Our bus hit a polar bear. Someone was giving the bear CPR and my head was stuck in its jaws and no one was helping me. Seriously.
Fear. Absolute fear. How did I get myself into this situation?
Well, I signed up for it, a Level One improv class at the Tett Centre in Kingston.
I was a longtime fan of Whose Line is it Anyway so when I saw the ad for improv classes pop up on my Facebook feed I thought ‘Why not’?
I sent the payment, put all the dates on my calendar, told my wife I would be busy Tuesday nights, poured myself a tall glass of red wine and thought to myself “What have I done….?’
The class will probably be filled with quick-thinking Queen’s students… and me. I’m almost 62. I forget people’s names, I can’t think of the right word now and then, I never remember where I put my wallet and keys and the list goes on.
Now I’m going to be put in odd situations with people I don’t know, with no prep time, and have to make a 3-4 minute scene flow seamlessly by blurting what comes to mind first! “Don’t think” they tell you, the gold is what comes out first. Oh, and it helps if you get a few laughs along the way. No pressure at all.
It turns out there was no pressure.
I wasn’t the oldest in the class which for some reason made me feel good.
And there was laughter. Every class. We laughed with others and we laughed at ourselves.
Reader’s Digest had a section called Laughter is the Best Medicine. Turns out it’s true. Laughter is a wonderful thing. Studies around the world have shown laughter boosts immunity, lowers stress hormones, decreases pain, relaxes your muscles, and can help prevent heart disease. Those are just the physical benefits. Mentally, laughter eases anxiety, tension and stress, and can improve your mood. It checked a lot of boxes for me.
Improv was a great way for me to challenge myself, but more importantly, a great way to laugh at myself and at others sweating it out on stage!
For two hours a week I gave no thought to divisive politics, inflation, how to survive retirement, or the long list of social issues we hear about on our daily news feeds. I just laughed. I highly recommend it.
I hope that polar bear is doing okay.
Jon Begg is a communications specialist, husband, father, grandfather, and fisherman who’s been telling jokes and laughing all his life.
It feels like it’s been raining cats and dogs and elephants this spring. The grass and yellow dandelions in the yard are a foot high, the plants from the garden centre sit shivering in our driveway, and muddy shoes lay strewn across the front porch caked with mud. Everyone I talked to is fed up with the rain.
It begs the question, how does rain affect our happiness and mood?
Rain can make some people sad or depressed. We can’t (or won’t) get outside to do the things we enjoy which puts a damper on our mood. This is true and well-documented for people who are more prone to suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) in the winter months. Lack of sunlight decreases the production of serotonin, a neurotransmitter proven to help regulate anxiety, happiness, and mood.
But you may be surprised to learn rain can have a positive impact on our mental health and happiness and there are some of us who love the rain. They even have a name: pluviophiles. For these people, rain can be rejuvenating, calming, and restorative. Let’s dive into the science.
When it rains, negative ions are released. These are odourless, invisible molecules which are created in moving water. When it rains and water hits a hard surface, the drops break up and pick up a charge. If it is a negative charge, it can generate electrons that can be picked up by molecules in the air, such as oxygen and carbon dioxide, forming negative ions. Research on the effects of negative ions indicates they boost mood, relieve stress, and give us more energy.
Then there is the impact on our olfactory senses. The earthy scent after a rain has a name too. It’s called petrichor, from the Greek words petra, meaning “stone”, and ichor, meaning “the fluid that flows in the veins of the gods”. Petrichor includes a chemical called geosmin, which is made by bacteria in soil. Inhaling it can have a calming effect.
I personally love the sound of rain. On a rainy day, I’m quite happy to sit in my screen porch and listen to the steady drumming of the raindrops on our steel roof. Relaxation and meditation videos use the sound of rain and buildings include features such as artificial fountains and indoor waterfalls for their relaxing sounds and calming effects.
There are even benefits to the grey skies that come with rainy days. With less light, the body tends to produce more melatonin, a hormone that regulates sleep, helping you rest better.
And yet we tend to be wet blankets when it comes to rain, hiding ourselves indoors until the stormy skies pass.
If you live on the West coast or in Great Britain, you make the best of the rain, dress for the weather and get on with your day.
I once spent six weeks in England and Scotland in November and December. It rained almost every day. That didn’t stop the intrepid Brits. The streets of London were bustling with shoppers, brollies in hand, and the parks were filled with young families with babies in strollers covered in plastic and little ones dressed in bright yellow and red raincoats, splashing in puddles.
Sure, there were days I was tired of the grey skies and panda-sized puddles on the slippery sidewalks, but I remember the wonderful feeling of coming in from the cold, and warming up with a hot cup of tea or enjoying a pint in a cozy pub with some friends.
This week’s #HappyAct is to become a pluviophile and get out for a walk in the rain. Time to go, I see the sun is starting to come out…
Tomorrow, Canadians will go to the polls in what could be one of the most historically significant elections of our generation.
Trump aside, I’ve been thinking of the key issues most Canadians are concerned about in 2025: the cost of living, affordable housing, mental health and health care, climate change, and the economy. I’ve been very fortunate to consider these issues from a new lens, thanks to a group of young PhD international students I’ve been working with as a proctor this past month at Queen’s University.
Two of the graduate students I worked with were from Ethiopia, one doing his PhD in rehabilitation research and the other in nursing. Another was from Syria, doing his PhD in nuclear engineering. They had all done their undergraduate and Masters degrees in different countries around the world and were extremely kind, bright, perceptive, and willing to share their thoughts and experiences of their time in Canada.
They all agreed Canada is a very beautiful, safe country and they particularly loved Kingston. They appreciated the hard work ethic of Canadians and the fact that we are a law abiding country. They did not like our winters!
Some of the things that surprised them is how expensive it is to live here, especially housing. (The one fellow told me he paid $900 a month for a two bedroom apartment in Germany where he did his Masters degree in a city the same size as Kingston. His rent here is $1,700. According to Studying in Germany.org, housing prices are 47% lower than in the US). They’ve also been surprised to see the number of homeless people and people with mental health and drug problems in Canada.
This led to a discussion on the shrinking middle class, a phenomenon that seems to be happening in all countries (my new friends said it was the case in Ethiopia and Egypt too).
However, the biggest culture shock and negative they’ve encountered is the individualistic aspect of Canadian society. We talked at length about child care, since my one new friend just had a baby and the other had two children and a wife here in Canada. They said at home in Ethiopia, child care is not an issue. If you need to work or go somewhere, there is someone—a relative, neighbour, or friend who will look after the children.
That led to discussions about seniors. Older people in their country are cared for and live with their extended families, unlike here in Canada where many seniors live alone or in nursing homes, and suffer from loneliness (see my blog post from a few weeks ago, “Battling the epidemic of loneliness”).
As we were discussing all of these issues, it occurred to me that if we simply went back to having multi-generational families living together, it would solve many of the problems in our society. There would be more available and affordable housing, and the cost of living would be offset by potentially multiple incomes in one household. People would be financially better off and happier, alleviating the strain on health care systems and improving people’s mental health.
If you study the famous “blue zones” in the world where people live longer, multigenerational living is part of their cultural fabric.
Where and when did we go wrong in North America?
In 2015, one of the best selling business books was a book called Weology: When Everybody Wins When We Becomes Before Me, by Peter Aceto, CEO of Tangerine bank. It was a book on the philosophy of leadership in business, but the concept of Weology is one I think we need to start embracing as a society to address these critical issues. Clearly what we’ve been doing up until now isn’t working.
A new party, let’s call it the Weology Party, committed to implementing policy that fosters a philosophy of taking greater care of each other and multi-generational living might just be the solution. From a tax perspective, this could take the form of tax deductions or income splitting for multi-generational households, not just spouses. There are currently tax breaks for people who have eligible dependents over the age of 18 and a tax credit if you are a caregiver for a spouse or senior, but we could do more. To foster this philosophy in our communities, the government could also offer tax breaks and incentives for volunteering.
Municipalities have started to make strides to make it easier for people to live together, allowing and promoting additional dwelling units on lots.
In business, the government could introduce policy to make it attractive for new start-ups to form as employee-owned cooperatives. There is a large corporation in Spain called Mondragon Cooperation that has 70,000 employees, annual sales of 11 billion euros and is highly profitable. They are committed to putting people before profits (for instance during COVID, instead of laying off employees, they reduced salaries across the board by 5%). The ratio of pay between employees and executives is just 6:1 (in Canada, the ratio is 210:1 for our highest paid CEOs and in the States, it’s even higher). This model is one way to distribute wealth more equitably in society, within the framework of a free market economy.
My new proctor friend who was a research fellow in rehabilitation was working with a professor who was researching the impact and effectiveness of formal versus informal supports for people with disabilities. Their theory is that informal supports are far more important in helping people with disabilities live full and rewarding lives. They are still in the research and data collection phase, but my guess is the data will show that informal supports, people supporting people, will be more important.
Which brings us back to election day. Make sure you vote. You won’t see the Weology party on the ballot this election, but perhaps some day we will. In the meantime, we need to all start thinking about what small changes we can make in our lives to move Canada towards a healthier (both financially and physically), happier, and connected society.
The 2025 World Happiness Report was released on March 20, the International Day of Happiness. The first World Happiness Report was published in 2012 after Bhutan, a country that measures its success based on the happiness of its people urged the UN and national governments to “give more importance to happiness and well-being in determining how to achieve and measure social and economic development.”
Since then, the report has been measuring which countries in the world have the happiest citizens and exploring various themes related to global happiness including age, generation, gender, migration, sustainable development, benevolence, and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on global well-being.
As always, the results of this year’s report are fascinating (you can read the full report here.) The authors chose the theme “Caring and Sharing”, delving into how caring and sharing and specifically three benevolent acts, donating, volunteering and helping strangers can make people happier.
The Happiest Countries
Finland ranked #1 for the eighth year in a row while Canada ranked 18th. The US fell off the list of the top 20 happiest countries to #24. One troubling statistic is that in general, the western industrial countries are now less happy than they were between 2005 and 2010 with the US, Canada and Switzerland experiencing the biggest drops.
Here are the top 20 happiest countries in order:
Finland Denmark Iceland Sweden Netherlands Costa Rica Norway Israel (if you’re wondering about Israel, it scored highest in several areas, including the quality of social connection amongst youth) Luxembourg Mexico Australia New Zealand Switzerland Belgium Ireland Lithuania Austria Canada Slovenia Czechia
Key findings
Beyond health and wealth, simple acts of caring and sharing can influence happiness, including sharing meals with others, having somebody to count on for social support, and household size.
While it’s well documented that people who live alone are unhappier, research shows that happiness rises with household sizes up to four people, but above that happiness declines.
We are too pessimistic about kindness in our communities, and this pessimism is contributing to our unhappiness. For example, when wallets were dropped in the street by researchers, the proportion of returned wallets was far higher than people expected.
One interesting piece of research and a positive from the global pandemic is we’ve seen a “benevolence” bump of 10% since COVID-19. The pandemic taught us to think and care for others more, and that benevolence has continued.
One disturbing trend is young people in North America and Western Europe now report the lowest well-being and happiness among all age groups. In 2023, 19% of young adults across the world reported having no one they could count on for social support, a 39% increase compared to 2006. In fact, the fall in the United States’ happiness ranking is largely due to the decline in well-being among Americans under 30.
When society is more benevolent, the people who benefit most are those who are least happy. As a result, happiness is more equally distributed in countries with higher levels of expected benevolence
So what does this year’s report tell us and what simple happy acts can we all do to promote caring and sharing?
Share meals together: people who eat frequently with others are happier
Be kind and don’t underestimate the kindness of others
Try not to live alone
Build social connections and don’t be afraid to reach out to people
Practice benevolent acts–do what you can to volunteer, donate or help a stranger (several African countries reported low scores for donating but scored very high for helping strangers which helped their happiness scores)
Finally remember that caring is “twice-blessed”: it blesses those who give and those who receive. Have a happy week.
Several years ago, I was on a business trip with some colleagues. We’d had a long travel day and after checking in to our hotel around 8 pm, wandered down to the hotel bar for a late dinner. We sat for at least ten minutes without any service, so one of my co-workers got up and approached the waitress. He said she was quite surly when he talked to her, but she eventually came over with some menus.
I’ve always been fascinated by how a person’s actions can affect the actions of others, even more so since starting this blog, so I decided to embark on a little experiment. I wondered if I smiled broadly and was overly nice to our server, asking her questions about her day and thanking her every time she came to the table, whether by the end of our dinner, she would provide better service.
We ordered our drinks, and I kept smiling, laughing and making small talk when she brought us our meals. By the end of the evening, she still seemed stressed and unhappy, but was a bit more friendly and attentive.
There are many takeways from this night. The first is if someone is having a bad day, chances are it has nothing to do with you. Our waitress was probably on her feet for eight hours by the time our group strolled in. No doubt she was exhausted and wanting to go home. Who knows what she was dealing with at work or at home—a sick parent or child, mounting bills, an argument with her husband or friend. Since she never shared anything personal, we’ll never know.
The second is our actions did result in her being a bit nicer and attentive, so there was a positive correlation between our efforts to be nice and her actions.
The third takeaway is our group did get better service so it pays to be kind. As one of my old bosses used to say, “You can catch more flies with honey than vinegar”.
Everyone can have a bad day. It seems to me people have short fuses these days and are starting to lose their capacity to show empathy and understanding. Even if you can’t turn someone’s frown upside down, you can give them grace and compassion.
People don’t talk about being sad anymore. They talk about being unhappy, struggling with their mental health or being depressed, but they don’t talk about being sad.
It’s like the word has been eradicated from our vocabulary.
This is a dangerous and disturbing trend because it presupposes that when we are sad, we have an illness or problem, when sadness is a natural emotion.
The other day I asked a friend how they were doing after spending the first Christmas without their Mom. My friend naturally admitted there were times she was sad, missing her mother very much.
Last week, we dropped Clare off at the airport in Ottawa. We knew it would be the last time we would see her until spring, and I was very sad for a day or two, missing her terribly as we returned to a quiet, empty house.
Author and happiness researcher Helen Russell in “How to Be Sad” says that in order to be happy, you need to allow yourself to be sad sometimes, but most people are terrified of being sad.
Exacerbating the problem is society’s newfound hyper-focus on mental health. We are so focused on mental health that there is a propensity to self-diagnose a deeper issue or problem when we may just be in fact, experiencing temporary, normal sadness.
We are often sad when we experience grief or loss, all inescapable emotions in life. If we are sad, it is because we’ve been blessed to have held something dear and joyous.
For example, as a parent, it is hard to watch your child experience heartbreak, but if they are sad from having their heart broken, it means they have lived and loved, and sadness and heartbreak are all part of the process of loving and finding the right person.
So the next time you find yourself feeling a little down, remember it’s okay to be sad.
Each year, between December 14 and January 5, people from across North America participate in one of the largest citizen science projects in the world, the Christmas Bird Count.
Survey teams and individuals count birds in the field or at feeders on their property and record the birds they see. The data is submitted to the National Audubon Society and analyzed by Birds Canada to provide insight on the number, movements, and distribution of winter bird populations.
Studies show that seeing or hearing birds can have a positive impact on your mental wellbeing and happiness. One King’s College London study provided 1,200 people from around the world with an app. They were asked at random intervals to record how they were feeling such as happy or stressed and what they heard or saw, like trees and birds.
The study concluded everyday encounters with birds can be linked to “time-lasting improvements in mental wellbeing” and “these improvements were evident not only in healthy people but also in those with a diagnosis of depression”.
This year, the Frontenac Christmas Bird is on Saturday, December 14 and is celebrating its tenth anniversary. There are lots of special events planned, including a Winter Birds 101 crash course from 9-9:30 am, a Kids Bird Count from 1-3 pm with bird specimens, interactive activities, and a short walk to count birds, and a special dinner starting at 4 pm, all happening at the Sydenham Legion Hall. Wintergreen Studios is also hosting a winter bird workshop and guided count from 10 am to 3 pm on their property (register on their website here).
If you live north of Kingston and are looking for a fun day out in nature to lift your spirits, sign up to participate by emailing bonta.johnson@sympatico.ca or on Wintergreen’s website for their event. You can register or find out when the Christmas Bird Count is happening in your region on the Birds Canada website.
Every country has its own unique belief system and language to describe happiness. Let’s take a quick trip around the world to see how other cultures seek and find happiness:
Joyous Icelanders embrace theta reddast, the belief that everything will work out in the end.
Italians believe dolce far niente, the sweetness of doing nothing.
In France, people exude joie de vivre, the joy of living.
Chinese xing fu is the art of finding your purpose.
The Dutch celebrate Gezellig, time spent with loved ones in a convivial and cozy atmosphere.
Germans believe in ruhe, finding peace and quiet.
And then there are the Scandinavians–the Danes known for hygge, the art of creating comfort and coziness and the Finns who value sisu, having the psychological strength to overcome extraordinary challenges.
Some countries have embedded happiness into their political and economic systems. Bhutan measures Gross National Happiness instead of GDP based on four pillars: ecological sustainability, preservation and promotion of a free and resilient culture, good governance and equality before the law, and sustainable and equitable socio-economic development.
I think North Americans could learn much about happiness from these other cultures. The ones that resonated most with me were the sweetness of doing nothing, finding peace and quiet, and believing everything will work out in the end. Which ones resonated most with you?
If you’d like to learn more about happiness around the globe, read The Atlas of Happiness: The Global Secrets of How to be Happy by Helen Russell. The common denominator in all these cultures? The power of positivity goes a long way. Have a happy week.
In 2010, Gallup published a study asking Americans what amount of income would make them happy. The answer was $75,000 (USD).
In a new study released this summer, Americans were asked what amount of money would make them feel content, as measured by their liquid net worth. 56% of Americans responded $200,000.
This amount would give them enough of a safety net, peace of mind, and presumably extra funds to pursue their interests and passions.
Millennial respondents said that they would be more content with a higher salary job, whereas Gen Z respondents preferred having a higher liquid net worth. The average salary in the United States at the end of 2023 was $59,384.
So what’s our takeaway here?
As families grapple with the higher cost of living, it’s getting harder and harder to maintain a financial cushion, and yet having that cushion helps alleviate stress, anxiety, and contributes to our overall happiness.
To maintain that cushion, we may need to change our spending habits. It’s more than about dollars and cents. It’s about happiness and common sense.
They say the road to hell is paved with the best intentions. For almost a decade now, I’ve been blogging about happiness. I started this blog as an outlet for my writing and because I was fascinated by the juxtaposition of people living in a world with so much wealth, but struggling more than ever to be happy.
I’ve learned much about what makes me happy, the science of happiness and the intrinsic benefits of having purpose, showing gratitude and helping others.
I now fear instead of helping people live a happier life, I’ve contributed to the navel-gazing narcissistic culture our society has become.
Forget the #MeToo movement. We’re living in the age of #JustMe.
I know what you’re thinking. Every generation has claimed that the next generation is more selfish and self-absorbed than they were. Perhaps, but the advent of computers, cell phones, celebrity culture and the seismic shift in how we work and play in the past fifty years has propelled us into a whole new level of egocentricity.
Honestly, if I see another selfie of a 20-something posing sideways in front of a bathroom mirror holding up their cell phone with pouty lips, accentuated hips, and frosted tips, I think I’m going to lose it.
And don’t even get me started on the hyper-focus on resilience. Try telling a farmer living a hundred years ago in rural Canada with six mouths to feed and no running water you’re taking a break to “practice self-care” or going on a “forest therapy walk”, they’d mock you until their cows came home.
A sad and disturbing product of this #JustMe movement is we all have become more polarized in our views and unaccepting of other people’s opinions. What’s more, we don’t hesitate to share our views in the most public of forums. “We” are always right and everyone else is wrong.
It’s time we went from taking selfies to choosing selflessness, from practicing self-care to caring for others.
It was Ghandi who said, “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”
This week’s #HappyAct is to change the #JustMe narrative and find happiness by looking outward instead of in.
Happy Act 