Peter Boyer: Loud and boisterous family gatherings, or a quiet day alone with a book. Feeling love for those around you, or the excitement of meeting new friends. People derive happiness from vastly different things.
Just ask yourself, what makes you happy? Since the days of our Founding Fathers, the pursuit of happiness is a concept we all strive for. This is such an important question that there's an entire field of research dedicated to answering it. Scientist Sonja Lyubomirsky has devoted her career to studying human happiness.
Sonja Lyubomirsky: Most of us want to be happier, and that's good. Because being happy is good for you, and not just in a spiritual soul-lifting sense. Happier people are more productive at work and more creative. They earn more money and are better negotiators.
Happy people are more likely to get hired, and there's some evidence they're better citizens. Happier people also have more fulfilling relationships. They have more friends and are more likely to get married. So happiness is a good thing.
If we observe genuinely happy people, and I've observed a lot of them, we find that they do not just sit around being happy. They make things happen. They pursue new understandings, seek new achievements, and control their thoughts and feelings.
So for us to change our happiness levels and experience what these happy people are experiencing, we need to change the ways that we think and the ways that we act. And we need to focus on those things to give us the biggest bang for our buck.
Peter Boyer: In this challenge, you learn happiness cultivating strategies and dive into the most effective ways to practice happiness in your daily life.
Sonja Lyubomirsky: Because believe it or not, according to the research, you can do something to become happier. And that's why you're here, I hope — to work at happiness together.
Peter Boyer: Get started now.
