Authentic Happiness Inventory (Science of Well-being Week 1 Rewirements)

After the optional pre-course survey that was more about reasons for taking the course, there was another optional pre-course survey to see how I perceive certain things that might be in my future, and how I feel about my life and myself in the past two weeks or today. Results were only going to be explained after the course were over, so I’ll wait till then to share since the survey has a lot of questions. It takes 15-20 minutes to go through, they say, but when you think about how you can rattle off probably 3 or more quick questions a minute, that’s a LOT of questions to document, try to explain and such.

Besides, if you are reading this and might be doing the course, I don’t want to bias how you might take this optional survey that has a few unexpected things in it which you would be prepared for if I told you about it in detail. This little spoiler shouldn’t skew things much, though. 🙂

Now came the first real meaty part of the course, the rewirements that are homework activities from the course to do each day. They are called “rewirements” because they’re practices aimed at rewiring your habits. Research suggests that if you do these rewirements as prescribed, you should get a boost in your mood and overall well-being.

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Science of Well-being Pre-course Survey

Starting into the Science of Well-being course, after a little introduction, there was an optional survey, probably more for Yale’s metrics than anything else. To be helpful, I filled it out. FYI, being helpful makes most people happy. 🙂

Most of the questions aren’t what people would care to read about, but two I thought were good for me to note, and to share for commentary.

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Just Started the Science of Well-being Course on Coursera (FREE!)

A shortened version of Yale’s most popular class, Science of Well-being, by Professor Laurie Santos, is now online for free on Coursera! This is a science-based class, from Yale (see video below), not some new age, fuzzy hocus pocus from some flaky happiness adviser. There’s serious homework, including changing habits, that might be harder than most homework most people will have undertaken. It’s a shortened version of the real course over a semester at Yale, but since I can’t enroll at Yale without severely disrupting my life, this will more than do! Getting in would also be hard, of course. I’m not taking that for granted. However, I have a pretty excellent academic and professional background so I like my chances if I had to.

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Introducing Drawrigami, Combining Origami and Drawing for Art

This is a center spread for a sketchbook where I combined origami (Japanese paper folding) and drawing (to lay down water coloured pencils) into an art piece. I’m not really good at either origami or drawing, so I made the best of what I had to combine the two into something which’s total was greater than the sum of its parts. It also meets my mandate for origami considering “what will I bring to the game”, with the answer being a “replicable originality”, or new twists to traditional or common origami that others can try or create their own variations.

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Another Non-Traditional Origami Crane

My goal with origami can be summed up as “replicable originality”. I’m not going to outdo anybody on complexity or intricacy or variety of pieces. What I will “bring to the game” are twists on some traditions on origami that others will be able to do, and that I hope others will give a try with their own variations. Here’s an example of what I’m talking about.

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