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Show The Garfield County Insider EverylCounts Be the Witter that 'Finds a Wit'Out So, here's the deal. You gifts, don't stop. However, love your family, but some you do not have to answer members are toxic. You to abusive or threatening like your friends, but some- emails and voice messages, times, they too, are toxic. especially if doing so is goAnd you've even run into ing to stir up feelings. And toxic co-workers, team- you don't even need to see mates, neighbors, and rela- them face-to-face. Sometives. times the best response is no First of all, what exactly response. They may conis toxic? tinue to call you the "bad" According to author guy --their reality is their Wambui Bahati, in her ar- reality-- but that doesn't' ticle, Low Self-Esteem and make it right or true. Toxic People, "They are the Be the one to break the people that are poison to cycle of abuse in your famour lives and our environ- ily, even if you have to ment. They drain us of our walk a lonely road for a bit. energy, our time, our mon- Eventually you will meet ey, and they can also play "surrogate" family memhavoc with our minds. Tox- bers who will love and emic people can literally make brace you. you physically or mentally And the more you disill." tance yourself from toxic Does this describe any- people, the more you will one you know? become the person you I recently heard that if were born to become. Learn you put lobsters in a pan to emit confidence, warmth, and one's trying to get out, dignity, truth, respect, and the others won't let it. They light. The more you do will pull it back down into this, the more you will find the pan. Sounds like, to people with healthy beliefs me, misery loves company. and habits attracted to you Unfortunately, toxic people and coming into your life. work to do this to us. Believe in yourself and say, Take, for instance, an "I can, I deserve, I love myentire family ganging up self," etc. on one sole family member. If the friends you chose As if to say there is a bad to associate with are toxic, guy in the family and the get new friends. rest are good guys. Where If you have a toxic boss, the family actually believes change jobs. that good is bad and bad is I think you get the idea. good. What should that one Nothing is set in stone. You If this is you, you can still have a choice. Said Elealove your family. If you nor Roosevelt, "No one can normally send them birth- make you feel inferior withday cards and Christmas out your consent." Life is way too fun. Life is way too beautiful. Life is way too important to let someone else's toxic words and behavior impact your life. Be the person who breaks the cycle of abuse. After all, you don't have to repeat the same patterns that have been passed down for generations. Whether in your family, in the workplace or elsewhere. Be the lobster that finds its way out of the pan. Then help other lobsters find a way out, too. For information on coaching, consulting, speaking or training contact: Cynthia Kimball Humphreys, Vice President, EverylCounts, P.O. Box 574, Hatch, UT 84735. Ph: 435.632.1489, Fax: 435.735.4222 or Email: kimball@everylcounts.net. Website: www. every 1 counts.net . Connect with Cynthia Kimball Humphreys and EverylCounts on Face book, Twitter, Plaxo, Linkedln, and Echo Loops. © 2009 EverylCounts, LLC. All rights reserved. Harriet Prisca from Escalante sent me this information. It makes sense to keep our minds active and to find new things to discuss with our friends and family. Not many of us are terribly wealthy in our county, but it seems to me we are relatively happy. What do you think? This would make a good topic for dinner time or whatever. Harriet got this information from Yahoo News. "We can only make generalizations about groups of people," said study researcher Jason Rentfrow of the University of Cam- 6411111 eantlare 8g9A4517/ 7041f60'2 SOCIAL SECURITY ANNOUNCES NEW ENHANCEMENTS TO ONLINE RETIREMENT ESTIMATOR retirement estimates to Americans since its launch last year," Commissioner Astrue said. "With more people delaying retirement beyond the Medicare eligibility age, it is critical that they also have access to this easy-to-use online tool." The Retirement Estimator is interactive and allows users to compare different retirement options. For example, a person can change retirement dates or expected future earnings to better determine the impact on their future benefits and decide the best time to retire. The Retirement Estimator presently is the highest-rated government online service in customer satisfaction and, according to the University of Michigan's American Customer Satis- the lAuGhiNg pOiNt!: Frank Feldman A man walks out to the street and catches a taxi just going by. He gets into the taxi and the cabbie says, "Perfect timing. You're just like Frank." Passenger: "Who?" Cabbie: "Frank Feldman. He's a guy who did everything right all the time. Like my coming along when you needed a cab, things happened like that to Frank Feldman every single time." Passenger: "There are always a few clouds over everybody." Cabbie: "Not Frank Feldman. He was a terrific athlete. He could have won the Grand Slam at tennis. He could golf with the pros. He sang like an opera baritone and danced like a Broadway star and you should have heard him play the piano. He was an amazing guy." Passenger: "Sounds like he was something really special." Cabbie: "There's more ... He had a memory like a computer. He remembered everybody's birthday. He knew all about wine, which foods to order and which fork to eat them with. He could fix anything. Not like me. I change a fuse, and the whole street blacks out. But Frank Feldman, he could do everything right." Passenger: "Wow, some guy then." Cabbie: "He always knew the quickest way to go in traffic and avoid traffic jams. Not like me, I always seem to get stuck in them. But Frank, he never made a mistake, and he really knew how to treat a woman and make her feel good. He would never answer her back even if she was in the wrong; and his clothing was always immaculate, shoes highly polished too. He was the perfect man! He never made a mistake. No one could ever measure up to Frank Feldman." Passenger: "An amazing fellow. How did you meet him?" Cabbie: "Well, I never actually met Frank. He died ... I'm married to his widow." Share the Housework When my friend got a job, her husband agreed to share the housework. He was stunned by the amount of effort involved in keeping a house clean with small boys to pick up after, and insisted that he and his wife shop for a new vacuum cleaner. The salesman gave them a demonstration of the latest model. "It comes equipped with all the newest features," he assured them. The husband was not convinced. "Don't you have a riding one?" he asked. Warranty A man came back to the dealer from whom he bought a new car. "I believe you gave me a guarantee with my car," he said. "That's right, sir," the salesman answered. "During the warranty period we will replace anything that breaks." "Fine, I need a new garage door." It Makes Sense...By Veda Hale 4-) Michael J. Astrue, Commissioner of Social Security, today announced that the online Retirement Estimator, available at www.socialsecurity.gov/estimator, now can provide immediate and personalized benefit estimates to people who have enrolled in Medicare but have not yet filed for Social Security benefits. Previously, these "Medicare only" beneficiaries would need to contact a local office in order to obtain an estimate of their benefits. Currently, about a half-million people file for Medicare each year and delay filing for Social Security benefits. "Social Security's Retirement Estimator has been a huge success - with the agency providing over four million personalized November 19, 2009 faction Index, it exceeds the ratings of private sector online innovators like Netflix and Amazon. Commissioner Astrue also announced next year the Retirement Estimator will be the first of Social Security's online services, and the first in all of government, to be made available in Spanish. "Social Security serves a diverse population and we already offer services by phone and in-person in a variety of languages," Commissioner Astrue noted. "Offering the Retirement Estimator in Spanish will be an important step in making our online services even easier for everyone to use." To learn more about the Retirement Estimator go to www.socialsecurity.gov/estimator. bridge in England. "These results don't say wealthy people are happier than unwealthy people, [or that] people who live in areas where people are wealthy are happier." Happy states Rentfrow and his colleagues came to their conclusions by analyzing data collected from more than 350,000 individuals who were interviewed between Jan. 2 and Dec. 30, 2008 as part of the Gallup Organization's Well-Being Index. The index includes six types of well-being: overall evaluation of their lives, emotional health, physical health, healthy behaviors (such as whether a person smokes or exercises), and job satisfaction. Here are the top 10 states and their average well-being scores (out of a possible 100 points): Utah: 69.2, Hawaii: 68.2, Wyoming: 68, Colorado: 67.3, Minnesota: 67.3, Maryland: 67.1, Washington: 67.1, Massachusetts: 67, California: 67, Arizona: 66.8 What makes us happy To figure out why some states scored higher or lower than others, the researchers looked at the relationship between happiness levels and other variables, including economic indicators, education levels, personality factors and levels of inclusiveness. They found that states with higher gross regional product (GRP) per capita (a state's level of productivity and standard of living), income levels and median housing value, were significantly happier than poorer areas. That's not too surprising, Rentfrow noted, as wealthier individuals tend to be healthier, because they are better educated and thus more knowledgeable about healthy behaviors, and they also likely have health insurance. The happier states also tended to have a greater proportion of residents with advanced educations whose jobs were considered "super-creative," such as architecture, engineering, computer and math occupations, library positions, arts and design work, as well as entertainment, sports and media occupations. The number of bohemians (such as artists), gays and foreign-born residents also boosted happiness scores. Take California, Minnesota and Massachusetts, which had higher inclusiveness scores and also made it to the top 10 list for well-being. "We view that as suggesting that in these types of areas, there's more tolerance and with this increased tolerance people are freer to express themselves and to be who they are without feeling as though they have to censor themselves or conform a bit more to the status quo," Rentfrow told LiveScience. Of the personality factors, neuroticism took a toll on a state's cheery count, suggesting people living in the happiest states are more relaxed than their gloomy counterparts. For instance, West Virginia, Mississippi and Kentucky were ranked as highly neurotic and showed lower well-being scores. Utah, on the other hand, had a significantly lower level of neuroticism than other states. Some caveats The new results, which are detailed in the December issue of the Journal of Research in Personality, do have their limitations. For one, the differences in well-being are small, a range of about 10 points on a 100-point scale. "When we compare nations, there are much larger differences, say, between a poor African nation and Denmark," said Ed Diener, a psychologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who studies well-being. Diener wasn't involved in the current research. For instance, while Utah is about 12 percent happier than Kentucky, Diener said that Denmark has scored about double that of Togo, Africa, regarding well-being. Even so, Diener noted, "given the strong pattern of explainable findings found by the authors, I would say they are definitely onto something interesting and important." In addition, not all states fit into the researcher's overall model of what makes for a happy area. For instance, the top three states, Utah, Hawaii and Wyoming are outliers, as they aren't considered the wealthiest of the pack. Diener points out that Utah is conservative, and research has suggested such right-leaning individuals are a bit happier than others. Hawaii's ranking could be due to a relaxed culture, he said, adding that the three states may just have strong families and social relationships. Take home message Most research on who's happiest has focused on differences between countries rather than differences within say the United States. And those studies with a state focus have not included factors to explain the reasons well-being was higher in one region cornpared with another, as the new study did. "The fact that there are differences in well-being between states isn't of much use unless we know that the differences are related to something," Rentfrow said. "If there are differences in well-being, but those differences are not related to anything, then it's not clear that the differences are really important." As a result, the new results have practical implications. "If I were a state government person, I could use the information, if my state scored high, to attract new talent," Diener said. "After all, people will want to go to happy places and be around happy people." And for low-scoring states Diener suggests figuring out changes that should be made to boost such scores. "Our research shows that happy individuals are on average healthier and live longer, have higher incomes, better social relationships and are better citizens," Diener said. "Therefore, aiming to increase the happiness in one state is a valid goal." - |