But the majority cited "work that takes advantage of one's strengths and allows one to work toward a goal."
In Message #1374 Brian Tracy echoed these ideas. He said that to be happy in life you must work at something "you have a natural gift for." Only when you focus your energies on "unlocking your true potential," he said, "will you be able to claim your ultimate birthright: happiness."
Tracy's advice for a happy life is to "dedicate yourself to the development of your natural talents and abilities by doing what you love to do and continuing to do it better and better."
I hardly ever disagree with Brian Tracy, but in this case we have a slightly different view of things. I agree that if you have natural talents it sometimes makes good sense to develop them - but it doesn't follow that in developing them you will wind up any happier. Our history is riddled with stories of individuals who developed their natural talents to genius levels and yet never achieved even a modicum of happiness. (Think Van Gogh or Anne Sexton or Kurt Cobain.)
Which brings us back to that second question: "What do you do if the thing you do well is not the thing you love?"
One answer - the one that Brian Tracy might give - is to quit what you are doing and devote your heart and soul to the thing you love. But if my colleague did this, I am not sure he would be happy. What would probably happen is this: He would quickly fall into debt - which he wouldn't like at all. And he'd spend a lot of time being unhappy at the work that he was sure would make him happy.
Why?
Remember what I said above: To be happy at your work, you not only need to be doing something you care about, you also need to be good at what you are doing. And at this point, my colleague would be only sporadically good at his work because it would be new to him.
It would actually be easier for him to find happiness by discovering the value in what he already does well. That way, he could have his cake and eat it too. He could make a great living by being good at something he cares about.
We want to be happy all of the time. And sometimes, when we are temporarily unhappy, we want to make a change so that we will never be unhappy again. "If only things were different," we tell ourselves ...
. "If only I had another job."
. "If only I made more money."
. "If only I didn't have to work so many hours."
. "If only I could spend more time working outdoors"
... and so on.
The truth is, we are not designed to be perpetually happy. The natural pattern of life has its ups and downs, its ebbs and flows, its peaks and valleys. As Carl Jung said, "Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word 'happy' would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness."
No, we can't be happy all the time ... but we can be happier than we are.
So how do we do that? Is there a way to be both happy at work and happy when we are not working? Here are a few things to think about:
1. Recognize the importance of being good at what you do.
When my mind is foggy and I can't write a single good sentence, I am not happy - even though I'm doing something that matters to me. To be happier with my work, therefore, I have to become more skillful at it. If I accept the fact that it takes time to develop complex skills (1,000 hours for competence; 5,000 hours for mastery), I won't be too upset with myself when I am having an awkward day.
2. Find the value in your talents.
"If you can't be with the one you love," Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young sang, "love the one you're with." This is true of our work, too. So the advice I'd give my colleague (who makes his living as a financial analyst but secretly yearns to be an actor): You don't have to give up your dream of acting - but if you spend some time trying to appreciate the importance of what you do (if it's so meaningless, why are you so well paid?), you'll be happier.
3. Don't give up your day job.
Practice your passion on a part-time basis until you can make a good living at it. That's what I'm doing with my fiction. And that's what my colleague should be doing with his acting. Spend your evenings and weekends working on what you love - and if the day comes when you can quit your job and make a living from it, so much the better.
____________________
Today's Action Plan
There's something else I've learned about the relationship between happiness and work: Don't work so hard or so long that you neglect your family and friends. If you do that, you will eventually regret it.
Here's how I keep myself from falling into that trap:
. I don't take work home at night. I put in my time at the office - and then I come home, leaving my laptop and papers.
. I don't take work home on weekends. If I want to put in an extra few hours on Saturday, I clear it with my family in advance. But, again, I don't pull out the computer or papers in front of the family. It sends the wrong message.
. Away from work, I try my best to stay "in the present." For me, this was the hardest lesson to learn because my mind is always jumping from one topic (the story someone is telling me) to another (something related that happened at work). When I feel myself drifting - and it happens frequently - I pull myself back.
When I follow these rules, I am happier twice - at work and at home. I recommend that you do the same.
- Michael Masterson
______________________________
It's Good to Know: Better Than Google?
Search engines certainly make research easy. Type in a question or topic, and you get thousands of possibilities. But what do you do when Google fails you? Or when you don't have enough time to try the Google Answers service ? Or when you can't find a reliable online source? Or when you just don't know what to look for?
You could, of course, do it the old-fashioned way and visit your local library. But if you want answers instantaneously, try Mass Answers, an online, 24-hour service that connects you to live librarians around the country. Type in your name and your question, and within minutes you'll be "chatting" with a real person who will provide you with answers from reliable sources both on- and off-line.
Sign up with your name and zip code, and type your question in the question field. Once you hit "connect," you'll be linked to a librarian. You'll be able to communicate with each other on the right side of your screen while she/he researches your question.
Once the librarian finds your answer, she/he will send the relevant articles or Web pages to the left side of your screen. You and the librarian can look at each page simultaneously, and you have the opportunity to ask follow-up questions. If you provided your e-mail address at the beginning of the session, you'll receive an e-mailed transcript of your conversation as well as any results. Should your question prove difficult, you have the option of speaking to another librarian who may have more ideas about how to perform your search. Or you can forward your transcript to a follow-up folder, where it will be reviewed and answered by other librarians over a period of several days.
- Suzanne Richardson
______________________________
Word to the Wise: Cupidity
"Cupidity" (kyoo-PID-ih-tee) is eager or excessive desire, especially for wealth. The word is derived from the Latin "cupere" ("to desire"). It is, of course, related to Cupid, the Roman god of love.
Example (as used by Stephen Bayley in the Independent): "Myself, I have always believed that BMWs achieve their presence (and their grip on the collective imagination and cupidity of the middle classes) because they combine an athletic, masculine bulk and stance with feminine details and lines.”
Michael Masterson
__________________________________________________
These articles appear courtesy of Early to Rise [Issue #1682, 03-21-06], the Internet's most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com/.
posted by Oak Stone at 7:49 PM
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