Lecture 1:

What is Happiness?

“There is no path to happiness. Happiness is the path.”

-Buddha

What is happiness? What does happiness look like to you? Happiness wears many names, such as a sense of community and belonging, family, passion, emotional and physical security, or finding a meaningful purpose in life. Most everyone agrees that happiness, however it is defined, is the ultimate life goal, either for ourselves or for our shared communities and loved ones. Commonly throughout our culture, happiness is fed to us as something to be achieved, as something we can buy, a finite emotion or reward that can be given or taken depending on extermal standards of success. Extrinsic goals and material objects may be important pieces to our day-to-day happiness, but the feelings associated with these fail to last. If you’re on the quest to increase long-term happiness and have fallen into a path of searching outside yourself, you’re looking in all the wrong places. Buddha’s quote above perfectly highlights this course’s main theme – happiness is not a fleeting feeling, an achievement, or a destination. Happiness is a practice, a way of being that must be internally cultivated through purposeful, daily choices made moment to moment. Happiness is in the moment, never in the past or future, where our minds often ruminate. Happiness is an ever limitless skill available and contagious to all. It lies within our conscious decisions to bring forth the great virtues of compassion, honesty, wholeness, gratitude, hope, vulnerability, resilience, acceptance, empathy, and so much more - for ourselves and others. Happiness dissolves dichotomous thinking of good vs. bad or joy vs. pain. In a well-lived life, happiness is pain, happiness is joy, happiness is central to having gratitude for all successes and grievances and the ability to see the broader picture, and to fully live. It is the lotus built upon mud, the rising with the falling, the birth that only comes after death. But above all, happiness is the love and support of a community. If you’re still contemplating what happiness may look like to you, we’re here to help. Remember, no matter where we currently reside on the happiness spectrum, we all have the capacity to be happier. Let’s begin :-)

Learning Objectives:

No matter where you reside on the happiness spectrum, you can always become HAPPIER
Happiness is a way of being — a mental lifestyle. It is a lifelong process - not a goal.
Happiness is often discussed in terms of Enjoyment, Satisfaction, and Purpose. Living a life in which you find sufficient enjoyment, a life that is deeply satisfying, and to which you feel you have purpose - especially towards something greater than yourself.
The goal of this course is to give you the toolkit to better know yourself, and how you can become happier. This toolkit is based upon science, both Neuroscience and Psychology (and introspection!)
Happiness has many different meanings, depths, and durations. It can be light and transient or deep and long-lasting. We will concentrate on the DEEP and LONG-LASTING forms of happiness
Happiness is both about removing impediments and taking positive steps
Have fun learning, feeling, and discussing about happiness!

Putting Happiness into Practice:

Weekly Activity:

Take a Happiness Survey here!
- The purpose is to find out your level of happiness now. We will ask you to retake this survey after the course. We hope to see your happiness improve :-)
Make social connections!
- Every day this week, try to challenge yourself in making social connections. Whether that’s having lunch with a stranger, calling a loved one, checking in on a friend, going to coffee with a mentor or professor, etc. Try your best to spend quality time (quality meaning to be present!) with another person.
- Studies prove that the quality, NOT quantity, of our social connections is as impactful on our health as smoking, heart disease, and obesity. During this week, try to focus on how actively engaged and present you are with another person. To actively listen to one another is to actively love one another. You will both equally benefit more from each other’s full attention and care!