seeing the smile on the Grand dad's face or the mother's face, when they knew that they understood the reason why their babies were dying, is extraordinary. We also managed through this amazing charity, to embolden the religious leaders, who helped us to convey the message of using a clean knife. When they do their religious rituals over it and encourage them to take this knife in its place until it is time to use it to cut the umbilical cord. All you are trying to do is share joy and happiness and the continuation of life in a happy and positive way. We all have the ability to do that every single day of our lives. Audrey: It's beautiful! Do you ever feel called to do servi... posted on Aug 3 2018 (4,513 reads)

David is the author of Emotional Agility, a leading psychologist at Harvard Medical School, and the co-founder and co-director of the Institute of Coaching at McLean Hospital. She recently joined Maria Shriver—award-winning journalist, bestselling author of six books, and former First Lady of California—for a conversation on why relentless positivity doesn’t lead to happiness, and how being emotionally honest can help us connect with our values and gain resilience. This conversation has been edited and condensed.  Maria: You are a counter voice to so many people telling us, “Be positive, be happy, have a great mood, and everything will be fine.&r... posted on Dec 11 2021 (30,764 reads)

is happiness,” Willa Cather’s fictional narrator gasps as he sinks into his grandmother’s garden, “to be dissolved into something complete and great.” A generation later, in a real-life counterpart, Virginia Woolf arrived at the greatest epiphany of her life — and to this day perhaps the finest definition of what it takes to be an artist — while contemplating the completeness and greatness abloom in the garden. Nearly a century later, botanist and nature writer Robin Wall Kimmerer, who has written beautifully about the art of attentiveness to life at all scales, examines the revelations of t... posted on Nov 18 2018 (7,828 reads)

to physical skills like driving, the brain also forms neural pathways in learning and practicing emotional skills. Your emotional responses to experiences in your world are the result of well-worn neural pathways that developed over your lifetime. While our genes influence our temperament, research has demonstrated that our environment and our own mind can physically alter our brains and thus our emotional responses. This means that emotions that we want more of in our life and our world, like happiness, patience, tolerance, compassion, and kindness, can be practiced and learned as skills. Other emotions, like anxiety, stress, fear, or anger, can be dampened.   Keeping in the c... posted on Apr 23 2012 (143,010 reads)

by Nara Simhan. We’re driving home around sunset, late summer. Daniel, age nine, says aloud, “Mom, what do you think is at the end of the universe? Dragonflies? Or just inky blackness?” I write it down. A good moment when what shines in him shines through, but there are plenty of bad moments, too. Daniel, as exquisitely creative, loving, and intelligent as he is, suffers from what experts label an invisible disability, a chemical imbalance, a little extra electricity in his system. To kids his own age he’s a nuisance. To the school district he’... posted on Oct 10 2012 (9,979 reads)

and the treatment of depression, the counselling of depression, the identification of depression, and the coping with depression [...] It used to be plastics, you remember in The Graduate? That’s the advice, plastics? If I was that guy beside the pool talking to Dustin Hoffman I’d say, “Depression.” You want a future? There it is. It’s a huge growth industry. At the same time the culture seems utterly compelled—no, devoted–to it’s own happiness. It seems strange until you let them collide. If you let them collide there’s nothing strange about it at all because one actually gives birth to the other. And it’s the happines... posted on Aug 7 2013 (33,657 reads)

Practice Gratitude? Over the past decade, hundreds of studies have documented the social, physical, and psychological benefits of gratitude. The research suggests these benefits are available to most anyone who practices gratitude, even in the midst of adversity, such as elderly people confronting death, women with breast cancer, and people coping with a chronic muscular disease. Here are some of the top research-based reasons for practicing gratitude. Gratitude brings us happiness: Through research by Emmons, happiness expert Sonja Lyubomirsky, and many other scientists, practicing gratitude has proven to be one of the most reliable methods for increasing happiness an... posted on Nov 28 2013 (44,423 reads)

other feelings," Fredrickson told Experience Life. "So at the same time they’re feeling ‘I’m sad about that,’ they’re also prone to thinking, ‘but I’m grateful about this.’” They're realistically optimistic. A recent Taiwan National University study found that adopting an attitude of "realistic optimism," which combines the positive outlook of optimists with the critical thinking of pessimists, can boost happiness and resilience. "Every time [realistic optimists] face an issue or a challenge or a problem, they won't say 'I have no choice and this is the only thing I can do,'" ... posted on Jan 2 2014 (163,181 reads)

of the greatest texts about happiness and living well wasn't written by a self-help expert, spiritual leader or psychologist. It was written by Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, and it may completely change your perspective on dealing with life's challenges. In 167 AD, Aurelius wrote The Meditations, a 12-book compendium of personal writings, originally written in Greek, that reflect his extensive study of Stoic philosophy. Aurelius is now regarded as one of the most famous proponents and philosophers of Stoicism, an ancient Greek and Roman school of thought originating in the Hellenic period concerned with how to cultivate a mindset to deal effectively with an... posted on Mar 29 2014 (105,907 reads)

This might include keeping them away from commercial television—or making a sport of poking fun at the advertising that surrounds us —and not giving in when kids pressure us to buy stuff for them because “everyone else has one.” It’s a good idea to teach kids about value and getting the most for your money, too—whether it’s buying specific items or spending money on an experience. Research shows that spending on experiences tends to bring more happiness than spending on goods, and we can talk to kids about testing this idea out themselves. Have them check in with you months after a purchase to report how much they still use and enjoy what t... posted on Mar 19 2015 (22,015 reads)

Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives, she explains why habits can make us happier. Wharton marketing professor Cassie Mogilner recently interviewed Rubin when she visited campus as a guest lecturer in the Authors@Wharton series. An edited transcript of the conversation follows. Cassie Mogilner: What drove you to write this book? Gretchen Rubin: I wrote The Happiness Project andHappier At Home. For years I had been researching and writing and talking to people about happiness. I began to notice a pattern. When I was talking to people about some big happiness boost that they had achieved, or more often a big happiness challenge that they were facing, very often th... posted on Sep 6 2015 (20,037 reads)

quality to actual kindness. Is kindness always a result of an authentic spiritual life? When you really stop believing your thoughts, you notice that you have more gratitude, appreciation, and love toward life. You realize that you can’t oppose your own life, so you feel this way even toward the people you thought were difficult because they’re part of your life, too. It’s not so much of a struggle—it’s more that we are open to reality. What about happiness? Sometimes I get the sense that happiness is oversold in the spirituality marketplace. Yes, that’s true because life is always going to be difficult. If you love someone, one of you... posted on Jul 6 2016 (17,653 reads)

Chainey, right, prepares dinner for roughly 50 people every Wednesday for “Happiness Hour,” when families and elders convene for a meal, conversation, and, later, playtime. Credit: YES! Magazine/Paul Dunn.  After a long day of preschool, five-year-old Joaquin Crowell still has energy to burn. He bounds from a TV cartoon to a magnetic fishing game, from blowing up a green balloon to listening to his favorite story, Bedtime for Frances. And 73-year-old Chris Conners is only too happy to oblige. To Joaquin, she is his oma— “grandma” in her native German. And to Conners, “He’s like my grandson. I fell in love with him the f... posted on Jan 25 2017 (10,338 reads)

funny to me. MS. TIPPETT: Poet laureate. MS. HOWE: Yeah. MS. TIPPETT: Congratulations. MS. HOWE: Thank you, but it’s odd. It’s an odd thing. But what I want is to try to make poetry as ubiquitous as Gap ads. I mean how can we have people bump into poetry? I mean, there’s this guy in New York. I say it’s a guy. It could be a woman. Last spring, there was somebody who was drawing on the sidewalk in blue chalk, and all it said was “happiness,” a big “happiness” with a big blue arrow this way. And I would see these around, and I thought, “This is terrific. This is really kind of wonderful. Like, ‘hap... posted on Jul 23 2017 (8,646 reads)

follows is the transcript of an On Being interview between Krista Tippett and Michael McCarthy: KRISTA TIPPETT, HOST: I have rarely discovered a book that so delighted and galvanized me at once. The Moth Snowstorm: Nature and Joy is written by the English naturalist and journalist, Michael McCarthy. “The sudden passionate happiness which the natural world can occasionally trigger in us,” he writes, “may well be the most serious business of all.” We could stop relying on the immobilizing language of statistic and take up joy as a civilizational defense of nature. With a perspective equally infused by science, reportage, and poetry, he reminds u... posted on May 28 2018 (6,607 reads)

the change you want to see in the world. When you think about it you see. But it’s not that I wanted to change myself. I’m putting out there what I needed to do exactly, but I was the same person. I’m not seeing or thinking I’m a different person. But I’m seeing change that’s needed and I change with that. And this is what I enjoy. So I was looking for things which will make me happy. Later on I was trying to explain why I do that. I said making money is happiness—that’s why people want to make money. Making money is a happiness but making other people happy is a super happiness. And that’s super happiness that I enjoy. So I cannot g... posted on Jul 24 2018 (7,439 reads)

mind. Therefore, these precious lojong practices can purify our misperceptions and delusions completely, revealing the natural radiance, clarity, wisdom, and compassion of our true nature. With the heartfelt desire and determination to attain enlightenment for the welfare of all living beings, who are more precious than a wish-fulfilling jewel for accomplishing the supreme goal, may I always cherish them and hold them dear. Verse I - Cherishing and caring for others is the source of all happiness. Cherishing ourselves over others is the source of all suffering and negative conditions in this world. Therefore, our determination to attain enlightenment should always be motivated by ... posted on May 31 2020 (19,119 reads)

their everyday lives, to find out how it affected their actions and well-being. Their findings shed some interesting light on how small moments of ordinary, everyday empathy work to benefit us all. Empathy is common—and not only for those who are suffering The study recruited 246 participants, representative in many ways of the United States’ diverse population. Then, seven times a day for a week, participants were randomly prompted via cell phone to report on their current happiness level, sense of purpose, and overall well-being. At each prompt, participants also noted if they’d had an empathy opportunity (someone expressing emotion in their presence), receive... posted on Sep 8 2021 (6,589 reads)

you also were writing, you were bringing it into the world in a time in which people started looking for things that promised to change your life, I think with a new fervor, or at least, a new openness about it. Burkeman:Yeah, I think that’s right. I think that’s right. I mean, definitely I was sort of backing into these topics. Partly this might be a Quaker-y thing; I think it’s definitely a British thing, maybe a male thing to be kind of uneasy writing about happiness and the reverse of, the opposite of happiness, and questions of meaning that can seem sort of embarrassing for a range of reasons, I think. And so I was sort of backing into it by writing ab... posted on Jan 31 2022 (5,252 reads)

not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.” - Buddha Have you ever lost yourself in your work, so much so that you lost track of time? Being consumed by a task like that, while it can be rare for most people, is a state of being called Flow. In my experience, it’s one of the keys to happiness at work, and a nice side benefit is that it not only reduces stress but increases your productivity. Not bad, huh? When I wrote about called The Magical Power of Focus, I promised to write more about how to achieve Flow, a concept that is very much in vogue right now and something mo... posted on Apr 30 2012 (34,398 reads)