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.

---

• 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.