a daily blog on well-being and how to feel better by Mark Barger Elliott…

A friend and I were recently discussing the relationship between the words “what,” “why,” and “how,” as they relate to our lives. Then I wrote this in our text conversation: As part of an ever-evolving, expanding, and emerging universe and reality, a question we might ask is, “what in our lives is similarly evolving, expanding…

“Gratitude bestows reverence,” wrote John Milton, “changing forever how we experience life and the world.”  Today is the 500th post of On Emotions. I’m honored you have taken time to read them. It’s been a wonderful journey to seek to notice one thing every day that might help us feel better. I’m also excited to…

Yesterday I saw a fascinating interview with Arthur Brooks who is known for his work on happiness and recently wrote a book with Oprah Winfrey. In the interview Brooks made a fascinating distinction between cultivating a negativity bias, compared to a positivity bias.  A negativity bias means we pay more attention to the negative side…

I’ve noticed how anxiety typically rises when we try to anticipate the future or how a sequence of events might unfold. Marc-Antoine Crocq notes in his article about the history of this emotion how, “The word… derives from the Latin substantive angor and the corresponding verb ango (to constrict).” That “to constrict” is the root…

A friend of mine had a cancer screening recently to determine if he was continuing to be in remission. I was able to meet him the night before for dinner and we were talking about how best to navigate life’s ups and downs and he said something profound: “I think you should always move towards…

Yesterday I went to a museum with my daughters and in the gift shop there was a nifty slot machine that offered in exchange for “4 quarters,” a “surprise print.” Inside the machine were 10 beautifully rendered scenes of life in New York, including a park bench, hot dog stand, slice of pizza, bagel with…