Positive thinking

1. "If we are peaceful, if we are happy, we can smile, and everyone in our family, our entire society, will benefit from our peace." 2. "Because of your smile, you make life more beautiful." 3. "It is possible to live happily in the here and the now. So many conditions of happiness are available - more than enough for you to be happy right now. You don't have to run into the future in order to get more." 4. "We have more possibilities available in each moment than we realize." 5. "People suffer because they are caught in their views. As soon as we release those views, we are free and we don't suffer anymore." 6. "We will be more successful in all our endeavours if we can let go of the habit of running all the time, and take little pauses to relax and re-centre ourselves. And we'll also have a lot more joy in living." 7. "Hope is important because it can make the present mo...

By Lahnna Catalino We all want to be happy. And science shows that happiness not only feels great but also predicts better physical health and even a higher pay check . But how do we pursue happiness effectively? After all, some recent scientific research actually cautions us against the pursuit of happiness. For instance, a study led by Iris Mauss, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, found that people instructed to feel happier while watching a pleasant film clip ended up feeling worse than people instructed just to watch the clip. Findings like this are echoed in the popular press: Writer Ruth Whippman argued in a recent New York Times piece that the pursuit of happiness is a “recipe for neurosis.” But is this the whole story? Are we doomed to fail at the pursuit of happiness? It depends. The difference between effectively and ineffectively pursuing happiness may all be in how we go about it. Research suggests that people who strive to fee...

By Kira M. Newman                                                                        Over the past decade, an entire industry has sprouted up promising the secrets to happiness. There are best-selling books like The Happiness Project and The How of Happiness, and happiness programs like Happify and Tal-Ben Shahar’s Wholebeing Institute. Here at the Greater Good Science Centre, we offer an online course on "The Science of Happiness"  and boast a collection of research-based happiness practises on our new website, Greater Good in Action.  But all of these books and classes raise the question: Why bother? Many of us might prefer...

1. “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” 2. “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” 3. “In a gentle way, you can shake the world.” 4. “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” 5. “ Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive because your words become your behaviour. Keep your behaviour positive because your behaviour becomes your habits. Keep your habits positive because habits become your values. Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny.” 6. “ The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” 7. The seven social sins: ·          Politics without principles ·          Wealth without work ·          P...

By June Gruber In recent years, we’ve seen an explosion of scientific research revealing precisely how positive feelings like happiness are good for us. We know that they motivate us to pursue important goals and overcome obstacles, protect us from some effects of stress, connect us closely with other people, and even stave off physical and mental ailments. This has made happiness pretty trendy. The science of happiness made the covers of Time , Oprah , and even The Economist , and it has spawned a small industry of motivational speakers, psychotherapists, and research enterprises. The Greater Good Science Centre's website, Greater Good , features more than 400 articles about happiness , and its parenting blog is specifically about raising happy children.  Clearly, happiness is popular. But is happiness always good? Can feeling too good ever be bad? Researchers are just starting to seriously explore these questions, with good reason: By recognizing the potentia...

By Owen M. Griffith.   Wherever we look in our schools, we can find complaining: in classrooms, hallways, offices, and teachers’ lounges. Participating in such talk is easy because there is a lot “wrong” in our schools, but this kind of dialogue is destructive and often spreads quickly. Why do people complain so much in the first place? An honest answer is that it feels good to complain and blame someone or something else when things are not going our way. Complaining takes the responsibility off of us and, according to researchers, often engenders the comforting response we crave when we fail or are disappointed. This is not to say that there isn’t a time for complaining. Quite often we might be dealing with injustice or unfairness in our schools that give us good reason to complain. But complaining should not be the end goal; rather, it should serve as an impetus to rally others to help us change an unfair situation. However, there are times when no matte...

By  Jill Suttie and Jason Marsh   Philosophers, researchers, spiritual leaders—they’ve all debated what makes life worth living. Is it a life filled with happiness or a life filled with purpose and meaning? Is there even a difference between the two? Think of the human rights activist who fights oppression but ends up in prison—is she happy? Or the social animal who spends his nights (and some days) jumping from party to party—is that the good life? These aren’t just academic questions. They can help us determine where we should invest our energy to lead the life we want. Recently some researchers have explored these questions in depth, trying to tease apart the differences between a meaningful life and a happy one. Their research suggests there’s more to life than happiness—and even calls into question some previous findings from the field of positive psychology, earning it both a fair amount of press coverage  and criticism. The controv...