aboutlearning

I am involved in Martin Seligman’s work, first by seeing him on TED and now reading his book Authentic Happiness. ISBN 908-0-7432-2297-6. He works to understand and study happy people in order to improve normal lives. His mission is to enhance and strengthen wellness and the best things in life in ordinary folks.

He has discovered three kinds of happiness:

1. Pleasure, the attention and savoring of something, enjoyable and exciting, but the drawback is it tends not to last
2. Engagement, being seriously involved in what you are doing: be it parenting, working studying an so on. Real engagement puts people into flow, they go into the zone, mindless of time, doing and astonished at their own doing, like someone else is there with and in them. “So engaged, his body identity disappears from his consciousness.” (Seligman speaking of Mozart)
3. Meaning, to be in service to something larger than yourself. The strongest combination being of course, engagement plus meaning. He goes on to say health and productivity follow the same path. Wonderful insights.