happiness

Contrary to what we might expect, the study found that the link between economic growth, as measured by GDP per capita, and life satisfaction weakened as countries became more affluent. In other words, once a certain economic threshold is reached, additional wealth does not significantly boost happiness.

At lunchtime I bought a huge orange—

The size of it made us all laugh.

I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave—

They got quarters and I had a half.

And that orange, it made me so happy,

As ordinary things often do

Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park.

This is peace and contentment. It’s new.

The rest of the day was quite easy.

I did all the

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Maybe it’s not the achieving stuff that makes us happy, but rather the act of chasing after achievements. Most people need to feel that they are contributing to society. At least for me, when I try to picture my ideal days, it doesn’t matter if I’ve accomplished anything in the past. But my visions always involve working towards some kind of goal i... See more

People are happy enough rich, and people are happy enough poor. But it’s hard to imagine anyone happy without a feeling that their actions have some impact, however small. Even if you’re not going to be remembered by history, you want to be remembered by your barista. The prisoner, though largely robbed of power, is probably happier if he can vex h... See more

“human beings need three basic things in order to be content: they need to feel competent at what they do; they need to feel authentic in their lives; and they need to feel connected to others. These values are considered "intrinsic" to human happiness and far outweigh "extrinsic" values such as beauty, money and status.”

The happiness that someone like Mark misses is unreal and unhealthy. He needs to learn to want a different type of relative happiness – that is, a state of reasonable contentment, with intermittent joy and pain, which, unlike the myth of a permanent bliss, can potentially be achieved. Switching from one goal to the other will involve a process of a... See more

When stumped by a life choice, choose “enlargement” over happiness. I’m indebted to the Jungian therapist James Hollis for the insight that major personal decisions should be made not by asking, “Will this make me happy?”, but “Will this choice enlarge me or diminish me?” We’re terrible at predicting what will make us happy: the question swiftly ge... See more

In my experience there are really two things that lead to happiness and everything else is mostly noise. The two things are contribution and abundance. Contribution is basically exactly as it sounds. If you can align your life with where you have the talent to make a large, meaningful, and real contribution to the world, your circle, or your family... See more

It is probably the case that, somewhere in the past, you did something that made you more happy/productive/fulfilled, but you don’t do it anymore, for no good reason. Think about that, and do it again, preferably instead of one of your less desirable behaviors.