What decades of research say about living a happy life

There is a false understanding that a

happy life means being happy all the

time. No, it's not. Learning to accept

and even embrace painful emotions is an

important part of a happy life.

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There is a paradox when it comes to

pursuing happiness. On the one hand, we

know that happiness is a good thing. At

the same time, we also know from

research that people who say to

themselves, "Happiness is important for

me. I want to pursue it." Those

individuals actually end up being less

happy. Pursuing happiness directly can

cause more harm than good. But breaking

it down into its elements can lead us to

enjoy the indirect pursuit of happiness

and by extension to raise our overall

levels of happiness.

The Harvard study of adult development

is the longest study of adult life

that's ever been done. It started in

1938

and it has followed the same people

throughout their entire lives to

understand what makes people thrive as

they grow and develop. Well, it turns

out the people in our 85 year study who

stayed the happiest and the healthiest

were the people who had the warmest

connections with others. Our connections

with other people help us weather the

hard times of life. And hard times are

there in every life.

>> There is a positive and a negative wave

that goes through our lives. But the

baseline is positive in itself. In

Greek, they have two different words for

happiness. One is hydonic, and that's

the typical pleasure, the joyful. Oh,

this is wonderful and great. And then

they have a word called udynmonia. And

that is that positive baseline that does

not waver. There is so much happening in

our lives that we pay attention to and

quite frankly the little devices that we

carry around don't help very much. But

the problem is that our attention is so

much absorbed in that that we rarely if

ever pay attention to just being

present.

When the mind quiets and you actually

are at home in your body, you actually

get in touch with that underlying

happiness that the Greeks call udemonia.

The good life involves a practice of

ongoing care for each other, for our

relationships, care for ourselves, and

it's a process of continual change. It's

a lifelong journey. So happiness is much

more than pleasure. Happiness is whole

being.