Science | Live Happy

The Truth Behind 3 Happiness Myths

Myth: Achieving goalsleads to all-but-inevitablehappiness. Truth: Happinessshouldn’t hang onachievement—happinessshould encourageachievement. “If happiness and positivity are created first,then the chances of achieving desirable goalsare significantly enhanced,” says Tim Sharp,Ph.D., of The Happiness Institute in Australia.This allows us to experience the “wonders ofpositive emotions before, during and aftersuccess, rather than just after,” he says. Myth: Realized dreamsequate to happiness. Truth: Dreams serve asthe motivation to continuepursuing happiness. “You can use that experience [of pursuing yourdreams] as the building block for a new future,” saysLaura King, Ph.D., professor of psychological sciences at the University of Missouri Columbia andeditor of the Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology. “You acknowledge that that dream may not come true, but start thinking, ‘What skills did Igain from that experience that I can use in someother way?’ The great challenge is to move that joy to a new context….If you will invest in a new futurewith that same optimism, everything that happensinside that new life is much richer. It puts a differentcontext on your current experiences. And that lifethat you thought of as your second choice oftenturns out to be amazing.” Myth: I'll be happy if I marry the right person. Truth: True happiness isn’t determined bysociety; true happiness is personal. “Marrying the perfect person is not the answer to true happiness,” says Stacy Kaiser,a Live Happy columnist, best-selling author, psychotherapist and relationship expert. “Rather, the cliché that happiness comes from within is actually true: Happinesscomes from feeling emotionally, psychologically and spiritually satisfied andsupported in the life you’re living. It comes from feeling fulfilled, productive, caredfor, safe and secure, no matter if you’re single or you’re married.”

Positive Psychology

Discover Your Genius

In May 2012, Shawn was invited by the royal family in Abu Dhabi to give a talk. He was so excited about the opportunity to go dune-bashing in all-terrain vehicles and ride camels that when it came time for his lecture about how to change realities for women in the Middle East, he wasn't thinking straight.As he usually does, he kicked off the talk by partnering people up and having one person try to control his or her face to show no emotion for seven seconds. Then Shawn had the other person smile warmly and genuinelydirectly into the eyes of the first person. (Trust us, this is more difficult than it sounds.) It wasn't until midway through that he realized his mistake: Half the people in the room were wearing veils.Smiling through the veilIf Shawn had thought about this, he might not have tried the experiment. But, incredibly, the experiment still worked. The women in the audience said they could see the smiles in their partners' eyes. Even behind the veil, these unseen smiles were contagious.The point we want to make is that no matter what seemingly insurmountable barrier is in our lives, we can create a positive reality. In fact, sometimes the greatest opportunities to do this are the ones that are slightly hidden.Tap into the unconscious mindAccordingly to Yale psychologist Scott Kaufman, the unconscious portion of your brain works on problems using different processes than your conscious brain. And as Adam Galinskyfrom Columbia Business School explains, "Conscious thought is better at making linear, analytic decisions, but unconscious thought is especially effective at solving complex problems. Unconscious activation may provide inspirational sparks underlying the 'aha' moment that eventually leads to important discoveries."But the key to unlocking these unconscious processes is taking time to not think about your challenge or problem. In other words, to engage all our brains and achieve those "aha moments," sometimes we need to shut a portion of our brains off and stop working.That's because once you have fully embraced and built a positive reality, that reality becomes embedded deep in your unconscious brain processes. Thus the skills of positive intelligence can become second nature, allowing you to harness all your intelligence without consciously trying, or even being consciously aware of it.Use the unconscious to think differentlySo, what problems and obstacles are you trying to solve in your life? How are you going about solving them?Instead of beating your head against a wall or spending 80 hours a week thinking about these problems, just stop. Take a break for a week or two, and work on other parts of your life. Play a musical instrument, read a fiction book, look at old vacation photos--whatever it is, do something that will engage your brain and keep it from consciously thinking about your problems.Take a few moments from your daily stream of life and let your unconscious take over.You may also consider planning a mini-vacation each week. It doesn't have to be long--15 to 30 minutes will work as long as you're doing something out of the ordinary that allows your conscious brain to refocus and your unconscious brain to start being creative. Have fun with this: Go sit in a coffee shop to journal, go to an art museum, take a yoga class, go fishing. We're not encouraging you to retreat from your problems or turn a blind eye to them, but to instead let the creative part of your brain help you build much more powerful positive realities.Find a new solution to old problemsThe greater the complexity of your problem, the greater the need for a positive reality that transcends consciousness. Success on a massive scale requires a reality in which, even if our conscious minds can't see a solution, our unconscious minds know one is possible.Many brilliant people never feel this kind of inspiration that leads to life-changing discoveries or achievements because they never let their unconscious brains work. So, take a break from the ordinary and let your unconscious get to work--it could just lead to the answer you've been searching for.Shawn Achor, author ofThe Happiness Advantageand the newly releasedBefore Happiness, is one of the world's leading experts on human potential. Shawn is the winner of more than a dozen distinguished teaching awards at Harvard University, where he delivered lectures on positive psychology.Michelle Gielanis an expert on the science of positive communication and how to use it to fuel success. She works withFortune500 companies and schools to raise employee engagement, productivity and happiness at work. She formerly served as the anchor of two national newscasts at CBS News.Together, Shawn and Michelle createdGoodThink, a positive psychology consulting firm.

Woman listening to music on her headphones.

Positive Psychology

What Is Your Healing Rhythm?

Whether your musical preference is Igor Stravinsky or Iggy Azalea, listening to your favorite artist might be doing more good than you realize. Presenters at the Music & Medicine Conference in Cincinnati on Sept. 19, 2014, said they’ve discovered that when it comes to tuning in, our personal music choices are much more powerful than most of us realize. Music involves every part of the brain Dr. Richard Fratianne, founder and director of the burn unit at Cleveland’s MetroHealth Medical Center, explained that music is effective for healing both physically and emotionally because it engages all three areas of the brain. Music captures the attention of the reptilian brain, which controls vital body functions; the limbic brain, which handles memories and emotions; and the neocortex, the center for language, imagination and consciousness. As its healing powers have become more widely understood, the medical world has implemented music therapy in clinical settings.Fratianne was one of the pioneers who used music to ease the suffering of burn patients and spearheaded research that demonstrated listening to music during painful treatments can reduce suffering and anxiety. Through the years, research has repeatedly shown that music has a powerful effect on everything from pulse and heart rates to the amount of cortisol being released in our bodies, butwhat surprised Fratianne most is realizing that no individual piece of music affects us all in the same way. This time, it’s personal While it has been widely believed that listening to gentle or “easy listening” music can help us relax, Fratianne also studied the effect of “patient preferred” music on his subjects. “We found that the reduction of pain and anxiety is most significant with patient-preferred music,” he says. Regardless of the type of music patients listened to, they had better outcomes when they chose the music themselves—even if that meant listening to such unlikely genres as rap and metal which are not generally considered to be tools for soothing the mind and promoting healing. Similar discoveries were made by Dr. Stephen Feagins, an internal medicine specialist at Mercy Anderson Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio. While researching ways to use music to promote recovery from sports injuries and concussions, he was surprised to learn it wasn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. “We went searching for the best kind of music to use, but it turns out it was a lot more complicated than we knew. Everyone’s different. Everybody has a certain rhythm that works for them.” Like Fratianne, Feagins’ research showed that the effectiveness of music in facilitating patient healing didn’t depend on the beat, the rhythm or the melody; it was the patient’s personal feelings about the music that mattered. “We found that in every injury except concussion, music helps with the healing process,” Feagins reported, “but with a concussion, the only music that makes it better is a familiar playlist.” The beat of your own drum Of course, you don’t have to be a patient on the mend to benefit from the beat; healers like Fratianne and Feagins believe that such findings have implications outside the clinical setting and that we can all learn from these findings. Listening to music you connect with, instead of tuning in to another’s preference, may help you solve problems, improve performance at work and boost your happiness. Feagins points to the fact that even though workout centers invariably have their own music pumping through the sound system, most people prefer to bring their own music to listen to as they exercise. “Everybody has a certain rhythm that works for them,” says Feagins, “there’s a type of music that calms you, that motivates you, that makes you happy. You just have to find what rhythm works for you.”

Positive Psychology

Do You Have Enough Meaning in Your Life?

No recipe for happiness is complete without meaningand purpose. In fact, when we engage in activities that serve ahigher calling and help others spread positivity, we not only get a warm,fuzzy feeling, but also increase our overall satisfaction with our lives.Now, thanks to modern research, the meaning in your life canbe measured via the Meaning in Life questionnaire. If you receivea high score, you're on a very positive track! You probably know your life’s mission, which contributes to a sense of happiness and peace.If you measure on the low end, don’t worry—here are a few ways that have been shown to add meaning to your life:• Nurture your relationships.• Make positive connections with others.• Mix in altruism and compassion.• Be open to new experiences.Log on to AuthenticHappiness.org and take the Meaning in Lifequestionnaire to find out how strong you are in this area.

Positive Psychology

6 Key Strategies for Achieving Success

Every time I tell someone that I'm writing a book onself-doubt,they say, “Oh I need that book!”Everyone experiences self-doubt at one time or another.Self-doubt might be that voice in your head that says, “Are you sure you've worked hard enough on this?” or, “Have you practiced enough?”It's normal to regularly question what we're doing and how we fit into our complex world. We’ll never eliminate self-doubt; instead we can learn how to manage it and use it as a driving force.Researchers concur that self-doubt becomes problematic onlywhen it's chronic. If you sabotage your performance with constant self-criticism, or often feel like you are an imposter and people will find you out, for example, you probably are hindered by chronic self-doubt.Below are six scientifically supported ways to manage self-doubt and use it as a constructive building block for success: 1. Re-frame difficulty as a positive forceThe other night, my niece complained that she doesn't like science class because she feels like she's “not good at it.” She added that she always has to work harder at science than her other subjects.This made me wonder: Why is it that people think something's wrong when they have to work hard and make a real effort? In one study at Stanford University led by psychology professor Carol Dweck, students in a control group learned that effort and difficulty is a normal part of growth, and should be perceived as a positive sign on the road to success. This shift in perception improved the students' academic performance and sense of wellbeing.2. Tap into past experiencesIf you’re feeling doubtful, ask yourself, “Have I ever been successful at this in the past?” If the answer is no, then ask yourself if you have ever been successful at a certain aspect of this task in the past.For example, I felt comfortable delivering workshops for years, but when people began asking me to be keynote speaker, I was terrified. After some reflection, I realized giving a keynote speech and running workshops are similar skills.Once I recognized the relevant skills I already had, I solicited help from professionals to learn the skills I still lacked. This improved not only my competence, but also my confidence.3. Practice self-compassionAccording to self-compassion researcher Kristin Neff, people who are more compassionate toward themselves have greater self-confidence. Those who don’t berate themselves when things go wrong are more likely to persist and take the risks needed to progress because they are less afraid of failure. “When it’s safe to fail, it’s safe to try.” Says Neff. (To learn more, watch my interview with Dr. Neff.)4. Doubt your doubtsOften when we embark on something new, negative thoughts can take over. “Who are you to think you can do this? ... Who cares about what you have to say?”I used to be the queen of negative self-talk. I learned to talk back to those undermining thoughts by asking: “Is this true?” Identify what your negative inner voice is saying, and then evaluate it from an objective point of view.More often than not, that little voice in our heads is spouting more fiction than fact. What's more, you can counter that inner critic with objective, rational and affirmative thoughts.5. Stop ruminatingExcessive thinking about what you should have done differently in the past can bleed into the present. So if you are stuck in negative ruminations about the past as you’re faced with a new task, you actually reduce your ability to focus on your present performance.To stop ruminating about times when my performance was disappointing, I say to myself, “I did my best with what I knew at the time.” Then I analyze what I think I could have done differently and I move on. (The moving on part is key.)6. Don't make your self-worth contingent on your accomplishmentsAmerican culture often perpetuates the idea that our worth is contingent upon our ongoing accomplishments. When we are succeeding, our self-worth goes up, and when we are failing, we feel worthless. People who do not tie their self-worth to their accomplishments in fact see failure on the same continuum as success—as a necessary step to ultimate achievement of goals.Rather than a reflection of how unworthy we are, failure can be a sign that we are still learning or have picked the wrong strategy for the circumstances. I try to remember what Maya Angelou once said: “I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.”Louisa Jewellis the president of theCanadian Positive Psychology Association, as well as a speaker, author, and instructor of psychology at the University of Toronto.

News & Trends

Top 10 Happiest Colleges in America

What makes a college student happy? Great professors? A beautiful campus? A happening music scene?For its newly released guide to the best collegesof 2015, The Princeton Review interviewed 130,000 students about everything from dorm food to campus life in order to determine which college has the happiest students. Small, liberal arts colleges tend to dominate the list, withVanderbilt University, in Nashville, Tennessee at the headof the class.The List1. Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN2. Claremont McKenna College, Claremont, CA3. Clemson University, Clemson, SC4. Tulane University, New Orleans, LA5. Virginia Tech, Blackburg, VA6. Rice University, Houston, TX7. Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS8. Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME9. Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY10. Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, MI

Positive Psychology

Happiness 101

You probably learned a number of useful things in school: reading, writing, arithmetic. But no matter how fantastic your teacher, it’s doubtful that “How to be happy” was included in the lesson plan.Luckily, it’s never too late. September marks the inaugural run of The Science of Happiness, a free online class for happiness seekers worldwide.Teaching happinessThis “massive open online course” (MOOC) is the first of its kind devoted exclusively to positive psychology. Instructors Dacher Keltner, Ph.D., and Emiliana Simon-Thomas, Ph.D., will teach students science-based skills for greater happiness and wellbeing.“We’re going to dig into what we think are the most direct paths to happiness and health,” says Dacher, who is also the founding faculty director of University of California at Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center.Connections, compassion, kindnessDacher says the 10-week course will zero in on scientifically proven methods for greater happiness, from building strong social connections with friends and family to the power of compassion and kindness.Students can also expect to learn a bit about their own brain, as well as practical applications for happiness. “We’re taking great care to have reflective practices that our students can engage in, like writing a gratitude diary, learning different techniques to be mindful, how to read people’s emotions more effectively—the tested practices that people can start to integrate,” Dacher says.Visiting scholarsJoining in the discussions will be noted experts from the field of positive psychology, including neuropsychologist Rick Hanson, Ph.D.; The Myths of Happinessbest-selling author Sonja Lyubomirsky, Ph.D.; and mindful meditation teacher Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D.So, can students really boost their happiness in just two months? Absolutely, Dacher says. “Even more important, [students will] have a sense of what they can work on to get happier. I think it’ll give them a little purpose—a little extra meaning in life.”“The Science of Happiness” launches Sept. 9. Register at either GreaterGood.Berkeley.edu or EdX.org, or opt in at any time to audit the course.

Positive Psychology

4 Ways to Spark and Spread a Positive Mood

No one can be in a good mood all the time, but since our emotions effect not just ourselves but also those around us (friends, coworkers, family), it's important to know how to make yourself feel better when you're in a funk. Here are some techniques to try out when you need an emotional boost. 1. Label your emotion Thismay sound counterintuitive, but justnaming your emotion out loud can startto change it. When you’reauthentic, people can tell.Researchershave found that just saying “I’manxious” or “I’m worried” allows thenegative emotion to dissipate muchmore quickly. So when you’re upset withyour spouse, friend or colleague, don’thesitate to say, “I feel upset about…” 2. Take deep breaths Try it now. While you’rereading this. Take a breath. Andanother. How do you feel? A little morerelaxed in the chest and shoulder area?Try this when your spouse or child sayssomething upsetting. Step aside—go to the kitchen or the bathroom or onto thefront porch and take a few deep breaths.No one will miss you, and you will comeback refreshed. This is one of thesimplest things to do, but it’s one of thehardest to remember! 3. Go for a walk We can’t emphasize how many studies stress thebenefits of being outdoors and theeffects it can have on your mood andstress level. So, if you feel that you’reabout to crash into a negative mood,take a few minutes and go for a walkoutside. The worst thing you can dois sit at your desk and continue todwell on it. 4. Move it! Surprisingly, doing a stretch, standingwith good posture and smiling allcontribute to a good mood. Performing aphysical activity—like doing fivejumping-jacks or being silly withanother physical movement, can changeyour attitude.Keep in mind that one of thesetechniques may work better than theothers for you, so experiment and seewhich works best and when. Margaret H. Greenberg and Senia Maymin, are organizational consultants and executive coaches, and authors ofProfit from the Positive: Proven Leadership Strategies to Boost Productivity and Transform Your Business. For more information about Senia and Margaret, go toProfitFromThePositive.com.

Illustration of boy flying out of a cage.

Education

Changing Lives

When President Obama visited ChristianChampagne’s Chicago high school, the18-year-old said it was one of the greatestdays of his life. That day, however, wastopped a year later when he was asked to introduce the president at a White Houseevent. With a boyish, yet confident, grin, Christian revealed that he refereesbasketball games, has a passion forbaseball and loves the White Sox. Butwhen the subject changed to the dangershe faces in his daily life, his grin fadedthough his fortitude remained.“My neighborhood is tough. It isn’talways safe,” Christian said at the event.“Just recently, I was robbed walking home from school, but those challenges havenot stopped me from wanting to have a better and safer place to live and work.” For millions of at-risk young peoplelike Christian, it’s easier to find troublethan it is to have a sturdy mentor in theirlives giving them the determination andwillpower to avoid the trappings of drugsand violence. Role-model mentoring Becoming a Man (BAM), created by theChicago nonprofit Youth Guidance, ismaking a difference with young malesconsidered most at-risk. The counseling,mentoring and violence-preventionprogram was designed to teach studentsin grades seven through six core values not taught within the walls of atraditional classroom. At the event, Christian repeated the character strengths mantra that BAMprides itself on: integrity, accountability,self-determination, positive angerexpression, visionary goal-setting andrespect for womanhood. It’s hard not toroot for a young kid with these goals,especially when they are tougher for him to achieve than someone his age who hasalways had a positive male influence in his life. Getting on the right track Statistically, the odds are stackedagainst Christian. But now, after being inthe program for two years, they’ve shiftedin his favor. He is less likely to engage in criminal behavior and more likelygraduate from high school. And assuming he stays on track, he will bemore inclined to return the favor andserve as a mentor for other youth. Jean Rhodes, Ph.D., a psychologyprofessor at the University ofMassachusetts Boston and the research director for the Center for Evidence-Based Mentoring, says the research isclear regarding youth who have a caringadult in their lives: They tend to do better,academically and behaviorally, and gofurther in life. For 25 years, Jean has been studyingand researching the topic of mentoring.Her interest in the subject was piquedwhile living in Chicago during the late’80s, when the crack epidemic had astranglehold on the nation. Sheinterviewed high-school students, tryingto understand why some resisted getting involved with drugs and taking part inbad behavior. What she found was that the students who didn’t succumb totemptation more often than not had astrong adult influence in their lives.Whether it was a neighbor or grandparentor teacher, someone held them to ahigher standard and thought they coulddo well in the world. A major responsibility For some of thosestudents, that relationship meant thedifference between life and death.“You have to take the role [of mentor]seriously,” Jean says. “You can’t just do ithalfheartedly. You have to do it entirely;you have to be a caring, empathic,trusting, attuned, open person and bethere for the long term.” The BAM students work in a groupsetting, developing their impulse-controlskills and learning how to manage their anger in an open and safe environmentalongside their peers, who are in similarsituations. The program’s counselors,who are all male and full-time socialworkers, are placed in schools and madeavailable for one-one-one counselingthroughout the day, ensuring the studenthas someone to turn to who canreinforce those skills taught in the groupand navigate them through any day-todayissues that may arise. This buildsconsistency and trust, crucial for amentoring relationship. “When we begin, it might be a littledifficult for a young man to open upand express himself,” says RichardDickinson, a BAM counselor. “Butthrough our curriculum and through the rapport built with the facilitator over ashort time, these young people can lookinside each other’s eyes and see that theyare not alone….A lot of the issues theyare going through are relatable toother people in the group, or that the facilitator himself has experiencedbefore. The building of trust forms acontainer that is safe enough to holdall of the issues that people are trying to address.” Gaining ground The program’s success has garnerednational attention, which has led toincreased funding and more kids included as mentees. Last year, ChicagoMayor Rahm Emanuel visited a groupat Harper High School in Chicago. Impressed, he pledged $2 million toBAM, expanding the program from600 boys to 2,000. This is good news for Richard, whosays he’s extremely proud that peoplewith the power to make a difference havefaith in these kinds of programs. Havingaccess to mentors can change trajectoriesand bridge income gaps by providingopportunities for their mentees toachieve and master their goals andinterests. And for the mentors, havingthat sense of accomplishment andgratitude gives meaning to their livesand increases their wellbeing, helpingthem flourish as people. The benefits of being a mentor “It’s probably the most rewardingwork you can do, knowing that you areactually impacting somebody’s life in apositive way,” Richard says. “To knowthat I am giving them something that isbeneficial, it’s a gift to me. We areworking with these young people toassist them with making their livesbetter, and in return, it’s making usbetter. It is a very interesting dynamic.”

Positive Psychology

Death Becomes Us

Nearly all of the world’s wisdom traditions agree on a surprising point: Thinking about death can be good for your happiness.Plato, for example, understood the goal of philosophy as the pursuit of lasting happiness (eudaimonia), but also described philosophy as a “meditation on death.” Or think of the Buddha, who aimed to free human beings from their self-imposed suffering so that they could cultivate genuine happiness, yet insisted that we keep the end forever in mind. “Of all mindfulness meditations,” he emphasized, “that on death is supreme.” Dust to dustJews were no less open to such wisdom. “All are fromthe dust, and to dust all return,” the Book of Ecclesiastes observes in a pointed line. It was intended as a message to remember. Nor could Christians easily ignore it. The central symbol of their faith—the cross—is a memento mori. Lest they forget this, many Christians to this day receive ashes on their brows on Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, just after the fun of Mardi Gras has come to an end. “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” the priest declares. What a way to end a party.I'm not afraid of death; I just don't want to be there when it happens. —Woody AllenDenial of deathAll of this may seem a little morbid in today’s world—even for the religious or the philosophically inclined. Tales of saints and hermits staring at skulls freak us out. Death in the early 21st century is something we prefer to avoid. When friends and family get sick, for example, we usually send them away—to a hospital or hospice—rather than let them die in plain sight. The poet and historian Jennifer Michael Hecht, who has written insightfully on the subject of happiness and death in her book The Happiness Myth, points out that “Most people [today] have not seen someone die, whereas, in past centuries, even young children were brought to deathbeds to witness a period of sometimes agonized dying, and then the much-respected moment of transformation. This moment was as sacred and revered as the modern-day birth.” We hide death from our children these days and opt for youth and vitality over old age. And when our soldiers fall in combat, the cameras are barred from even showing the body bags when they return.The modern cult of youth could be hindering our happinessSurely this avoidance is also a little extreme? At the very least it may be worth asking in our death-averse society—with its cult of youth and good cheer—just what the benefits of thinking of the end might be. Why have all those wise men and sages counseled us to remember death? They may have had some good reasons.It turns out that modern psychologists, no less than ancient sages, have something to say on the matter. They point out, for example, that confronting our mortality may trigger what the psychologist Dan Gilbert calls a kind of “psychological autoimmune response,” or what Social Psychology professors Nathan DeWall and Roy Baumeister describe as a “terror management” system that allows us to deal with existential threats. Thinking about death, in other words, triggers offsetting feelings of happiness, allowing us to manage our terror of death. Just as the immune system of the body fights off pathogens, this immune system of the mind apparently helps us process threatening thoughts such as death.That may be one explanation for why the curved graph of happiness over a lifetime looks like a smiley face. (According to Gallup studies, our happiness starts high, dips in our 40s and 50s, and then makes an upswing right up to the end.) In one of life’s little compensations for our receding hairlines and expanding waistlines, men and women tend to get happier as they get older, after bottoming out in middle age.Strangely, it may actually be the increasing proximity of death that gives us an off-setting boost of happiness via this same autoimmune response.We appreciate life when we think about its finality and fragilityOr it may just be, as the sages have often said, that to recall our mortality is to force us to take the measure of what we have—the gift of life—and to weigh its importance and put it into perspective. The frustrations of the day-to-day tend to disappear or turn to dust when measured against eternity. And to prepare for a good death is necessarily to undertake to live in a way that would make that possible.There is even evidence to suggest that cultures that think about death regularly in open and constructive ways are happier than those that don’t. As the writer Eric Weiner discovered in his quest to discover the happiest places in the world, which he chronicles inThe Geography of Bliss, the subject of death came up surprisingly often when he went looking for happiness. “You need to think about death for five minutes a day,” one man in the tiny mountain kingdom of Bhutan told him. It was, in this case, a specifically Buddhist insight. But the advice is backed up by wisdom, ancient and modern, that can make a claim to universality.Intimations of mortalityIf it is true, as the writer Thomas Mann said in his great novel, The Magic Mountain, that “for the sake of goodness and love, man should not let death rule his thoughts,” it is equally true that to ignore death entirely is counterproductive. That is a risk in the early 21st century. For the sake of our happiness, we could all stand to cultivate a little philosophy.

The Truth Behind 3 Happiness Myths

Discover Your Genius

What Is Your Healing Rhythm?

Do You Have Enough Meaning in Your Life?

6 Key Strategies for Achieving Success

Top 10 Happiest Colleges in America

Happiness 101

4 Ways to Spark and Spread a Positive Mood

Changing Lives

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