Sublime

You can find out your strengths by taking an online test at www.authentichappiness.org.

Self-congratulation. Don’t be afraid of pride.

Dr. Seligman’s overall conclusion from these and other studies is that it is not the world per se that puts us at increased risk of illness so much as how we see and think about what is happening to us.

now turn to the routes—the strengths of character—by which we achieve the virtues.

As with any other skill, we can practice interpreting what happens to us and responding as an optimist would.

learned helplessness.

Maslow said, “I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.”17

One important insight into how and why we forget our ability to choose comes out of the classic work of Martin Seligman and Steve Maier, who stumbled onto what they later called “learned helplessness” while conducting experiments on German shepherds.

If, reading this chapter, you recognize yourself as an extreme pessimist, my advice is to find a cognitive behavioral therapist.