Abouts Books

By Henry Reed

Most people want to be happy. That's good because the Dalai Lama says that the purpose of life is to be happy. I'm sure there must be more to it than that.

We all know that being happy isn't always easy. Habits of worry, rumination, and other distractions make happiness an afterthought. Trying to keep the wolves from the door leaves little time to worry about being happy. However, if you have ever had time to worry about your happiness, I've found the book for you. It is Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment (The Free Press). The author, Martin E. P. Seligman, Ph.D., wrote the bestseller, Learned Optimism. He's a respected university psychologist.

He's a pioneer in what has come to be called "Positive Psychology," which has to do with the good things in life. Seligman's essential contribution is the equivalent of providing research evidence for what metaphysical people would call "New Thought," which is that you can make a difference in your life if you only think you can and act on that thought. He calls it "self-efficacy," meaning the idea that you can be effective. And he doesn't like the idea of "original sin," so it's OK to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps.

What is happiness? It is not just a mood, but a way of experiencing, a way of believing. It is optimistic. More than that, it is strength-giving. He likes the example from research, showing that happy people can keep their arms in a bucket of ice water longer than depressed people. Happiness is a pain reliever. Happiness has survival value.

Seligman's not much of a proponent of circumstances. Research has found that money and health, for example, don't make people happy. There are many healthy, rich people who are unhappy. Living in a wealthy democracy, however, is better than living in an impoverished dictatorship, his research has found.

One of the enemies of happiness is taking things for granted, which can continually raise the bar for what you need to get your happiness button pushed. Gratitude for what you have can be a great advantage. Seligman has found other factors that support happiness, attributes you can develop. Forgiveness is one, as well as optimism. Both free a person from the past. Research shows a person can learn optimism by, for example, recognizing and arguing against one's own pessimistic thoughts.

Happiness in the here and now is very important. To Buddhists and other philosophers, now is all the time we have. Being happy in the present moment receives support from accepting the simple pleasures in life, enjoying your meal, savoring the moment, and above all, paying attention! You don't have to practice meditation to develop "mindfulness," but it can help.

Virtue is its own reward, but it can also bring an additional resource for being happy. After considerable research, Seligman and his colleagues established six virtues that are common to all spiritual traditions: wisdom, courage, love, justice, temperance, and transcendence. He began to research the "personal strengths," as he called them, or the "routes" to these virtues, and learned how people might achieve and use these pillars of happiness. They include humor, perspective, enthusiasm, perseverance, kindness, and self-control, to name a few (you can assess your own personal strengths on his Web site, at www.authentichappiness.org).

Seligman's research shows that work won't make you happy as long as it's just a job you do for a paycheck. Happy are those who can approach their work as a "calling," making the doing of good work satisfying in itself.

What about love? When Seligman found 100 extremely happy people, 99 of them were involved in stable romantic relationships. He believes that we can learn how to have a happy relationship by developing some of the strengths mentioned above. He notes the special importance of learning to be an attentive listener.

Seligman concludes his survey of the roads to happiness Sby a discussion of spirituality, which he views as a sense of connection and collaboration with something larger than the self. Although it is fast becoming a growth industry, research on the role of spirituality in health and happiness is in its infancy. So Seligman philosophizes.

Doubtless there is intelligent design to creation, even if the existence of a designer may be in doubt. As we evolve and become more intelligent in our pursuit of happiness, the world will get better, because the greatest happiness for each of us depends upon us all being happy. By consciously dedicating ourselves to promoting happiness, we become part of an evolutionary process that would make a designer feel fulfilled. Don't worry about it, because happiness is divine destiny.

Henry Reed, Ph.D., is on staff at Atlantic University. He has been the prime designer of A.R.E.'s psychic development program, in its various aspects, for the past twenty some years. He is one of the trainers of A.R.E.'s most successful, and long running, psychic training conference, "The Edgar Cayce Legacy: Be Your Own Psychic." He developed A.R.E.'s program of evaluating psychics. He has published scientific articles on his research into intuition and psychic functioning. He is the author of Edgar Cayce on Awakening Your Psychic Powers, Edgar Cayce on Channeling Your Higher Self, and Your Intuitive Heart.