Charles Wang posted a nice historical summary of the philosophy of happiness on GlossyNews.com.
We especially liked his mention of Victor Frankl, who was a major influence on the Happiness Habit:
(Frankl, 1997) Frankl makes it clear that it is not pleasure or satisfying the sum-of-our-drives that makes us happy:
“What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.” (Frankl, 1997)"
"Of those 3 paths to a happy, satisfied life, offered by Positive and Logotherapy Psychology, pleasure is the least consequential of the three. However, so many people build their lives around the pursuit of pleasure, and it turns out to be the least consequential of the three. Engagement & meaning are much more important."
Our question in response is, what is happiness?
The Happiness Habit defines a Happy Life as:
Pleasant & Pleasing,
Purposeful & Productive,
Prosperous (meaning what ever we are working on is bearing positive rewards)
& Spiritually Successful (living in harmony with our surroundings and by the highest and best values.)
What does happiness mean to you?
Your key to happiness depends on how YOU define happiness.
Copyright 1999- , Michele Moore. All Rights Reserved. Explore HappinessHabit.com and HappinessBlog.com. Our materials may NOT be published, broadcast, redistributed or rewritten without written permission from the authors. Photograph from Dreamstime.com
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