A Reflection on a semester of Well-Being

     It's been close to 16 weeks since I began working on this project and this journey. Although I wish I had maybe had some more time to research well-being, to learn about well-being and to share my findings on well-being, I think what I've found so far has been beneficial.
    

Photo courtesy of ilovewellbeing.com

This project has been a very fun experience for me ... I've definitely seen myself grow and flourish as a happy, well human being over the last few months. I've taken my own advice to heart, and I have seen many positive changes ...

Well-Being for the "Youngsters"

Photo courtesy of getmobetter.com

     In my mind, children are the future. And to be perfectly honest, they really are. They will one day be the leaders of this world, holding all control, making all the decisions, choosing how countries will be run and what kind of people will make up this world. Although a scary thought at times, this thought can also be very uplifting and exciting - we have a chance to inspire and influence these children in the best way possible.
     As a camp counselor and a ski instructor, I've seen the innocence of children disappear as the summers and winters have passed, and while it worries me to see how quickly these children grow up compared to how quickly I grew up, I know we all have an opportunity to change that. And why not start by improving children's well-being?

GNH not GDP

    

Photo courtesy of
christopherbpearman.wordpress.com

     How would you define prosperity? By the amount of money you make or the fact that you have a roof over your head? By the size of your car or the fact that you have food on your table each night? As an American, living in a well-to-do area of New York State, coming from an upper middle class family, I am definitely guilty of measuring my happiness from an economic and materialistic standpoint. And I'm sure I'm not the only one.
     But does measuring prosperity economically actually mean anything? Cool you have a nice car. Awesome, you make more than $100,000 a year. But can money and materialistic items buy us happiness? If I've learned anything from this semester of writing these well-being posts, I have definitely learned that the answer to that question is a big, fat "no."

United States of Well-Being - A Call to Action in the Sadness Belt

     Do you hate your job? Get sick easily? Have trouble staying in shape? Smoke excessively? Then you must be from West Virginia. Or Ohio. Or Kentucky. Or any of the other seven states that make up the recently coined "Sadness Belt."

Photo courtesy of Gallup-Healthways

All located in the same general area, the Sadness Belt is made up of Oklahoma, Indiana, Louisiana, Ohio, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, Kentucky and West Virginia - the 10 states with the lowest overall well-being scores as calculated through the Gallup-Healthways report.