For some, happiness is a word that conjures up visions of selfish people concerned only with their own pleasure; but this sort of hedonistic approach to happiness is a recipe for serial bursts of pleasure at the expense of long-term happiness.

As you know, when I speak of happiness, I am describing a much richer concept; more akin to what the ancient Greeks called eudaimonia or "success at being human."

One of the central elements for living well is how you relate to other people. In this regard, happiness is literally the opposite of self-centeredness or self-absorption. In fact, contrary to many Las Vegas advertisements or Hollywood-lifestyle fantasies, self-absorption is a key ingredient for depression, and single-minded focus on personal pleasure is a recipe for long-term misery.

So here's the single most effective thing you can do to get an immediate and significant boost to your genuine happiness - and to set the stage for a deeper, long-term happiness as well. It's simple. It's not mysterious. But it is substantial:

We'll get to what you can do in a moment, but first we're going to talk about bear fat.

From time immemorial, the Apache Indians in what is now Arizona have had a fool-proof way of determining if the coming winter would be cold or mild.  Sometime around October or so, they go into the mountains and shoot a bear.  They stopped using arrows to do this a long time ago.

Skinning out the bear, they examine its fat layer under the skin.  If it's thin and less viscous, the winter will be mild;  the thicker and more viscous, the colder the winter will be.  The Apaches on bear hunts over the past few weeks report the latter.

Ask ranchers out West, and they'll tell you that the coats of coyotes, ground squirrels, horses, cows, and any other critter with fur or a hide that lives outdoors are thicker this fall.

You'd be wise to pay attention to the Apaches and the ranchers, to the bears and coyotes, in preparing for this winter, rather than Algore and the glowarmers, or you are going to freeze your tush off. 

The Jade Steps

Chapter Twenty-Five:  Prisoner In His Palace 

As they were returning to their quarters in the Palace of Axayacatl, Cortez announced, "If we cannot yet say Mass and have a chapel upon that temple, then at least for now we must be able to do so where we are housed.  Doña Marina, please send a request to Montezuma asking that we be allowed to build this chapel in his father's palace."

When word came quickly back that the request was granted, Cortez assigned his best carpenter, Alonso Yañez, to the task.  Early the next morning, Yañez, escorted by Juan Velasquez de Leon and Francisco de Lugo, interrupted the morning meal of Cortez and Malinali.  "Captain, we have found something you should see," he said.

Yañez brought them into a small room.  "We thought that this room would be appropriate for our chapel," he explained.  He walked over to one of the room's walls.  "Then I noticed something strange.  You can see that there is fresh plaster and paint here, most likely covering up a door.  A door to what we think is a hidden room."

Without hesitation, Cortez responded, "Señor Yañez, you are to be congratulated for your sharp eyes.  Let us open this hidden door."

Cortez called for torches.  Bernal appeared with lit torches for all just as Yañez and his assistant broke through the plastered doorway.  Cortez was the first to step into the black entrance of the sealed room, followed by de Leon, de Lugo, Malinali, Yañez, and Bernal. 

A ranking Iranian political figure, Issa Kalantari, recently warned that past mistakes leave Iran with water supplies so insufficient that up to 70 percent, or 55 million out of 78 million Iranians, would be forced to abandon their native country for parts unknown.

Many facts buttress Kalantari's apocalyptic prediction:

*Once lauded in poetry, Lake Urmia, the Middle East's largest lake, has lost 95 percent of its water since 1996, going from 31 billion cubic meters to 1.5 billion.

*What the Seine is to Paris, the Zayanderud was to Isfahan - except the latter went bone-dry in 2010.

*Over two-thirds of Iran's cities and towns are "on the verge of a water crisis" that could result in drinking water shortages; already, thousands of villages depend on water tankers.

Nor are Iranians alone in peril; many others in the arid Middle East may also be forced into unwanted, penurious, desperate exile. With one unique, magnificent exception, much of the Middle East is running out of water due to such maladies as population growth, short-sighted dictators, distorted economic incentives, and infrastructure-destroying warfare. Some specifics: