lately, I’ve been studying the theories of self-efficacy by Albert Bandura. simply put, Self-efficacy is defined as one’s belief in her capability and capacity to reach her goals. In the study of efficacy, issues of personal motivation comes up often —we are motivated by support, reward, successes in the past, how we feel about out successes. But then, success is subjective: if we feel successful or interpret events as indications of our success, then our self-efficacy is improved. So, it is not the objective success at all that makes us feel good. It is our subjective interpretation of the event that makes us feel good.

Back now to Calvin and Hobbes. I posit that if we can ‘rattle’ our negative minds from time to time and dustbin our nay-saying thoughts, we will be: 1. happier; 2. able to construct more creative solutions; 3. become more productive; 4. feel better about ourselves. We have so much negativity that emptying them out will give us so much more mental space to be creative because laughter, positivity, enjoyment, ‘just having fun with life’ shifts our mental state. And that is where the magic happens.