Week One - Post One - What is Happiness?

• Methods for studying happiness: observation & experience sampling of people, cross-sectional surveys of happy people, longitudinal studies of what makes people happy, and experimental studies where you compare a variable to constants
• Clarifying conceptual domain of happiness:  well-being (overall my life is going well), traits (I am an enthusiastic person), emotions (I feel reverence and gratitude), and sensations (this sun feels good on my skin)
• Terms
• happiness = subjective well-being
• subjective well-being = refers to the way people evaluate their lives, in terms of both their global life satisfaction and emotional states
• life satisfaction = A general assessment that, as a whole, one's life is good and worth living
• positive affect = A technical term to describe the experience of feeling a positive emotion, such as joy, love, or amusement.
• “hedonic happiness”—the happiness that comes from pleasure or goal fulfillment.
• “eudaimonic happiness” -- the happiness that comes from meaningful pursuits
• Language reveals ancient definition of happiness was luck or chance. People did not think they could achieve it fully on their own they thought it was given by the gods or fate
• A lot of ppl think of happiness as something they need to conquer and have, like they need to work for it so they are deserving of it. This is not the right mindset. To become happy, we need to focus less on our own personal happiness and instead on the happiness of those around us.
• Differences b/ween a happy life and a meaningful one:
• sometimes go in hand in hand, other times not so much. seeking happiness without meaning would probably be a stressful, aggravating, and annoying proposition
• Happy people satisfy their wants and needs, but that seems largely irrelevant to a meaningful life.
• Happiness involves being focused on the present, whereas meaningfulness involves thinking more about the past, present, and future—and the relationship between them.
• Meaningfulness is derived from giving to other people; happiness comes from what they give to you. 
• Meaningful lives involve stress and challenges.
• Self-expression is important to meaning but not happiness.
• Happiness does NOT mean:
• having all your personal needs met 
• always feeling satisfied w/ life
• feeling pleasure all the time
• never feeling neg. emotions
• one size does NOT fit all; there is no uniform prescription for happiness
• 4 ways happiness can hurt you:

• Too much happiness can make you less creative—and less safe

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  Happiness is not suited to every situation.

• Not all types of happiness are good for you
• Pursuing happiness may actually make you unhappy
• Why be happy?
• greater life expectancy
• better physical health
• people perceive you are more trustworthy, like-able, and successful
• likely to actually be more successful