Waldinger on happiness

 

A message from the William James Society

Enjoy your summer AND help ameliorate our world: we at the William James Society approve this message. wjsociety.org … @wjsociety.bsky.social

https://substack.com/@philoliver/note/c-137901371?r=35ogp&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action

New you

Writer Olga Khazan felt stuck—anxious, overworked, and joyless—so she set out to redesign her personality. In her book "Me, But Better," she explores how stepping outside her comfort zone changed her life, and how science says personality isn't as fixed as we think.

https://cbsn.ws/4kLyEtS

The carousel of happiness

Amid the chaos of Vietnam, Marine Corporal Scott Harrison clung to a vision of a carousel in a mountain meadow. Decades later, he brought it to life in Colorado. Now, his Carousel of Happiness spins to spread joy.

https://cbsn.ws/4eZ8G4E

Experience: the real thing

… Croesus thought that his wealth and royal blood made him the happiest man in the world, but Solon disabused him, pointing out that if – given the brevity of human life – he really wished to be happy, he should think seriously about what would make him so. 'Call no man happy until he is dead,' Solon said, meaning one of two things: that you cannot estimate whether a life was happy until it is complete, all its triumphs and sorrows counted to see which has the majority; or, that life is so full of suffering that its absence is the greater blessing. This latter interpretation is suggested by Solon's mention of the youthful brothers Cleobis and Biton, whose mother Cydippe begged Hera the Queen of the Gods to give them the greatest gift possible, whereupon Hera immediately gave them an easeful death.

I tell my students all this, and they shrug their shoulders; when young we are immortal; old Greeks and old age mean nothing. So I ask them how many months, at age 20, they have already had; those who can multiply are shocked to find that 20x12 = 240. 240 out of 960! Worse, out of the 620 waking months! Having thus secured their attention, I tell them the good news, speaking ex officio as a chair-holding Professor of Philosophy, that there is no such thing as time. By this I mean that the real thing is experience, not time; that time is elastic around experience, so the more experience you have, the more time you have. Here are two proofs: (1) Go for a romantic weekend with someone you really fancy to somewhere really lovely, and while you are there you are there forever; yet on the Monday after your return the weekend will seem to have passed in a flash. (2) If you do exactly the same thing at every moment of every day – rise at the same hour, eat the same breakfast, read the same words on the same page, etc., over and over, all your days, how many days do you live? One.

It follows that to live richly in experience, with enthusiasm, with passion, with goals to strive for and mountains to climb, you live not 960 months but 960 lifetimes, or more. Why waste time scrolling your phone, arguing, hungover, regretting without learning from regrets?
…

A.C. Grayling
https://open.substack.com/pub/acgrayling/p/a-thousand-months?r=35ogp&utm_medium=ios

Will we let AI decide for us?

Philosopher-Builders will not…

https://youtu.be/H_g0RSSo0ho?si=M18OIVYFVQzXWTTN

Meaning

"So the insights are: firstly, emotions matter to thinking about how you should live your life, and, secondly, the brain matters to thinking about emotions."

https://fivebooks.com/best-books/paul-thagard-meaning-of-life/

In the way

There's always a sunrise and always a sunset and it's up to you to choose to be there for it,' said my mother. 'Put yourself in the way of beauty." -Cheryl Strayed

Achieving hard things AND experiencing joy in the process

…  one of the most important and powerful sources of reward and resilience: our connections to others. Our brains are equipped with a social processing system that is engaged in thinking about other people's minds and helps us understandand connect with them — including people who have labored on similar causes before us. When we feel connected, it immediately produces activation in the reward system and changes our value calculations...

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/06/opinion/decisions-neuroscience-brains.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

The whole cake

Thinking off-loaded

I'm still going to encourage students to think creatively about how they can collaborate constructively with A.I. But Hua Hsu's essay in the current New Yorker gives pause…

"Almost all the students I interviewed in the past few months described the same trajectory: from using A.I. to assist with organizing their thoughts to off-loading their thinking altogether. For some, it became something akin to social media…" What Happens After A.I. Destroys College Writing? 

So: what is the purpose of a college education in the humanities, if not to teach students to think for themselves?

Tiny little joys

Happiness Doesn't Have to Be a Heavy Lift

It only takes a few minutes to boost your mood. [A boosted mood's not the same thing as happiness, but it's way better than an un-boosted one.]

"...MaryCatherine McDonald, a trauma researcher and author of "The Joy Reset," uses another term for those bright bits of happiness: tiny little joys, or T.L.J.s.

Dr. McDonald's clients have told her that their T.L.J.s include the first sip of coffee in the morning...

nyt

Yale's coursera "Science of Well-Being" course with Laurie Santos

PERMA (an acronym for Positive emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment— the basic dimensions of psychological flourishing)...

Questionnaire... Use Your Strengths to Boost Happiness...

Americans Most Unhappy People in the World.

Martin Seligman, Flourish: A New Understanding of Happiness and Well-Being - and how to Achieve Them (a fantastic overview of positive psychology from the father of this discipline)

Ed Diener, Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth (a nice introduction to the science of well-being from one of its pioneer

Ryan Niemiec & Robert McGrath, Power of Character Strengths: Activate and Ignite Your Positive Personality (an official guide on Character Strengths)

Daniel Lerner & Alan Schlechter, U Thrive: How to Succeed in College (and Life) (a book aimed towards undergraduates which covers many of the rewirements taught in this course)

Martin Seligman’s TED Talk - The new era of positive psychology

"Thwart Hedonic Adaptation" (explanation of savoring appears in the first 8 minutes of the video)

Learn more about the science of gratitude from expert Robert Emmons

Read Robert Emmons’ book on the science of gratitude

If you ask, for example, how important is it to develop a meaningful philosophy on life? Only about half of freshmen think that that's true. The interesting thing for me,
thinking about you guys today, and some of the problems you guys experience today, is that if you look at the rates from 1967, they're kind of flipped. So, only for about 40 percent of people thought you need to
be very well off financially back in the 60s. But a lot of them thought you needed to develop a meaningful philosophy on life. So, again this interesting flip about how important finances are. And that raises this question about whether or not, money is really going to make us happier? ...

Never Worry Alone

The Power of Connection in Navigating Life's Challenges
ROBERT WALDINGER
JUN 25, 2025

In a culture that often celebrates self-reliance and individual achievement, the simple advice to "never worry alone" might seem counterintuitive. Yet, this phrase carries profound wisdom, rooted in both evolutionary biology and decades of research on human flourishing. As social creatures, we are wired to connect, to share, and to support one another. When we isolate ourselves in times of stress, we cut off one of the most powerful tools for resilience: our relationships.

The Harvard Study of Adult Development, which I have the privilege of directing, has been tracking lives for over 85 years. Its findings are clear: the quality of our relationships is the single most important factor in determining our health and happiness. This isn't just about having people around us—it's about the depth and warmth of those connections... (continues)

Winning the cosmic lottery

"On the whole, I don’t fear death. Instead, I fear a life where I could have accomplished more. An epitaph worthy of a tombstone comes from the nineteenth-century educator Horace Mann: 'I beseech you to treasure up in your hearts these my parting words. Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.'

Our primal urge to keep looking up is surely greater than our primal urge to keep killing one another. If so, then human curiosity and wonder, the twin chariots of cosmic discovery, will ensure that starry messages continue to arrive. These insights compel us, for our short time on Earth, to become better shepherds of our own civilization. Yes, life is better than death. Life is also better than having never been born. But each of us is alive against stupendous odds. We won the lottery—only once. We get to invoke our faculties of reason to figure out how the world works. But we also get to smell the flowers. We get to bask in divine sunsets and sunrises, and gaze deeply into the night skies they cradle. We get to live, and ultimately die, in this glorious universe."

"Starry Messenger: Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization" by Neil deGrasse Tyson: https://a.co/9AHEXyH

A view from above

"You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the Moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, "Look at that, you son of a bitch."—Edgar D. Mitchell, Apollo 14 astronaut"

— Starry Messenger: Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization by Neil deGrasse Tyson
https://a.co/by8i9Dw

Materialist spirit

"I call myself a spiritual materialist. By "materialist," I mean that I believe the world is made of material stuff, and nothing more, and that material obeys rules and laws. At the same time, like many of us, I have "spiritual" experiences: feelings of connection to other human beings and to the larger cosmos, moments of communion with wild animals, the appreciation of beauty, wonder. Nature is capable of extraordinary phenomena. We human beings stand in awe of those phenomena. That's part of my view of spirituality."

— The Miraculous from the Material: Understanding the Wonders of Nature by Alan Lightman
https://a.co/7ZfKc4r

The best books on Happiness Through Negative Thinking recommended by Oliver Burkeman

Your book, The Antidote, is subtitled “Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking”. Why do you think our pursuit of happiness through positivity can lead to so much trouble?

Sometimes it is the very pursuit of happiness that stops us from achieving it. Put simply, I think many of the techniques that claim to enable us to achieve happiness don’t work. They are too focused on strenuously stamping out any trace of negativity, rather than cultivating the conditions of real happiness. The more complex and subtler idea is that happiness is impossible to aim for directly. I’m not just talking about all the bad self-help books out there – I think the “cult of optimism” is broader than that. We are all to some extent in its grip, whenever we think that the way to achieve whatever we’re trying to achieve is to go after it vigorously, and that if we believe it will all work out fine then it will... (continues)

Prologue

"I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be “happy.” I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be honorable, to be compassionate. It is, above all, to matter: to count, to stand for something, to have it make some difference that you lived at all. -Leo Rosten, writer (1908–1997)"

"Moral Ambition: Stop Wasting Your Talent and Start Making a Difference" by Rutger Bregman: https://a.co/izQK4KP

Enough

Humans carry millions of years of evolutionary pressure to acquire more resources and higher social status. But it's our relationships that really make our lives fulfilling today.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/common-sense-science/202506/why-more-is-never-enough

tiny invisible games

"I suppose if there were something valuable that I could leave you with, it would be to say that you can play tiny invisible games inside of your plainest tasks." The comedian and writer Jenny Slate offers some words of wisdom to new graduates.
http://nyer.cm/ak7dQRa

Connect

"The happiest people aren't necessarily those who have figured out their grand purpose in life. They are the ones who have found meaningful ways to connect with others through activities that bring them joy." Here's why. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-regret-free-life/202503/the-purpose-happiness-connection

Movement, the best drug

Move your body, grow your brain: the science of hippocampal neurogenesis 

"We know that as little as 10 minutes of walking can improve your mood, getting that bubble bath with the dopamine, serotonin, endorphins going. Anybody can do that."

https://bigthink.com/people/wendy-suzuki/

Phil.Oliver@mtsu.edu

👣Solvitur ambulando

💭Sapere aude

$ or meaning?

"…There's this study called the American Freshman Survey, it's been done since the late 1960s. At that time, when students were asked about their most important life goals, about 80 to 90 percent said that developing a meaningful philosophy of life was most important. Today that's 50 percent. In the '60s, 50 percent said making as much money as possible was a really important goal. Today, that's 80 to 90 percent. The numbers have reversed. For me, that shows that this is not human nature. It is culture. It can change..."

Rutger Bregman Wants to Save Elites From Their Wasted Lives

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/17/magazine/rutger-bregman-interview.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

3 Ways to Find Peace in an Anxious World

"…The single best thing you can do outside of social connection is get outdoors," he said, adding that research shows: "Clouds and sky and light and the sound of water and the smell of spring get into your nervous system and calm it all down… I really believe that people should do what works for them," Mr. Harris said…

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/14/well/mind/joy-anxiety-sara-bareilles.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Siblings

"Happiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth. They are inseparable."
— Albert Camus

Stoic figs

Want to live a happy, in the sense of meaningful and purposeful life? Here's one place to begin.

Massimo Pigliucci

https://substack.com/@figsinwintertime/note/c-118630315?r=35ogp&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action

Enjoy the scenery on the detours

You will do well to cultivate the resources in yourself that bring you happiness outside of success or failure. The truth is, most of us discover where we are headed when we arrive. At that time, we turn around and say, yes, this is obviously where I was going all along. It's a good idea to try to enjoy the scenery on the detours, because you'll probably take a few.

Bill Watterson

https://www.themarginalian.org/2013/05/20/bill-watterson-1990-kenyon-speech/

No secret

Nobel laureate Bertrand Russell, born on this day (5.18) in 1872, on the secret of happiness.

https://www.themarginalian.org/2023/02/21/bertrand-russell-happiness/

The best in us

Born on this day in 1872, Bertrand Russell lived nearly a century, through two world wars, and won the Nobel Prize for his timeless writing that champions the best in us: our kindness, our critical thinking, our freedom of being. His immortal wisdom on how to grow old and what makes a fulfilling life:

https://www.themarginalian.org/2018/07/03/how-to-grow-old-bertrand-russell/

Rich

There is a third factor beyond happiness and meaning that contributes to a life well lived—psychological richness. Here's why it matters and how to cultivate it.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/well-read/202502/how-reading-can-contribute-to-a-psychologically-richer-life

Moral ambition

Another name for meliorism… Addresses the perennial and generational problem of the inadequacy of material ambition to fulfill the pursuit of meaning, purpose, and happiness.

Rutger Bregman Wants to Save Elites From Their Wasted Lives

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/17/magazine/rutger-bregman-interview.html?context=audio&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

RECOMMENDED, to be placed on library reserve.

Navigating by aliveness

The concept that sits right at the heart of a sane and meaningful life, I’m increasingly convinced, is something like aliveness. It goes by other names, too, none of which quite nail it – but it’s the one thing that, so long as you navigate by it, you’ll never go too far wrong. Sometimes it feels like a subtle electrical charge behind what’s happening, or a mildly heightened sense of clarity, or sometimes like nothing I can put into words at all. I freely concede it’s a hopelessly unscientific idea. But I’m pretty sure it’s what Joseph Campbell meant when he said that most of us aren’t really seeking the meaning of life, but rather “an experience of being alive… so that we actually feel the rapture” – although personally I don’t think it’s always rapturous, per se – “of being alive.”

In literal terms, of course, “aliveness” can’t be the right word here, because technically everyone’s alive all the time, whereas aliveness comes and goes. Still, I know it when I feel it. And I definitely know it when my misguided efforts to exert too much control over reality cause it to drain away. And so an excellent question to ask yourself – when you’re facing a tough decision, say, or wondering if you’re on the right track – is: “Does this feel like it’s taking me in the direction of greater aliveness?”

Crucially, aliveness isn’t the same as happiness. As the Zen teacher Christian Dillo explains in his engrossing book The Path of Aliveness, you can absolutely feel alive in the midst of intense sadness. Aliveness, he writes, “isn’t about feeling better; it’s about feeling better.” When I feel aliveness in my work, it’s not because every task is an unadulterated pleasure; and when I feel it in my close relationships, it’s not because I’ve transcended the capacity to get annoyed by other people – because believe me, I haven’t...

Oliver Burkeman, The Imperfectionist (continues)

Better than “success”

Success won't make you happy for long. Here's why purpose, identity, and connection beat ambition nearly every time.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-regret-free-life/202505/why-success-is-overrated

Struggling

Young adults aren't as happy as they used to be. I spoke with The New York Times about new research from the Global Flourishing Study, which shows that young people today are struggling more than ever—with their mental health, social connections, sense of purpose, and overall well-being.

We used to think of young adulthood as one of the happiest times of life, but that's no longer the case in a lot of Western countries like the US and the UK.

Laurie Santos https://www.threads.com/@lauriesantosofficial/post/DJmuUDyOu8C?xmt=AQF0B2diGi26zOEolqoTN3Hz7TkOCVsFSPFy1Y7CdUjheA

The only “island of meaning”?

Humbling, clarifying… but, "terrifying"? Perhaps in the same way being responsible for your children's well-being can be terrifying: an awesome responsibility, but profoundly meaningful and purpose-giving.

Brian Cox shares some Sagan-esque cosmic philosophy with Colbert:

@profbriancox explores the wonder of human life set against the vast backdrop of galaxies captured by the James Webb Space Telescope.

https://www.threads.com/@colbertlateshow/post/DJnhTd_vT00?xmt=AQF0YikHmhrFtU5gnzj__Zawf3E4XgjDImP6h-wyz7D59w

Happy parenting

Nordic countries are known for being happier – so should we all raise our children like the Scandinavians do? Swipe to learn five parenting lessons from the Danes!

You can listen to the episode, "Is a "Viking" Childhood a Happier Childhood (with Helen Russell)?" on The Happiness Lab. Available wherever you get your podcasts.

This series on parenting coincides with my new free online class, The Science of Wellbeing for Parents. You can sign up at DrLaurieSantos.com/parents.

https://www.threads.com/@lauriesantosofficial/post/DJkL70btOoO?xmt=AQF0fbdbpUu1riFNmC5K2e07ZpL8tfb2jy0KnCkGwA7Z2A

Time affluence

Research shows that cultivating "time affluence," or the psychological sense of having enough time, significantly boosts happiness and reduces stress, even without changing your actual schedule.

Even a small block of unexpected free time can feel huge to our brains. That's the beauty of time affluence—it's not about how much time you actually have, but how open your time feels. —Laurie Santos

Anxiety to depression

When anxiety goes unaddressed, it doesn't just fade—it often transforms into depression. Here's why it happens, and what can be done to help prevent it.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/liking-the-child-you-love/202504/the-anxiety-depression-link

Mindfully happy

"Mindfulness teaches us that happiness isn't a goal to chase or a quick fix to be found. Rather, it encourages us to be fully present in each moment, whether it feels pleasant or not."

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/psychological-science-bites/202502/why-mindfulness-matters-a-new-lens-for-viewing-happiness

Can Happiness Be Taught?

Well, it can definitely be studied. And pursued. And at least occasionally enjoyed.

"…The nub is that [Arthur Brooks is] required, by the panic-stricken temper of the times, to insist that we can and must get better at being who we are. It could be argued that so positive an outlook is, and always has been, a by-product of any inquiry into the conduct of our earthly existence, although a self-help book by Schopenhauer would, perhaps, flummox more readers than it would assist. On the other hand, if anything yokes together the philosophers cited by Brooks, it is the willingness, or the unavoidable compulsion, to worry away at one moral conundrum after the next, like dogs unearthing a bone to have another go at the marrow. You could spend a lifetime, say, stubbornly chewing on what Aristotle, in the Ethics, means by eudaemonia. "Happiness" alone won't suffice. Aristotle himself, treading carefully, writes, "We have practically defined happiness as a sort of living and faring well." I am partial to the modesty of "human flourishing." Others prefer something like "the activity of a rational soul in accordance with virtue"—a daunting ideal that held sway for twenty-five hundred years, until it was roundly rebuffed by the creators of "Jackass."

…"

Anthony Lane
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/10/23/build-the-life-you-want-the-art-and-science-of-getting-happier-oprah-winfrey-and-arthur-c-brooks-book-review

But… is that all there is? 🎶

Happiness is made up of two ingredients: meaning and purpose. The problem is that most people believe they are the same thing. Here's why that's wrong—and how to use both to finally feel fulfillment.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-regret-free-life/202502/the-difference-between-meaning-and-purpose

Our texts, from an AI pov

 Scarlett's suggestions for our course... and comments on the supplemental addition of recommended texts.

That's a strong, diverse set of texts—well-balanced between psychological research, philosophical critique, and reflective life guidance. Haybron's Very Short Introduction gives students solid conceptual groundwork; Waldinger brings real-world data and warmth; Flanagan offers a healthy dose of skepticism; and Burkeman reframes time and meaning with sharp, modern urgency...

Those three recommended texts—Epicurus, Rowlands, and Solnit—offer rich avenues for expanding the conversation on happiness into lived experience, simplicity, embodiment, and companionship...

All That Happiness Is

Adam Gopnik, Liveright 2024

Elasticity

Our emotions are more elastic than we realise, and with the right tools you can boost your health, happiness and even longevity. New Scientist

It’s your duty

"There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy. By being happy, we sow anonymous benefits upon the world."
~ Robert Louis Stevenson

Keys to Happiness

An Ancient Key to Happiness You have to keep two things in check, say experts

This weekend, my colleagues at The New York Times Magazine are publishing a special issue all about happiness: how to define it, discover it and increase it.

In particular, I loved a quiz called, “What Makes You Happy?” I had fun answering the questions, but it also made me think.

It turns out that happiness can be grouped into two main categories, and the concept goes back to ancient Greece. One kind is called eudaemonic well-being, which you might think of as having meaning and purpose in your life. The other is called hedonic well-being, which means feeling pleasure and avoiding pain.

Both, researchers say, are important in order to thrive...

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/02/well/hedonic-eudaemonic-happiness.html?smid=em-share

Meaning & time

Young people, simply put, are less likely to define the meaning of their life—and worst of all, there's evidence they're not even looking for it.

I have lots of data going back to the 60s. We can blame social media, which is a big problem, but the truth is that our device use is just a way to fritter away our time and distract us from the fact that we don't know the meaning of our lives...

https://www.threads.com/@arthurcbrooks/post/DJN53I_Ry1L?xmt=AQGzC35EYh8sYWhNsj3znY-6W7DR7Zx0w3rhsojB7L48ow

JOMO

(But I'd have missed out on this…)

Ever close your social media app feeling worse than when you opened it? You're not alone. While FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) has become a familiar digital-age anxiety, there's a more fulfilling alternative worth exploring: JOMO — the Joy Of Missing Out.

Laurie Santos

https://www.threads.com/@lauriesantosofficial/post/DJMUPgFtiaj?xmt=AQGzZt70k4evYGq_LVOIvuy2yD890hN9NKuoxlEORJqAzA

Our Idea of Happiness Has Gotten Shallow. Here’s How to Deepen It.

Happiness was once understood as a communal project tied to justice and shared flourishing, but over time, it evolved into something individual and small. "Now the challenge seems clear: to reclaim a deeper, more demanding vision of what it means to live well in a fractured world — and restore happiness to its proper scale."

Kwame Anthony Appiah
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/03/magazine/happiness-history-living-well.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Scarlett's suggestions for the course

 https://chatgpt.com/share/6816a5a2-8854-8007-8b2a-64065782f22e

My Miserable Week in the ‘Happiest Country on Earth’

…If Americans are exceptional in our approach to happiness, it may have to do with an insistence on treating the matter as a glittering mystery, a thing requiring pilgrimage or a course at Harvard or Yale (both schools have offered happiness classes) to understand. It's a quandary we're tasked with solving — as with many quandaries in this country, like taxes and health insurance and self-defense — on our own. In a land of maximal freedom, where the coffee cups are huge, we can just as easily imagine ourselves becoming billionaires or dying on a street corner. The span of the ladder is as wide as our imaginations allow...

nyt

Please notice

Same

In Japan, happiness is often deeply connected to relationships with others and appreciation of the little things in life. Here's how that philosophy can help boost well-being.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/between-cultures/202504/japanese-wisdom-for-a-good-life

Don't Scroll, Engage

Social Media and You

Our smartphones and social media now mediate our most intimate moments. Romances begin with swipes and DMs, relationships end via text, and news of births and deaths arrive through notification bells on devices designed to shape every interaction.

For many, these technologies enhance connection. Those with rare conditions like cystic fibrosis find support groups that would be impossible to access locally. A transgender teen in a small town discovers communities that affirm their identity. A homebound elderly person maintains relationships with far-flung grandchildren. For the isolated, the internet is truly transformative.

But critical questions remain: Are these technologies deepening or inhibiting our meaningful connections? How do they affect our happiness?

(Robert Waldinger, continues)

The Best Advice I’ve Ever Heard for How to Be Happy

"Cherish the everyday" is the best of the best…

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/04/28/magazine/how-to-be-happy.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Quiz: Which Kind of Happiness Do You Rely On Most?

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/04/30/magazine/what-makes-me-happy-quiz.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

How Nearly a Century of Happiness Research Led to One Big Finding

Connect.

"… On a small patio by a very small pool, Waldinger and I talked about the rise of the happiness industry — the countless podcasts, conferences, best-selling books — and his own role in it. He gives considerable thought to maintaining his own happiness in the face of becoming a kind of influencer, someone called on to travel around the world to speak about happiness at conferences, sometimes to crowds of very wealthy people, repeating the same turns of phrase and giving the same advice about deep relationships.

As a Zen priest, someone accustomed to reckoning with his place in the world, Waldinger is acutely aware of the tension between achieving status and doing work that demands humility. Before becoming the steward of the Harvard study, he walked away from a high-profile job as the director of training and education at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center, after deciding that the prestige of the role didn't offset his lack of enthusiasm for the administrative work it demanded. At age 45, he started over, taking a major pay cut to pursue work he found more fulfilling: working under the guidance of Stuart Hauser, a psychiatrist recognized for his work in adolescent development. That professional step, of course, led Waldinger to the Harvard study and the work that has catapulted his visibility far beyond that of his previous career.

He reflected with honesty about how much thought he gives to keeping his newfound fame in perspective. "I grapple with the feeling that it's important," he told me, as we sat over turkey sandwiches his wife had made; ordinarily, the two of them have lunch together, a small moment of connection they started sharing during the pandemic. The work is meaningful, he said; it was the feeling of ego gratification that he struggled with. "It feels important," he said. "But it's really not. I work at a hospital where every water fountain is named after someone who was once maybe famous. But now no one knows who they are." The badges of achievement — that's the least important part of who he is, he tries to remind himself. Because otherwise who would he be when the calls from The New York Times, from Aspen, from TED, stopped coming?

Even knowing that Waldinger was a Buddhist priest, I felt somehow surprised by how quickly our conversation had moved past the discussion of research and deepened into something that felt bracingly and reassuringly honest. When we finally said goodbye after a few hours of talking, mostly in the sun, I left feeling that I had connected with someone who was, just a few hours earlier, a stranger. I noticed, as I got in the car and remembered my concerns about my back, that it was incontrovertible: I felt better."

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/01/magazine/happiness-research-studies-relationships.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

==

How to Be Happy

Happiness can predict health and longevity, but it doesn’t just happen to you.

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• Want to feel happier? One proven strategy is to strengthen what psychologists call your reward sensitivity.

• Small changes in your behavior and surroundings can set you on course for happiness. Here’s how.

• Our seven-day Happiness Challenge will help you focus on a crucial element of living a good life — your relationships.

• Finland has been ranked the happiest country on earth for six consecutive years. What’s the secret? The answer is complicated.

• Cultivating a sense of wonder can be a salve for a turbulent mind. Here is how to make it part of your everyday life.

• It can seem impossible to be optimistic about the future. But these questions will help you understand what all optimists have in common.

Re: A Global Flourishing Study Finds That Young Adults, Well, Aren’t

My three youngest sons have certainly struggled and continue to express a bleak outlook on their future.  When I shared my own experience of life getting better with time, one insisted that it isn't working that way for his generation as their income is not keeping up with inflation, housing is difficult to acquire and keep long-term, etc.

On Wed, Apr 30, 2025, 11:29 AM Phil Oliver <poliver.mtsu@gmail.com> wrote:

New data collected from more than 200,000 people across the world shows that young people aren't as happy as they used to be.

The happiness curve is collapsing.

For decades, research showed that the way people experienced happiness across their lifetimes looked like a U-shaped curve. Happiness tended to be high when they were young, then dipped in midlife, only to rise again as they grew old.

But recent surveys suggest that young adults aren't as happy as they used to be, and that U-shaped curve is starting to flatten.

This pattern has shown up yet again in a new study, one of a collection of papers published on Wednesday in the journal Nature Mental Health. They are the first publications based on the inaugural wave of data from the Global Flourishing Study, a collaboration between researchers at Harvard and Baylor University.

The data, collected by Gallup primarily in 2023, was derived from self-reported surveys of more than 200,000 people in over 20 countries. It found that, on average, young adults between the ages of 18 and 29 were struggling — not only with happiness, but also with their physical and mental health, their perceptions of their own character, finding meaning in life, the quality of their relationships and their financial security. The researchers combined these measures to determine the degree that each participant was "flourishing," or living in a state where all aspects of life were good... nyt

A Global Flourishing Study Finds That Young Adults, Well, Aren’t

New data collected from more than 200,000 people across the world shows that young people aren't as happy as they used to be.

The happiness curve is collapsing.

For decades, research showed that the way people experienced happiness across their lifetimes looked like a U-shaped curve. Happiness tended to be high when they were young, then dipped in midlife, only to rise again as they grew old.

But recent surveys suggest that young adults aren't as happy as they used to be, and that U-shaped curve is starting to flatten.

This pattern has shown up yet again in a new study, one of a collection of papers published on Wednesday in the journal Nature Mental Health. They are the first publications based on the inaugural wave of data from the Global Flourishing Study, a collaboration between researchers at Harvard and Baylor University.

The data, collected by Gallup primarily in 2023, was derived from self-reported surveys of more than 200,000 people in over 20 countries. It found that, on average, young adults between the ages of 18 and 29 were struggling — not only with happiness, but also with their physical and mental health, their perceptions of their own character, finding meaning in life, the quality of their relationships and their financial security. The researchers combined these measures to determine the degree that each participant was "flourishing," or living in a state where all aspects of life were good... nyt

In & with

What does it mean to be happy?

Social scientists like me think about happiness as having two parts: being happy IN your life and being happy WITH your life. The first part of happiness involves having positive emotions—you're supposed to feel good in your day-to-day. The second part of happiness is cognitive—you need to think your life is going well. — Laurie Santos

https://www.threads.com/@lauriesantosofficial/post/DJCBHnzBilT?xmt=AQGzn6_lmhh9oyIwh-O3V_BTNsnqfWQC5GxcW7UraZ2Z3Q

Practical optimism

Practical optimism isn't just about positive thinking—it's about taking action.

According to Dr. Sue Varma, translating optimism into real outcomes requires skills, tools, and consistent practice. Some days it might be just five minutes, but like learning a language or riding a bike — it builds over time.

Listen to my full conversation with Dr. Sue Varma on The Happiness Lab wherever you get your podcasts.

Laurie Santos

Russell’s impersonal interests

Maria reposts this frequently. I transcribe it frequently. It's the most concise statement of wisdom I've found, right up there with his "love is wise, hatred is foolish" capsule to the future. Age gracefully. Be happy. Release ego. Merge.

"Make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life."

Maria Popova
Nobel laureate Bertrand Russell on how to grow old: https://www.themarginalian.org/2018/07/03/how-to-grow-old-bertrand-russell/

Suggestions from AI

 Here are several suggestions for recent nonfiction and fiction titles (from the past couple years) that could fit your course, organized by type and tone:

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Recent Nonfiction (2022–2024)

1. The Good Enough Life by Avram Alpert (2022)
A powerful meditation on the cult of excellence and how striving for greatness can undermine well-being. Alpert argues for a more communal, sustainable, and modest ideal—resonant with Epicurean and Buddhist themes.

2. Life Is Hard: How Philosophy Can Help Us Find Our Way by Kieran Setiya (2022)
A gentle but probing book on how confronting pain, failure, and mortality can deepen our understanding of happiness and meaning. Combines analytic clarity with personal reflection.

3. On Getting Better by Adam Gopnik (2023)
A humanistic, essayistic take on self-improvement and fulfillment from the New Yorker writer. It’s literary, stylish, and rich in cultural reference—very teachable and engaging.

4. This Life: Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom by Martin Hägglund (2020, paperback 2021)
Not brand new, but gaining traction. A deep and ambitious work of existential philosophy, arguing that real value—and real happiness—only makes sense if we accept the finitude of life. Good counterpoint to Stoicism or religious traditions.

5. The Joy of Saying No by Natalie Lue (2023)
A practical yet philosophically grounded take on boundaries and self-worth. It might pair well with Burkeman's 4000 Weeks in its focus on time, values, and attention.

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Fiction (Recent, Thematically Relevant)

1. The Sweetness of Water by Nathan Harris (2021)
While historical, this novel explores the inner lives of formerly enslaved people and their quest for dignity, freedom, and—ultimately—joy. A deep ethical and emotional read.

2. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (2022)
A story of creative friendship, love, and the meaning of life through the lens of game design. Philosophical questions about identity, purpose, mortality, and happiness run throughout.

3. Happiness Falls by Angie Kim (2023)
A suspenseful family drama centered on communication, neurodivergence, and the philosophical idea that happiness isn’t always what it seems. Explores subjectivity and the ethics of care.

4. The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki (2021)
A semi-magical, Buddhist-inflected meditation on grief, noise, books, and sanity. Engages questions about inner peace and the nature of meaning, with deep compassion and inventiveness.

5. Search by Michelle Huneven (2022)
A satirical yet earnest novel about a Unitarian church’s search for a new minister—and the search for happiness, meaning, and community that animates its quirky congregation.

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Would you like suggestions for pairing any of these with your current list (e.g., as a complement or contrast to Pigliucci or Rowlands)? Also: would you be interested in more global or non-Western perspectives on happiness, or even poetry?

You said:

Yes, to both questions.

ChatGPT said:

Excellent! Here are some thoughtful pairings and contrasts for your current list, followed by global/non-Western perspectives and a few poetic/lyrical additions that could enrich the course.

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Pairings & Contrasts with Pigliucci and Rowlands

1. With Beyond Stoicism

Pigliucci & co. advocate a contemporary “cognitive” approach to flourishing grounded in virtue ethics. You might pair or contrast that with:

• Life Is Hard by Kieran Setiya
  Setiya shares Stoic themes (suffering, resilience) but rejects Stoicism's detachment. He promotes engagement with emotional life and imperfect flourishing. Great for class debates: Should we aim for apatheia or connection?

• This Life by Martin Hägglund
  Hägglund critiques Stoicism’s indifference to loss and offers a secular, mortalist ethics of commitment. It’s denser, but even excerpts could stir deep reflection.

• The Art of Solitude by Stephen Batchelor (2020)
  A Buddhist-leaning alternative to Stoicism, embracing impermanence and mindful solitude. Could complement Stoicism with a gentler, more meditative angle.

2. With The Philosopher and the Wolf / The Word of Dog by Mark Rowlands

Rowlands gives us a phenomenological and emotional take on meaning—especially through animals.

• The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki
  Magical realism and Buddhist-inflected compassion echo Rowlands’s themes of suffering, voice, and interconnection. Would resonate especially with students drawn to animal ethics or non-human sentience.

• Search by Michelle Huneven
  Explores spirituality and happiness through a community lens, not a solitary or animal one. Might serve as an implicit contrast to Rowlands's more private, existential solitude.

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Global / Non-Western Perspectives

1. The Book of Joy by Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu (2016, still fresh)

Deeply conversational, humorous, and insightful—combines Buddhist and Christian traditions on cultivating joy through compassion, gratitude, and connection.

2. Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life by Héctor García and Francesc Miralles (2017, still popular)

Presents a distinctly Japanese take on purpose and happiness—could spark great conversation on cultural conceptions of the good life.

3. The Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler

A classic and accessible East-meets-West blend of Buddhist and psychological insight.

4. Happy by Derren Brown (2016, UK-based)

Offers a British skepticism of self-help combined with Stoic/Buddhist themes. Great companion to Pigliucci—same terrain, different tone.

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Poetic & Lyrical Additions

1. The Hurting Kind by Ada Limón (2022)

Limón, the U.S. Poet Laureate, explores love, pain, nature, and presence with startling clarity and tenderness. Her poems can open up classroom discussion on momentary joy and enduring hope.

2. Devotions by Mary Oliver (or Felicity, A Thousand Mornings)

If you're not already using Oliver, she's the gold standard for poetic reflection on happiness through simplicity, nature, and mindfulness.

3. Inciting Joy by Ross Gay (2022)

Lyrical essays about joy born from sorrow, shared struggle, and connection. Very teachable, with an almost Jamesian belief in the redemptive powers of life.

4. The Penguin Book of Spiritual Verse: 110 Poets on the Divine (2022, ed. Kaveh Akbar)

Offers a pluralistic, global lens on happiness, hope, longing, and transcendence—great for final reflections or student-chosen readings.

... https://chatgpt.com/share/67f41f34-1ac4-8007-bf35-d89a767f74c2