Joyful Jubilant Learning

Happier: Learn the secrets of daily joy and lasting fulfillment

Author and instructor Tal Ben Shahar, who teaches a course on happiness to Harvard students (on which Happier is based), indicates that we will learn secrets to joy and fulfillment here.  That's a pretty tall order and may oversell what is simple and practical advice about how to be happy.  The advice is based on the real research of positive psychologists such as Martin Seligman, Barbara Frederickson, and Sonja Lyubomirsky (who has her own book on happiness, The How of Happiness, out this year).

Ben Shahar defines happiness, then applies it in three spheres (work, education, relationships), and finally meditates on various tools for happiness such as self-interest (find and then do what you love), happiness boosters (what picks you up when you're down), and imagination (if you can see it, you can achieve it).

Perhaps his greatest contribution here is his examination of his own coming to understand what happiness means for him.  First, he finds that happiness is a pursuit.  My husband says there is no such thing as happiness.  He believes that happiness is a by-product of nourishing relationships, challenging work, and good health.   We pursue relationships, health, and work throughout our lives but may not ever reach a state of having "achieved" them. 

Ben Shahar found that in his early athletic achievements there was a combination--a necessary pairing of both pleasure and challenge--for the feeling of happiness to exist.  And he found that his achievement of a goal, even an important one, resulted in only a fleeting sense of happiness.   A new car, a trophy for achieving the highest sales this month, or even a new baby, cause momentary joy.  He and I do not minimize this joy.  However, the car gets 17 miles to the gallon, someone else has higher sales figures next month, and the baby poops and cries. 

Longer lasting joyfulness takes awareness, gratitude (see my review of Thanks!) and the consistent balancing of pleasure (good food, physical intimacy, a great novel) and challenge (losing 15 pounds, writing the next chapter of your book, building the skills to be a better manager or teacher).   Happiness is a constant state--of becoming.
~ Sara Orem

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Postscript: This is Sara's second review for A Love Affair with Books; she had previously reviewed Thanks! for us.

Our guest reviewer Sara Orem is an executive coach, lead author of Appreciative Coaching: A Positive Process for Change, and a professor of management at Capella University.  She is interested in all of the positive ways by which we become happier, more peaceful, and more confident people. 

Visit Sara at her website: www.saraorem.com.

Sharing THANKS! by Robert Emmons

It is my pleasure to share and review one of my favorite books published in the last twelve months, Thanks!: How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier (2007, Houghton Mifflin) by Robert Emmons. Emmons belongs to the growing number of scholars, researchers and practitioners who call themselves positive psychologists.  He teaches at the University of California, Davis and specializes in the study of gratitude and its benefits.  Here is Emmons’  take on how we can become more grateful and by extension, happier.

1. Keep a gratitude journal.  This does not have to be an onerous task, but a place to keep regular notes to ourselves about the gratitude-inspiring events we experience every day--our child holding our her hand to us, a friend's phone call, a note from an appreciative colleague.

2. Remember the bad.  Remember also the slights of a boss, the sarcasm of an acquaintance, then the good in the present shines by comparison.

3. Ask yourself these three questions;

a. What have I received from______?
b. What have I given to________?
c. What troubles and difficulty have I caused_________?

(Emmons has found that these questions help us to see the reciprocal quality of relationships, to see our deposits and withdrawals into others' emotional bank accounts, and the deposits we have received from others.)

4. Learn prayers of gratitude.  All spiritual and religious traditions have mantras or prayers of gratitude.  If you don't know one, make one up.  I am grateful for the challenges and the pleasures in my life right now.

5. Come to your senses.  Appreciate your feet and legs that carry you to your appointed tasks and enjoyments.  Be grateful for the functioning of your body, rather than focusing on its imperfections.

6. Use visual reminders--pictures of your family, stones or flowers from favorite hikes, teachers, mentors and friends for whom you are grateful. Gratitude comes with awareness.

7. Make a vow to practice gratitude.  Say it out loud to a group of people.  For many of us, commitment and accountability come with a public declaration of intention.

8. Watch your language.  Language determines the nature and content of our thought; what we say to ourselves shapes our belief in ourselves.

9. Go through the motions.  "Act as if," as they say in Alcoholics Anonymous.  Act happy to be happy.

10. Think outside the box.  Be grateful for your enemies, for what they teach you about how you want to be.  Often the best leaders site bad bosses as a way they learned to be  effective.  Bad parents and bad teachers can instill good parenting and teaching in their  children and students.

The most important learning for me in thanks! was the new knowledge that our brains cannot effectively project both negative and positive emotion at the same time.   My regular practice of gratitude will likely crowd out some of my envy, self-pity, and anger and will certainly increase my awareness of the beauty and goodness all around me.  The practical tips offered by Emmons really expanded my repertoire for gratitude first, and then happiness.
~ Sara Orem

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Our guest reviewer Sara Orem is an executive coach, lead author of Appreciative Coaching: A Positive Process for Change, and a professor of management at Capella University.  She is interested in all of the positive ways by which we become happier, more peaceful, and more confident people.  Visit Sara at her website: www.saraorem.com.