Random Thoughts From Marybeth

Don't Worry, Be Happy

Twenty strategies adapted from the scientific research and applied to New York living. The theory is that too many choices produce stress and we are always comparing what we did with the imagined benefits of the choices we didn't select.

Decide where to go to college by picking two decent schools and flipping a coin.

If someone tells you he’s still pining for his ex, ask the ex out.

Send the kids off to day care, summer camp, and boarding school.

If you go on a shopping spree, throw away the receipts.

Patronize King Cole’s and other establishments that employ a “mixologist”; avoid any bar named after an Irish person.

The last one doesn't seem to fit the "limited choice" theory but it's included because "Spending your alcohol allowance on a few finely crafted cocktails is probably better than guzzling giant troughs of beer, since the ability to limit one’s indulgence is one of the baseline characteristics of happy people. Researchers aren’t sure whether moderation is chicken or egg, but they do know that teetotaling doesn’t confer any particular advantage."