Happiness is on the rise! At least, those are the findings of a super-scientific research study released this week. The World Values Survey has been tracking happiness for 17 years in 52 countries and involving 350,000 people. The positive results are attributed to “societal shifts in recent decades: Low-income countries such as India and China have experienced unprecedented rates of economic growth; dozens of medium-income countries have democratized; and there has been a sharp rise of gender equality and tolerance of ethnic minorities and gays and lesbians in developed societies.”

The results surprised scientists, who had previously believed that happiness was stable when looking at societies over time. Bucking the conventional knowledge, happiness levels in forty countries “rose substantially.”

Denmark is the happiest nation, Zimbabwe the least, and the US was rated as the 16th happiest country. A similar survey released last week determined one reason America isn’t ranking higher on the list: Baby Boomers are generally miserable compared to other generations. Read More »

I did my usual perusing of NYMag.com a few days ago to find America’s Next Top Model on the homepage, with a picture of some beautiful girl and the headline that “Miss Tyra threw a curveball” by selecting the first-ever plus-sized model to win. I haven’t seen the show in many a season, because Tyra Banks continued to be Tyra Banks and you can only see a marathon so many times, but needless to say, I was intrigued.

I frowned and scrolled back up to the picture. Hm. Come to think of it, her legs don’t look like they could be snapped in two by a twelve-year-old. But plus-sized? She didn’t really look plus-sized. I was perplexed. The consistent theory was that this “oversized” model was picked from the beginning as part of Tyra’s personal agenda to make reality TV history. Or something. Making a point that you don’t have to be skinny to be pretty.

It’s a great message, it is. Except this Whitney character really isn’t not skinny. But in the context of an industry full of waifs, she instantly becomes the fat girl. It’s like picking the hottest guy in a classroom only to find that he’s less attractive on the street among other civilians; you can’t base your judgment of a person in the confines of one element. Read More »

Skies are blue, trees are blooming, and temperatures are rising, which can only mean one thing – it’s time to take your godd*mn pants off.

My roommate and I have been experimenting with the pants-free lifestyle for many months now. It began in January when one early Friday evening we were sitting on the couch watching Scrubs reruns, harnessing our chi for a night out on the town.

Me: I don’t wanna wear pants tonight, dude.
My roommate: Yeah man, f*ck pants.

Half an hour later, we emerged from our respective bedrooms, me in a tank top and some sort of shorts/panties half-breed, her in what can best be described as beach loungewear. We threw on our jackets and headed out to the club, where we proceeded to drink whiskey and diets and shake what our mammas gave us until we were so pleasantly exhausted and sweaty we could barely stand any longer and had to call it a night.

The point of this little anecdote? By choosing to forego pants, my roommate and I ensured that we would have a fun evneing. If we had been so foolish as to wear, say, skinny jeans or perhaps high-waisted wide-leg trousers or some other wintry-style clothing garment out that evening, there’s no way we could have enjoyed ourselves to the degree we did. We would have felt restricted and gotten sweaty and would have never stayed until the late-night DJ came on and started busting out old-school James Brown jams. Instead of having a glorious evening, we would have had a low-key, mediocre evening, because pants ruin fun. Period. Read More »

So picture this:

You, being the sort of unconvential individualist that you are, discover that you’re the wrong gender. And in the process of changing your gender, you find yourself reconsidering your outlook on life, mostly in the form of your religion. So you change your gender and you change your religion and you get married and start a life. It might take a while for your parents to come to terms with it, but eventually they’ll accept you for you. Right?

Not so for Issa Fazli, a Muslim woman turned Christian man.

Issa, whose name means “Jesus” in Arabic, found happiness with a woman in New York, but each set of their influential Muslim Pakistani parents had a major problem with it. So you’d think the couple would have been suspicious when their parents offered to throw them a party back in Pakistan.

But they weren’t. And then their lives started to suck. Read More »

In junior high, I wanted pink hair. Actually, maybe wanted isn’t the right word. I was more or less obsessed with having pink hair, and basically anything pink in general.

However, my mother – who let me get my tongue pierced at 14 – thought that Bubblicious-colored locks were just too radical for my upper-middle class suburban town. So I reluctantly settled for a bright, Ronald McDonald shade of red and completely embarrassed myself for the rest of 8th grade.

But my obsession with pink hair – and every girl I ever encountered sporting it – never ended.

So when I stumbled upon this website, created by a tattooed beauty who at the time of my discovery donned the exact shade of pink hair I so longed for in my wannabe punk rocker days, I developed my first-ever girl crush. Not to mention the fact that I was insanely jealous of not only her looks, but her success.

Gala Darling, the writer and sole creator of iCiNG, deemed “a tattooed Miss Manners with pink hair” here and “a local yet globehopping fashion genius” here is exactly what I would be today….if my mother hadn’t crushed my poor little teenage heart almost 7 years ago.

Except Miss Darling is from New Zealand, is much more insightful, and probably has better hair than I could have ever dreamed of pulling off with some Manic Panic and my 8th grade friends’ “kewl hair skillz.” Read More »

College overall is a great time and once you’re done (take it from me), you will miss it terribly. The fact that you have all of your friends around you at all times, endless social opportunities, and things like paying rent or worrying about health insurance are not even on your radar yet add to the carefree fun.

That being said, life still just plain sucks sometimes. Whether you’re totally stressed about an upcoming presentation, feel like you haven’t slept in weeks cramming for finals, or are going through a painful breakup with the boy who lives down the hall, it’s inevitable that the blues will creep up on you at some point.

And according to a recent wave of scientists, you should not treat sadness like a horrible disease that needs to be taken care of immediately.

Eric Wilson, author of the new book, Against Happiness, argues that our culture has a fixation on happiness, and fosters “a craven disregard for the value of sadness” and “its integral place in the great rhythm of the cosmos.”

Okay, so the whole “rhythm of the cosmos” thing sounds a little odd, but hear me out.

Read More »