Flourish A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well being

mind-and-cognition

• Well-being theory has five elements: positive emotion, engagement, meaning, positive relationships, and accomplishment. A handy mnemonic is PERMA.

  VLA-C27A1C72-RC-012

• Positive psychology urges psychology to supplement understanding misery with exploring what makes life worth living and building its enabling conditions.

  VLA-C27A1C72-RC-003

self-and-identity

• The primary problem with 'happiness' is that the modern ear hears buoyant mood, merriment, good cheer, and smiling—historically not what happiness means.

  VLA-C27A1C72-RC-008

• After a long bridge tournament, looking in the mirror, I worry I am merely fidgeting until I die—engagement and pleasure alone are not meaning.

  VLA-C27A1C72-RC-009

work-as-meaning

• Rockefeller and Carnegie spent the second half of their lives giving away fortunes—creating meaning after early lives of winning only for winning's sake.

  VLA-C27A1C72-RC-014

• The goal of wealth is not just to produce more wealth but to engender flourishing—positive psychology's aim is to measure and build human flourishing.

  VLA-C27A1C72-RC-021