This photo was taken at the Whipsdale Zoo outside of London by Marac Andrev Kolodzinski. Okay, the truth is that this otter probably wasn't really praying, he was playing with a stone and the photographer happened to catch it at the perfect moment. Still, since otters are among my favorite animals (along with pandas), I couldn't resist posting....besides, is there truly a major difference between genuine prayer and genuine play?

Yesterday, a student of mine, herself a lapsed Catholic now more of a yoga and meditation practitioner, rather indignantly asked me what I thought of Nicki Minaj's performance at the Grammy Awards last week.

Minaj performed her new songs, "Roman's Revenge" and "Roman Holiday." The staging and extras were filled with religious imagery, especially Catholic, including a priest and a depicting what appeared to be an exorcism. Apparently, my friend was joined in her indignation by The Catholic League which very…

This past Valentine's Day, an anonymous person created a series of skywriting images above New Orleans.

The messages said things like, "Love U," U + God," and even a smiley face. It was a nice random act of kindness that brightened many people's day.

It's a small thing but actually the kind of nice act that makes a difference. For those who saw the messages, the benefits of receiving a positive little affirmation can have real effects on our daily happiness.

Feelings are highly contagious. Amazingly, for every person who actually saw this message as it happened and was positively affected by it--even just a little bit--there were dozens of people indirectly uplifted. When we feel good, we…

I was originally going to post this on Valentine's Day but Brook, somewhat jokingly (but also not), convinced me to give people a break and not shatter their Valentine's Day romantic illusions, especially since most people already had plans in place. So let's call this a post-Valentine's look at love.



Romantic love is one of the most commonly pursued things in the West (notice I said, "the West" and not the world because in fact, there's excellent evidence that our notions of "romantic love" are more culturally generated than pegged to any kind of deep or enduring human truth). Most of us believe that romantic relationships are essential for happiness and fulfillment.

Unfortunately, as we explore in-depth in The Bliss Experiment, it's pretty much the exact opposite. The headlong pursuit of romance is one of the surest ways of creating misery for ourselves that we've yet concocted. Let's face it, for every pop love song, there seems to be an offsettingly…