The pursuit of Happiness sounds simple, but I think most people don’t have it framed correctly in their heads. The mistake was seeded at the time of America’s founding, when “pursuit of Happiness” appeared as a God-given unalienable right in the Declaration of Independence. I don’t think that it is a pursuit.
The basic flowchart many people believe looks like this:
This flowchart is wrong.
I believe happiness is a state-of-mind that comes from forward-looking optimism and being thankful for everything that you already have and enjoy. Both happiness and optimism are available to you today and during every step of your life’s journey.
Happiness is not a destination.
Happiness is an enabler during each step of the flowchart scribbled above. Happiness helps a person:
(1) do the hard work,
(2) overcome the tough challenges,
(3) succeed at the endeavors,
(4) ultimately enjoy financial windfalls,
(5) among other, often more important, things.
Happiness does not come sequentially from success or money.
Shawn Achor agrees with me. His truly excellent presentation is my nominee for Best Video that Can Change Your Perspective for 2012. Please watch it now — its just twelve minutes long — and let’s see if he can convince you that happiness is a choice and happiness leads to greater success. Shawn is the winner of numerous distinguished teaching awards at Harvard University, where he delivered lectures on positive psychology in one of the most popular classes offered at Harvard.
I’m not alone 🙂
Do you want to be above average? Start by being above average happy. Below was Shawn’s action steps for how to start today.
I.M. Optimism Man
Motivating…!!
I intend to practice what I’ve just read in your script.
Thanks… I needed this!
Your message is actually better than his, plus your message was clearer and only took 1 minute to read. Shawn spent too much time on being funny and not enough on instructive content….although he was successful with cramming 24 minutes of content into 12 minutes. He talked too fast from the beginning all the way to the end.