Unleashing some happiness

Categories: News & StuffTags: happiness, TEDAuthor: 5infiveHappiness is not simply the absence of misery. Happiness and unhappiness are not the end points on a single continuum. There’s no tug of war to see here folks. If we were only governed by pleasure we wouldn’t survive. To protect ourselves from danger we have a natural bias towards negativity. Our tastebuds detect bitterness more acutely than sweetness. People hate to lose more than they love to win. Negative comments are so powerful they need to be counteracted by five positive ones for relationships to thrive. Even at our recent catch up with fellow Five in Five-ers, the conversation steered towards our bad date experiences. For all of us there, the dating has been overwhelmingly positive. We’ve enjoyed the challenge of
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It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see

Categories: News & StuffTags: expectations, narcissistic, perceptionsAuthor: 5infiveEveryone wants the goss. How did the date go? There is a little trap, easy to fall into, when we give ‘updates’ to our friends and generous sponsors. It’s the temptation to reduce the person we’ve dated to a measurement of how well they fit our particular likes and dislikes. This style of dating can resemble a job interview and tends to be what makes dating seem so tedious. It can be why some, blokes in particular, run a mile from the awkwardness of being analysed against unrealistic expectations or the prospect of suddenly being responsible for the hopes, dreams and self-worth projected onto the unsuspecting. What if instead we used this dating experience to enlarge our lives and change our
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The Forces at Play

Categories: News & StuffTags: A-Game, networks, state of awarenessAuthor: 5infiveThere is something curious that happens during the Five in Five dating season. There’s the warm glow of contributing to a good cause.  The reviving of old fashion dating. And then there are the other forces at play.  State of awareness My very dear friend Richard spent a year working in the Transfer Response Unit. Or as he called it: the taxi service for the already departed. His job involved collecting bodies of the deceased from homes, hospitals, nursing homes and crash sites whenever the coroner wanted to examine the bodies. It’s not a job he’d recommend to everyone. Richard looked on it like his national year of service. His tour of duty. It was challenging, exhausting and often disturbing.
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What is old-fashion dating?

Categories: News & StuffTags: consumerism, dating, old-fashion, slow, vintageAuthor: 5infiveIs it just part of the fascination with all things vintage. Floral and polka dot prints, cut-throat barbers, the Don Draper side part – are we just nostalgia tripping? Have a chat to your grandparents or even you’re parents. They’ll most likely tell you a date could be anything from a shared dessert to a bike ride. And they didn’t always go on dates with the same person. They would go on dates with several different people. Shocking! As Marissa shared: I recently spent the morning catching up with my great-Aunty, who’s now in her 80s but still rather spritely. She mentioned that she had a “string of beaus” on the go “back in her day”, that she used to
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How does dating work again?

Categories: News & StuffTags: dates, ideas, tipsAuthor: 5infive“Mate I haven’t gone on five dates in five years [guffaw]”. The dating novice signs up for the challenge. They realise they can actually find dates. And then the next hurdle looms: planning the dates. What to do? Where to go? For those feeling a little nervous and lost, our best advise is: What do you do when you catch up with mates? Do that. An environment you’re comfortable in is the best place to start. The most common date last year was a couple of drinks after work. Interestingly the worst timed date was at the open-air cinema during the February flash floods. Which brings us to our other bit of advice. If you choose to go to the
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It Hits You Twice: why urban poverty

Categories: News & StuffTags: urban povertyAuthor: 5infiveOur farm stories are almost rural myths. They’ve been tossed around, used as analogies, reduced to one-liners. Friends are able to tell them as if they are their own. My sister’s mate created a role-play about the time I resuscitated our pet lamb. It was a party favourite. We grew up on the edge of the outback in a tiny farming community. Just a Post Office and a hall – used for the odd concert and movies once a month. From far and wide we’d fill the hall. One dollar for two movies. You’d buy the tickets from the little side window and then head inside, where the same person who sold you the ticket, would rip it up. Until
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Where the funds go

Categories: News & StuffTags: charities, fundraising, urban povertyAuthor: 5infiveALL funds raised through registration and sponsorship go directly to the charities and where it’s needed most. Below is a list of examples of  how the funds you raise make an impact.  Your friends sponsoring as little as $10 can make a huge difference. $10      Coloured craft paper Although for many paper is not a big deal, having clean colourful paper is important for children to be able to be creative with.  The Livewires After Hours Care, Homework Assistance and Wired Up all use great paper to encourage the children use their imaginations and to learn. $10      Everyday Essential Items (Phonecard, Toothbrush & paste, First Aid, Socks) St Kilda Gatehouse is the primary point of contact for many who work on
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Social Skydiving

Categories: News & StuffTags: challenge, how to meet people, social skydiving, tipsAuthor: 5infiveSocial Skydiving became a popular sport during the first round of Five in Five.  What is Social Skydiving? Brad Bollenbach explains:   Social Skydiving: the art of talking to strangers I’ve travelled all over the world, from New York to Cape Town, Rio de Janeiro to Tokyo. I’ve had the privilege of working with brilliant minds. A few years ago I learned French, and mastered the language well enough to speak in horrible slang with a fully authentic accent. I bought my first house not even 72 hours after my first ever house-shopping expedition, and only hours before I was due on a plane to Australia. But the single most exhilarating thing I’ve ever done was to make a habit
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The Technical Question

Categories: News & StuffTags: expectations, first dateAuthor: adminWeek two into this year’s challenge we received a phone call: “I have a technical question”. Oh gosh, was the website not working properly. No, in fact the question was quite simple: “if your first date goes really well, and you quite like each other, can you date the same person five times?” We like those sort of technical questions. Ann tells her story here: “Just before Christmas I had given Internet dating just one more go. My previous experience in dabbling with the dating sites had added to my collection of ‘you’ll never guess what happened to me’ stories. Every man I dated had some weird psychological issue or addiction. One had an anxiety attack one minute into the
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