{"id":1634,"date":"2009-06-15T11:09:04","date_gmt":"2009-06-15T16:09:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/?p=1634"},"modified":"2009-06-15T11:09:04","modified_gmt":"2009-06-15T16:09:04","slug":"best-readthe-joy-of-less-happy-days-blog-nytimescom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/2009\/06\/15\/best-readthe-joy-of-less-happy-days-blog-nytimescom\/","title":{"rendered":"Best Read:The Joy of Less &#8211; Happy Days Blog &#8211; NYTimes.com"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m no <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Bhikkhu\" rel=\"wikipedia\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bhikkhu\">Buddhist monk<\/a>, and I can\u2019t say I\u2019m in love with renunciation in itself, or traveling an hour or more to print out an article I\u2019ve written, or missing out on the <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"National Basketball Association\" rel=\"homepage\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nba.com\">N.B.A.<\/a> Finals. But at some point, I decided that, for me at least, <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Happiness\" rel=\"wikipedia\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Happiness\">happiness<\/a> arose out of all I didn\u2019t want or need, not all I did. And it seemed quite useful to take a clear, hard look at what really led to peace of mind or absorption (the closest I\u2019ve come to understanding happiness). Not having a car gives me volumes not to think or worry about, and makes walks around the neighborhood a daily adventure. Lacking a <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Mobile phone\" rel=\"wikipedia\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mobile_phone\">cell phone<\/a> and <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Broadband Internet access\" rel=\"wikipedia\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Broadband_Internet_access\">high-speed Internet<\/a>, I have time to play <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Table tennis\" rel=\"wikipedia\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Table_tennis\">ping-pong<\/a> every evening, to write long letters to old friends and to go shopping for my sweetheart (or to track down old baubles for two kids who are now out in the world).<br \/>\nvia <a href=\"http:\/\/happydays.blogs.nytimes.com\/2009\/06\/07\/the-joy-of-less\/\">The Joy of Less &#8211; Happy Days Blog &#8211; NYTimes.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div class=\"zemanta-pixie\" style=\"margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;\"><a class=\"zemanta-pixie-a\" title=\"Reblog this post [with Zemanta]\" href=\"http:\/\/reblog.zemanta.com\/zemified\/a34543b4-b307-45ff-a1af-61562bc4705e\/\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"zemanta-pixie-img\" style=\"border: medium none; float: right;\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.zemanta.com\/reblog_e.png?w=525\" alt=\"Reblog this post [with Zemanta]\" \/><\/a><span class=\"zem-script more-related pretty-attribution\"><script src=\"http:\/\/static.zemanta.com\/readside\/loader.js\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m no Buddhist monk, and I can\u2019t say I\u2019m in love with renunciation in itself, or traveling an hour or more to print out an article I\u2019ve written, or missing out on the N.B.A. Finals. But at some point, I decided that, for me at least, happiness arose out of all I didn\u2019t want or &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/2009\/06\/15\/best-readthe-joy-of-less-happy-days-blog-nytimescom\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Best Read:The Joy of Less &#8211; Happy Days Blog &#8211; NYTimes.com&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,62],"tags":[267,305,306,612,671,961,1253,1391],"class_list":["post-1634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-read","category-personal-angol","tag-broadband-internet-access","tag-cell-phones","tag-cell-phones-and-driving","tag-games","tag-health-concerns","tag-mobile-phone","tag-science-and-technology","tag-the-new-york-times-company"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1634\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}