Short Cuts to Happiness: Life-Changing Lessons from My Barber

A realization I’ve had lately: practically anything that’s great in the world is that way only through constant attention and care—e.g. great products, yards, marriages, companies, friendships. If left alone, practically everything defaults toward mediocrity at best or ruin at worst. “Constant attention and care” always requires time and this is a ... See more

Bill O’Brien used to define happiness as “the general sense that your life is headed in the right direction and that you have the opportunity to make a difference.” I have always thought of it as one of those odd qualities we value but cannot achieve by direct effort. Have you ever known anyone working to be happy? In my experience such people have

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We know that if you’re starving, lonely, or in pain, you’ll probably get happier if you get food, friends, and relief. After that, the returns diminish very quickly. You could read all the positive psychology you want, take the online version of The Science of Wellbeing ("Yale’s Most Popular Course Ever!”), read my post on hacking the hedonic tread... See more

Csíkszentmihályi developed the idea of “psychological capital,” or what he terms “paratelics.” When Ed Diener, a professor of psychology at the University of Illinois, measured the world according to Csíkszentmihályi’s paratelic factors, he discovered something so “shocking,” he says, it must be true. These paratelic factors—“I can count on others,

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