Happiness is a New Hobby

 Images from Hoop City Ca.

Today I caught up on my DVR watching and saw an Oprah show about happiness. The subject of happiness and what factors create the most long-lasting contentment fascinate me. I found through reading more on the subject today that one of the tricks to happiness is learning something new. Dan Buettner, author of the book "Thrive: Finding Happiness the Blue Zones Way" said that over time, the knowledge of a skill, be it art, another language or hooping (as I'll discuss in a minute) becomes more fulfilling.

Another interesting tidbit about happiness is that where you live contributes a great deal more to your happiness than other things like money might. Hooray for being Austin bound! Buettner says cities with wide sidewalks in a town center or places with sidewalk dining that bring the community together have the happiest populations.

So on the subject of learning new things for increased happiness, yesterday I took up a new hobby -- hooping. It's basically dancing while hula-hooping. I've seen it done before, but it didn't appeal to me to try until now. I found a hooping website where an Austin-based hooper happened to be featured. She's amazing, and I would love to be able to catch one of her fire hooping performances. Check her out in the video below, see what hooping is all about and hold out until the end if you want to see the fire hooping.