I’ve stepped up my efforts in completing the Science of Happiness course on edX. I am glad that the course is getting more interesting as it progresses and that it manages to provide both new insights into happiness and a solid academic background on the subject. As a full time working parent, I struggled to find time to study (despite getting up at 5am), I finally managed to do it – edX have a mobile app, so I listen to videos during commute and with a bit of preparation and discovery of the Speech option on my iPhone, I email myself and have papers read by an electronic Apple robot voice while I walk. It works!

This week I discovered 2 very powerful videos, as part of the course. They are both on forgiveness and however cliche this subject may have become these days, forgiveness is still a powerful happiness tool. People who don’t forgive live in constant stress, agony even, inflicting damage on their health, putting blinders on their eyes and missing out on life. By not forgiving, we hurt ourselves first and foremost.

After a hard work week, why not start the weekend by letting go and forgiving others and/or ourselves as much as we can. In his eye opening talk, Fred Luskin defines forgiveness as the ability to make peace with ‘no’. This ties in nicely with the ‘love crush’ theme we’ve been exploring on this blog. Ready to forgive? Here you go.