Happy People

Music, food, art and throngs of happy people - those were the basic ingredients much on display at the Afrikan-American Festival at Penn's Landing. The free weekend festival featured a recreated African bazaar, martial-arts demonstrations and entertainers from jazz bagpipe player Rufus Harley to the rap group Top Gun.

In study after study, four traits characterize happy people, say authors David Myers and Ed Diener in the September-October issue of the Futurist magazine. Happy people tend to like themselves, to exercise personal control, to be optimistic, and to be extroverted. In national surveys, three in 10 Americans say they are "very happy," while only one says "not very happy. " Most consider themselves "pretty happy. " Studies in North America and western Europe also found above-neutral reports from virtually all races, age groups and economic classes.

IJUST FINISHED reading the newspaper about three more people killed. I hate to see my people killing each other over foolishness, getting locked up and coming to places like I'm in. When will these young dudes get it into their heads that all they are doing is killing a whole generation? They think it's cool to shoot and kill somebody so they can earn their stripes. Stripes for what? For spending the rest of your life in prison? Once they say "life," that's exactly what they mean.

Some chase happiness. Others radiate it. Mike Leigh contrasts the two personality types in Another Year , his affectionate portrait of Tom and Gerri (Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen), a warm London couple in their 60s. As flower to sun, their less happy friends and relatives naturally gravitate to them. Their secret? As Leigh frames the off-center couple, shaggy as figures in an Ed Koren cartoon, Tom and Gerri are content but never smug, moralists but nonjudgmental, supportive without crowding each other.

ARIES (March 21-April 19). Go on a "no complaining" kick. It will be easy to lose all negativity for the day. The vitality you gain will amaze you. TAURUS (April 20-May 20). You'll see a side of someone you didn't know was there. This will bring a thrilling surprise. GEMINI (May 21-June 21). Do some kind of charity. Being nice to a person in need of a friend may be the best way you could improve the world. CANCER (June 22-July 22). Practical solutions will make your life better.

As my sister and I drove home for Thanksgiving, the fast-food temptations along Route 38 proved too much to resist. Despite our explicit instructions from the homestead not to make any pit stops for food, we succumbed. I stepped into the restaurant and found myself in a winter wonderland: Cutouts of reindeer played on the walls; snowflakes hung from the ceiling amid tinsel and colored lights. My appetite was gone. The holidays were here. I understand that for many people, these symbols are expressions of joy, heralding a season wrought with religious and familial significance.

It was November 2003. The previous July, I had left the corporate world and started my own consulting business, and not long afterward I had contracted to provide grant-writing services to the Society of the Holy Child Jesus in Africa. (In this area, you may be familiar with the society as the group of Roman Catholic nuns who administer Rosemont College, the School of the Holy Child in Rosemont, and Holy Child Academy in Drexel Hill.) My international travel had been limited to walking over the border into Tijuana and vacationing in Bermuda.

Novelist Laurie Colwin, who wrote with her father's Mont Blanc fountain pen and her mother's college typewriter, died in her sleep Friday night at home in New York City. Ms. Colwin, 46, had complained of feeling ill and achy Friday evening. Her mother said yesterday that the cause of death had not been determined. Ms. Colwin's witty, detailed and intimate novels revealed her, in the words of one critic, as a "domestic sensualist. " Her touchstone themes, intertwined through her life and writing, included a need for self- determination, the importance of family and the joy of food well cooked and shared.

Nelly: Sweat Universal, . (out of four stars). Suit Universal, . 1/2. Both in stores today. Throughout a four-year career that's rocketed straight upward, the mega-platinum-selling St. Louis rapper Nelly has dominated urban music with two distinct styles - hard-cranking, instantly infectious party anthems (most notably "Hot in Herre") and more tender introspections on the order of the current "My Place," whose hook is sung by Jaheim. Today, Cornell Haynes, the smart businessman, sets out to exploit the dual "dimensions" of his art more aggressively with the simultaneous release of two seriously hyped, full-length discs.

PEOPLE WHO know me know that, generally, I'm a pretty upbeat, happy person. Sure, like everyone, I've had and continue to have my fair share of life's ups and downs, but I refuse to let the downs defeat me. When life deals me lemons, I just go on and make some lemonade. I have often wondered: What makes people tick? Why are some people perpetually happy, while others are perpetually depressed? Mostly, I've wondered what the connection is, if any, between happiness and health? In my search for answers to these questions, I decided this summer to enroll in a "Foundations for Positive Psychology" online course offered by the University of Pennsylvania.

Some chase happiness. Others radiate it. Mike Leigh contrasts the two personality types in Another Year , his affectionate portrait of Tom and Gerri (Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen), a warm London couple in their 60s. As flower to sun, their less happy friends and relatives naturally gravitate to them. Their secret? As Leigh frames the off-center couple, shaggy as figures in an Ed Koren cartoon, Tom and Gerri are content but never smug, moralists but nonjudgmental, supportive without crowding each other.

PEOPLE WHO know me know that, generally, I'm a pretty upbeat, happy person. Sure, like everyone, I've had and continue to have my fair share of life's ups and downs, but I refuse to let the downs defeat me. When life deals me lemons, I just go on and make some lemonade. I have often wondered: What makes people tick? Why are some people perpetually happy, while others are perpetually depressed? Mostly, I've wondered what the connection is, if any, between happiness and health? In my search for answers to these questions, I decided this summer to enroll in a "Foundations for Positive Psychology" online course offered by the University of Pennsylvania.

ARIES (March 21-April 19). Go on a "no complaining" kick. It will be easy to lose all negativity for the day. The vitality you gain will amaze you. TAURUS (April 20-May 20). You'll see a side of someone you didn't know was there. This will bring a thrilling surprise. GEMINI (May 21-June 21). Do some kind of charity. Being nice to a person in need of a friend may be the best way you could improve the world. CANCER (June 22-July 22). Practical solutions will make your life better.

Wawa's merchandise sales actually grew last year, although the growth rate is down. "We're doing OK," said Howard Stoeckel, chief executive officer of the privately held convenience-store chain. "We're not up to historic averages, but we're performing better than the vast majority of retailers. " He credits a strong focus on value and a concerted effort to make the time a customer spends in the neighborhood Wawa a respite from economic gloom. "People want to feel good," he said, "even if it's for four or five minutes a day when they're on their way to work.

IJUST FINISHED reading the newspaper about three more people killed. I hate to see my people killing each other over foolishness, getting locked up and coming to places like I'm in. When will these young dudes get it into their heads that all they are doing is killing a whole generation? They think it's cool to shoot and kill somebody so they can earn their stripes. Stripes for what? For spending the rest of your life in prison? Once they say "life," that's exactly what they mean.

It was November 2003. The previous July, I had left the corporate world and started my own consulting business, and not long afterward I had contracted to provide grant-writing services to the Society of the Holy Child Jesus in Africa. (In this area, you may be familiar with the society as the group of Roman Catholic nuns who administer Rosemont College, the School of the Holy Child in Rosemont, and Holy Child Academy in Drexel Hill.) My international travel had been limited to walking over the border into Tijuana and vacationing in Bermuda.

Nelly: Sweat Universal, . (out of four stars). Suit Universal, . 1/2. Both in stores today. Throughout a four-year career that's rocketed straight upward, the mega-platinum-selling St. Louis rapper Nelly has dominated urban music with two distinct styles - hard-cranking, instantly infectious party anthems (most notably "Hot in Herre") and more tender introspections on the order of the current "My Place," whose hook is sung by Jaheim. Today, Cornell Haynes, the smart businessman, sets out to exploit the dual "dimensions" of his art more aggressively with the simultaneous release of two seriously hyped, full-length discs.

As my sister and I drove home for Thanksgiving, the fast-food temptations along Route 38 proved too much to resist. Despite our explicit instructions from the homestead not to make any pit stops for food, we succumbed. I stepped into the restaurant and found myself in a winter wonderland: Cutouts of reindeer played on the walls; snowflakes hung from the ceiling amid tinsel and colored lights. My appetite was gone. The holidays were here. I understand that for many people, these symbols are expressions of joy, heralding a season wrought with religious and familial significance.

In study after study, four traits characterize happy people, say authors David Myers and Ed Diener in the September-October issue of the Futurist magazine. Happy people tend to like themselves, to exercise personal control, to be optimistic, and to be extroverted. In national surveys, three in 10 Americans say they are "very happy," while only one says "not very happy. " Most consider themselves "pretty happy. " Studies in North America and western Europe also found above-neutral reports from virtually all races, age groups and economic classes.

Novelist Laurie Colwin, who wrote with her father's Mont Blanc fountain pen and her mother's college typewriter, died in her sleep Friday night at home in New York City. Ms. Colwin, 46, had complained of feeling ill and achy Friday evening. Her mother said yesterday that the cause of death had not been determined. Ms. Colwin's witty, detailed and intimate novels revealed her, in the words of one critic, as a "domestic sensualist. " Her touchstone themes, intertwined through her life and writing, included a need for self- determination, the importance of family and the joy of food well cooked and shared.