An important aspect of the happiness is that we have to feel like we are entitled to our happiness.

When we "pursue happiness" it feels to us as if we are just trying to find all the right switches to pull in order to make us happy.

Seligman said it too, in the first chapter, that entitlment is an essential part of happiness.

oh yeah, that's right, happiness is a verb... I keep forgetting that.

on another note, I don't think there is enough sexual dimorphism at Stanford.

in other words, the men are very much like women and the women are very much like men.

You can only really tell the difference at frat parties when the sexes put on their mating costumes.

Other than that, it's really confusing and everybody's in one huge smorgasborg of sexual goop.

a third separate note... phasic v. tonic again.

tonic parameters are statements about the state of your muscle

phasic are statements about the dynamics of your muscle, or when its contracting.

when it comes to self-programming... the only thing i've really come to understand in the tonic level is in marbleization.

marbelization is a metaphor for "character shift"

so in other words, all these life-advice books focus their energies on two areas, phasic or tonic shifts.

Tonic shifts are, most simply adding concrete knowledge and strategies to your database

Another tonic shift is character change, but the books you read don't tell you to do that. If there was a book whose goal was to persuade you to change your beliefs and biases (and not be trying to tell you what you want to hear) that book would not sell.

The phasic shifts that books ask you to do are like, "okay, when you encounter this situation, I want you to follow the ABC method"

I've developed my own phasic shifts, and I haven't be satisfied with any directed phasic shift.

Most of the time, when I try to interrupt my thinking with some sort of process, my body rejects it for a more natural approach.

So in other words, self-programming I find is the most effective when it comes to tonic shifts.

When you learn a new organizational technique, or when you experience new things, or when you fundamentally change your character.

That brings about change in your life.