The Ordinary Impact

It is difficult to breathe in  Colorado . The elevation seems to have that effect. One  website  described it as the air pressure outside being lower than the air pressure in a person’s lungs, which makes it difficult to breathe (among other things). I’ve experienced it. Running through the mountains - with no one else around - I felt shortness of breath, and after trying to push through it (like I’ve been known to do), I relented and walked for a bit. Hiking in the mountains had a similar effect. While running (and hiking) with my five year old, I experienced a different feeling. My attention was given to his breathing and his success, and I didn’t notice that I had a problem breathing. Sure, I was moving at a slower pace, but there is something to the idea of helping someone else succeed rather than being self-focused. In social-psychology it is called  moral elevation  (or sometimes just elevation). It’s been studied in detail within the past thirty ye...

From 1994-1998,  Sprite  sales skyrocketed. This increase in sales coincided with a two-pronged decision in their marketing campaign. In 1994, Sprite ended their upbeat ad campaign “ I Like the Sprite in You ,” and they began their new ad campaign with the slogan “ Image is Nothing. Thirst is Everything.  Obey Your Thirst .” Recently Sprite has focused specifically on the “Obey Your Thirst” part of the slogan, in my opinion, because our culture is driven by image. In general, we are suffering through plague of unhappiness. We long to be happy. We play hide-and-seek with it, but it seems elusive to us. It seems deeply hidden and, at times, unattainable.  Shawn Achor  emphasizes in his books that happiness is a choice. We can choose it, yet all too often we grasp at it and come up empty. I think it stems from the fact that each of us - at our very core - need to be known and loved; however, in our image-driven, social media-focused culture we settle for bei...