Can Happiness be Taught?
Should happiness and fulfillment be subjects on the school curriculum? Is this a holistic way forward, or a case of “experts colonising our internal life”?
Should happiness and fulfillment be subjects on the school curriculum? Is this a holistic way forward, or a case of “experts colonising our internal life”?
‘If you never feel sad, it is because you have never become attached to someone, and that is a very lonely way to be.’
At last! Research shows that I was destined to be happy from the moment that tricky combination of genes and environment endowed me with a craving for long hot baths at any time of day.
“Everyone is in denial about something; just try denying it and watch friends make a list.” An article in the New York Times looks at research on denial and comes to the conclusion that far from being a destructive force it is a necessary part of life, which both protects us and actually helps us to form and nourish relationships.
While studies tend to confirm that no sudden stroke of good or bad fortune can shift your basic level of happiness much, from the results of this study it does seem that taking a few minutes a day to note specific things we are grateful for, as opposed to hassles and random things, can up baseline happiness by a full 25%.