Tis the season to be jolly! Here are a few fun facts regarding the holiday season in the U.S. that you may not know: 1. Nine in 10 Americans say they celebrate Christmas while 32% view it as more of a cultural holiday than a religious one. 2. USPS will deliver 16 billion holiday letters, packages, and cards. 3. Over 100 million Americans will travel for the holidays this year. 4. 86% of Americans say they buy holiday gifts for family or friends. 5. Americans aim to spend an average of $935.58 each during the holiday shopping season this year. 6. Total holiday sales are expected to be over $655 billion. 7. 85% of Americans say they will probably give someone candy as a gift. 8. Americans eat about 3,000 calories worth of food during a typical holiday dinner. 9. 22 million turkeys are eaten for Christmas. 10. Americans bought nearly 26 million real Christmas trees last year and more than 13 billion fake ones. The facts I found most surprising were #7 and #8 abov...

Several of my high school colleagues are popping out babies as if it were a competition. Even a good number of my co-workers have a bun in the oven. I've never seen so many pregnant women at the same time. There must be something in the water! This is in stark contrast to all the reports I come across about the birthrate going down and how people are waiting longer to start a family. My wife and I definitely fall into such a group. We want to spend a couple more years traveling and enjoying our marriage before we contemplate having one of our own. Indeed, having kids is a life changer, and for the time being at least, we're trying to make the most out of living sans children. A friend and ex co-worker of mine, who had her daughter 14 months ago, told me a few weeks back that raising a child is far more taxing than she'd ever imagined. To my surprise, she sent me a text about two weeks ago inviting me to yet another baby shower -- this time for a boy that's due ...

Mashable.com recently published an article about a guy who made an unexpected find while traveling near Santa Cristina, Italy. It is there that he stumbled upon a familiar sight: the very view that he had set as his picture background on his phone. The picture is of Langkofel and Plattkofel in the Dolomites mountain range in Northeastern Italy. He says he originally set it as his background picture because he was looking for beautiful towns to visit while in Italy. Coincidental, isn't it? I can only imagine the guy's reaction upon beholding the mountains in person: "Hey, that looks familiar..." If you think that's an odd story, you haven't heard about my trip to Walt Disney World one year. I took a plethora of pictures as I always do while on vacation. Upon close inspection of one of the pictures, I noticed that an old friend from elementary school (who lived in the same city as me at the time) appeared in the background!  I didn't even know sh...

I've met some people whose interests might make you flinch at first blush. One guy I met in college liked collecting bugs. Another had the most extensive collection of coins I'd ever seen. What's more, a woman I currently work with says she enjoys watching videos of people getting their hair cut. However outlandish your interests may seem to the world, you should never apologize for them . They're one of the many things that make you you . You're a composite of various unique behaviors, quirks, thoughts, and interests -- ones you should never change for anyone unless you truly desire to. As long as you truly love the activity in question, aren't being pressured into it by anyone, and aren't doing it merely to conform to societal expectations, you should never feel weird for calling it one of your passions. I myself collect historical memorabilia -- from figures of presidents to books and DVDs to reproductions of historic documents. I've been call...

Want to know one reason so many of us are unhappy with our lives? You guessed it: our jobs. Want to know why our jobs make us this way?  Because we spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about how miserable they are.  Unfortunately, far too many of us fail to: Break out of these negative thoughts and redirect our attention towards things that actually make us happy Cultivate hobbies outside of work  Instead, we think of our jobs as the be-all and end-all of our existence. We count on work to fulfill us in ways that are unrealistic.  Ideally, we all want jobs that pay well, involve working with great co-workers, and keep us mentally stimulated.  While such jobs certainly exist, we'll always take issue with some aspect of our jobs. As I've said before, no job is perfect.  Relying upon your job to fulfill you is a recipe for disaster.  As we well know, things at work can change in the blink of an eye. You ...

In this post, I'd like to share what I find are the three ingredients to a joyful, satisfying life. I call them the 3 Ls: live, laugh, love . The fact they all begin with the same letter surely makes them easier to remember. 1. Live : It's fine to be cautious and prudent, but we needn't live so austerely as to inhibit ourselves from enjoying life. In other words, we should strive to  live our lives, but in responsible ways . The trick is to achieve a sensible middle ground. Running up credit card debit and drinking while driving don't constitute living  life to the fullest. They're examples of reckless behavior that can get you in heaps of trouble, if not endanger your life. Instead, we should make the most of our lives by soaking up memorable experiences. Travel the world (without overextending yourself financially, of course). Hit up new restaurants close to home and far away. Try your hand at skydiving, scuba diving, and other exciting activities you never th...

Studies have repeatedly shown that it's experiences -- not material goods -- that enrich our lives the most. So far, I've traveled very little in my life, which is something I'm aiming to change in the next couple of years. My wife and I are contemplating taking a trip to Walt Disney World in the winter and to Boston next spring. It's no surprise that experiences have been found to bring us the most happiness. After all, only they create lifelong memories. We can always relive a trip to Hawaii or a cruise to the Bahamas via pictures, videos, and keepsakes we bring home with us. But what is there to treasure about material possessions? Unless it's, say, a family heirloom you inherited from your grandfather, material possessions just wear and are eventually replaced. I would much rather spend my money on an experience I've never had before -- dinner at a popular restaurant on the other side of town or a trip to a breathtaking destination on the other side ...