I finished reading ‘Happiness Advantage’ by Shawn Achor. Also, I am currently reading “before happiness” by Shawn Achor. He is a psychologist studying the science of happiness at Harvard. He also gave presentation on TED. You had better watch TED talk first.
http://www.ted.com/talks/shawn_achor_the_happy_secret_to_better_work.html
If you are interested in more, you can start reading his books. As far as I know, there are two books “Happiness Advantage” and “Before Happiness”. Both are good. I actually am inspired by these books which is categorized as cognitive science or psychology (I don’t know how we can define it). This kind of studies have been so active lately. For the general people, the tipping point is “Predictably irrational” by Dan Ariely (2008). He describes how cognitive science is important when we make decisions.
For me, “The Grouped” by Paul Adams (2011) was great. This book is a nice summary of recent extensive survey on the human relationship on the web. This study was surprising, even how information technology has advanced, human connects with strong small ties, like family, close friends, but also there is the importance of weak large ties which is the advantage of SNS.
For me also “The Habit” was another. I believe that most important job in 20’s is making good habits. Good habits make our life easier, but people have bad habits which is difficult to remove from our daily life. My question was how we can build the habit.
So so many cognitive science studies came out lately. So science start to understand how we are looking at our world, ourselves and how we make decisions. I have read a lot of books about this. I want to review these books one by one. If you are interested in, I think the book ‘the Grouped’ is good start. He wrote good summary and left us good references.
I am also reading ‘Every day’. I like this story. The main character wakes up as different person (I believe always he is a high school student.) every day. Girl or Boy, attractive or not attractive, does not matter. He has lived like this from when he was born. But one day, he was someone boy who had been liked by a girl. He eventually fell in love with her. He could not forget about her. The story sounds ridiculous, but make us think. And finally, I bought “Harry Potter” series. I would love to read these. I am excited. To be honest, many people suggest me to read, but I did not start reading because I did not think I have time to read. Yes, it is time to start reading.
Oh, by the way, I am planing trip for thanksgiving. I am thinking of going to Boston, NYC, Philadelphia or around. I have not decide which city and places we are going to stop by. Could you tell me if you have recommendation?
As a scientist, I am studying pretty creatively lately. Of course, I can not write what I am interested in. But I am obsessed with a project. I want to start the experiments soon. These concepts are not new, but its combination seemed rare. I am surveying the literature, paper, old textbook. So far, there is no extensive study of this system. I am thinking of spending several months to find out.
Have a good week!!