the past ten years there has been an escalating interest in happiness. Hundreds of books and studies have emerged to guide us toward finding the good life, but achieving personal happiness is only a part of the equation. When happiness is partnered with well-being and sustainability it takes on a whole new dimension: sustainable happiness. Sustainable happiness takes into account that happiness is interconnected with other people, other species, and the natural environment by a remarkable web of interdependence.  This means that our daily actions and decisions contribute to—or detract from—our own well-being, and that of others. Sometimes things that make us h... posted on Mar 29 2013 (41,251 reads)

to make do with less, they are discovering the many benefits of sharing. Car-sharing, babysitting cooperatives, and tool lending are just a few of the many creative ways people are eschewing ownership and learning to share the goods and services they need. But sharing can do more than just save you a buck. New psychological research suggests that sharing fosters trust and cooperation in the community and contributes to personal well-being. Here are some of the ways that sharing can boost your happiness levels and help your community thrive: 1. Sharing involves reciprocal giving, and the research is full of the benefits of giving, from greater physical health to personal happiness. A 2008 ... posted on May 21 2013 (26,054 reads)

bad people, they just live in insular worlds,” study co-author Paul Piff told Greater Good earlier this year. “But if you’re able to reduce the extremes that exist between the haves and the have-nots, you’re going to go a long way toward closing the compassion and empathy gap.” Happiness is about Respect, Not Riches. And there was other discouraging news for the wealthy this year. Research has long suggested that money doesn’t buy happiness; a study published in Psychological Science in July confirms that finding and goes a step further, changing the stakes of what we think of as high status: It turns out that if we&r... posted on Mar 13 2013 (19,262 reads)

Seligman, the father of positive psychology, theorizes that while 60 percent of happiness is determined by our genetics and environment, the remaining 40 percent is up to us. In his 2004 Ted Talk, Seligman describes three different kinds of happy lives: The pleasant life, in which you fill your life with as many pleasures as you can, the life of engagement, where you find a life in your work, parenting, love and leisure and the meaningful life, which "consists of knowing what your highest strengths are, and using them to belong to and in the service of something larger than you are." After exploring what accounts for ultimate satisfaction, Seligma... posted on Dec 27 2013 (354,783 reads)

show giving makes people happy, and happiness makes people give--but not always. Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton offer three ways to help people feel good about giving. On a fine summer morning in Vancouver, British Columbia, our graduate student Lara Aknin approached passersby with a box of envelopes and an unusual request: “Are you willing to be in an experiment?” If people said yes, she asked them how happy they were, got their phone number, and handed them one of her mysterious envelopes. When people opened the envelope, they found a five dollar bill, accompanied by a simple note. For some of them, the note instructed: Please s... posted on Nov 11 2013 (32,896 reads)

you'd expect of someone with a beginner's mind. On a trip through India, early in his reign as king, he was asked by an Indian journalist about the Bhutanese GDP, the size of the Bhutanese GDP. The king responded in a fashion that actually has transformed us four decades later. He said the following, he said: "Why are we so obsessed and focused with gross domestic product? Why don't we care more about gross national happiness?" Now, in essence, the king was asking us to consider an alternative definition of success, what has come to be known as GNH, or gross national happiness. Most ... posted on Sep 2 2016 (26,422 reads)

U.S. Surgeon General is on a mission to bring you happiness, peace and love. His serious public health agenda for the U.S. includes addressing the state of substance addiction and ending stigma for mental health. In the past, he has also called "gun violence" a public health issue. But Vivek Murthy, one of the youngest surgeon generals to ever serve in the role, is also emphasizing happiness as one of the main ways to prevent disease and live a long healthy life. Let's be clear: “Happiness” is not an emotion, an inherited disposition that is awarded to a select few, or even dependent on events that happen to you in life. Rather, Murthy argues that happines... posted on Dec 8 2015 (24,205 reads)

many ways, 2016 was a banner year for books related to our themes of compassion, kindness, empathy, happiness, and mindfulness. Judging from the number of books to arrive at our office, the science of a meaningful life is hitting its full stride, with more and more people recognizing how to apply new insights to our daily lives. Yet, while the number of books was encouraging, many of them seemed to repeat old themes and research, without offering much new in the way of insight. That’s why many of our favorite books of 2016 do something a little bit extra: They take our science to a new level, looking at how schools, organizations, and society at large can appl... posted on Dec 23 2016 (29,528 reads)

Writer Amritha Mandagondi had a chance to sit down and interview Elizabeth Buechele, the Founder of SmileProject. Here's her inspiring interview on how Elizabeth has found happiness every single day, for the past 3,307 days.) They say life happens to those who pause and listen. Listen intently to that voice that’s calling out the boundless possibilities from within. Our friend in New York, Elizabeth Buechele from the age of 17 has set out on a journey to find the true meaning of happiness. There was no mentor or guide reaching out to help her define what qualifies as “happiness” and what doesn’t. She may continue to be on her quest bu... posted on Feb 2 2021 (5,876 reads)

2,000 years of practice, Buddhist monks know that one secret to happiness is simply to put your mind to it.   What is happiness, and how can we achieve it? Happiness can’t be reduced to a few agreeable sensations. Rather, it is a way of being and of experiencing the world—a profound fulfillment that suffuses every moment and endures despite inevitable setbacks. Matthieu Ricard, left, quit his career as a cellular geneticist nearly 40 years ago to study Buddhism. He is the French translator for the Dalai Lama, right. Photo by Pagoda Phat... posted on Oct 20 2009 (18,837 reads)

different backgrounds grow up and grow old, revealing the long-term trajectory of ordinary—if highly examined—lives. In the newest installment, being released this month in the US, we check in with participants at age 56. (You can stream the entire series on Netflix or catch some of them on youtube). As they enter their autumn years in 56 Up, the themes of the series have gone well beyond the United Kingdom’s class structure, to raise much more fundamental questions about happiness, relationships, purpose, and commitment. In re-watching the series and seeing 56 Up in the theater, I was struck by the fact that the series brings to life insights that we might dismiss ... posted on Nov 4 2013 (35,903 reads)

do you fit a full-sized family into a tiny house? The Morrisons and Kasls found that the benefits of life in 200 square feet outweigh the difficulties. The Kasls, of Minnesota, simplified family life by going tiny. Photo by Nichole Freiberger. Andrew and Gabriella Morrison live in Oregon and have two teenage kids, 18-year-old Paiute and 14-year-old Terra. They made the decision to downsize their home four years ago. They now live in a 207-square-foot house with an additional 110 square feet of sleeping lofts. Although their son, Paiute, no longer lives at home, Terra lives in the tiny house full time with her parents. The Morrisons both work in straw bale construct... posted on Feb 12 2015 (25,605 reads)

effects. Now that we’re a week into 2015, most of us have come down from the buzz of the holidays and returned to life as normal. And after spending weeks, if not months, obsessing over the gifts and goodies that awaited us in December, some of us may feel a post-holiday hangover, where we realize that we’re probably no happier than we were before we got that new flat screen TV or cappuccino maker. This won’t come as a surprise to anyone tracking the science of happiness, which suggests that material things are unlikely to boost our happiness in a sustained or meaningful way. In fact, research suggests that materialistic people are less happy than their peer... posted on Apr 9 2015 (34,393 reads)

there a secret to happiness? Is happiness spending time with loved ones, or spending time alone in nature? Is it losing yourself as you dance to music, or finding yourself while quietly meditating? The secret to happiness is actually all of these things and more, and it varies from country to country and culture to culture. According to the annual World Happiness Report, Norway is the happiest country, scoring highly in its approach to caring, freedom, generosity, honesty, health, income and good governance. Meanwhile, the Happy Planet Index ranks Costa Rica as the happiest country on Earth. While opposites when it comes to climate, the two ... posted on Feb 21 2018 (20,683 reads)

trick to being happy with your job doesn’t necessarily lie in earning more money. We all spend a large part of our lives at our jobs. Yet how many of us are bored or frustrated at work, whether unhappy with our company’s goals, stressed from overwork, or dealing with toxic coworkers? Don’t we deserve better than that? The new book How to Be Happy at Work makes the case that, yes, we do, and happiness at work should be our ultimate goal. Written by Annie McKee—an international business advisor and senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education—the book provides ideas for how to turn your job into a source ... posted on Apr 28 2018 (59,392 reads)

can we create a happier world? That question is on many people’s minds today, as we celebrate the sixth annual International Day of Happiness. This event grew out of a United Nations resolution - affirming happiness as a fundamental human goal - and suggesting that we should approach economic growth in a way that promotes well-being for everyone. Social systems and institutions have a role to play in our happiness, and that’s evident in this year’s World Happiness Report. Researchers ranked countries by their average happiness levels and found, for example, that GDP, life expectancy, freedom, and corruption make a difference. In the rankin... posted on Aug 8 2018 (23,249 reads)

Tippett, host: I’ve had hundreds of big conversations, and my conversation partners share wisdom I carry with me wherever I go. I’ve never thought about happiness the same way since I spoke with the French-born Tibetan Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard. I like his language of human flourishing as the real aspiration — that happiness is not a sensation or a feeling; it’s a state of being that can encompass all of the things that happen in life. This is Becoming Wise. I’m Krista Tippett. Ms. Tippett: You’re worldly, wise, and rational. And we also live in this culture where the word happiness gets completely watered down. So I want ... posted on Jun 19 2019 (8,837 reads)

all want to lead a happy life. But in our quest for 'progress' we've been pursuing priorities that put our happiness at risk - not just for us as individuals, but for society as a whole. Our collective aim should be a society with the greatest possible human happiness and wellbeing - with policies, institutions and social attitudes that help people to lead flourishing lives. This is the spirit behind a resolutionwhich was adopted last year by all 193 United Nations member states, calling for "a more inclusive, equitable and balanced approach to economic growth", and one which promotes "happiness and the well-being of all peoples". To support... posted on Mar 20 2013 (23,809 reads)

I know all about it, that’s the thing with the endorphins, that makes you feel good and why we should exercise and stuff, right?” is what I can hear myself say to someone bringing this up. I would pick up things here and there, yet really digging into the connection of exercise and how it effects us has never been something I’ve done. Inspired by a recent post from Joel on what makes us happy I’ve set out to uncover the connection between our feeling of happiness and exercising regularly. What triggers happiness in our brain when we exercise? Most of us are aware of what happens to the body when we exercise. We build more muscle or more stamina... posted on Aug 27 2013 (58,463 reads)

lot of people search for ways to find happiness, but I’ve found the idea of contentment to be more important than happiness. Why contentment over happiness? A couple of important reasons: Happiness can go up or down each day (or moment), but contentment is something more stable. We tend to seek to increase happiness by adding things (food, excitement, a warm bath, time with a loved one) but contentment is a skill that allows you to subtract things and still be content. Contentment can actually be a good place to start as you make changes (changes and contentment might seem paradoxical to some, but hear me out). What is contentment? For me, it’s really about being... posted on Jun 22 2013 (36,548 reads)