Real-World Happiness (Practical and Otherwise)
Want to lose weight? Don't just stop eating; it might be the most obvious way, but isn't the best way. It may work for a little while, but then something – force of habit, metabolic adaptation, the lilting song of the North American Ginger Snap – will bring progress to an end. The best way to lose weight involves looking at your lifestyle, figuring out how it relates to your dietary needs, and developing a good understanding of why you take care of yourself the way you do. Losing weight isn’t about food or exercise – it's about understanding the way they fit into your life.
The same is true for becoming happier.
There are lots of diet books that try to explain how metabolism works, the biology of hunger, cultural attitudes about body image, and how these all connect to psychology.
But for happiness? Not so much. Every day I look at the new articles on happiness and well-being that appear on the internet. For the most part, they're tilted toward advice, not understanding. Little life-hacks may work for the person who came up with them, but the authors offer little explanation for why they would work – or when they wouldn't.
In this day and age, the culture of happiness isn't very sophisticated or systematic. Most of it involves the pop-psych equivalent of the crash diet.
The articles you'll find linked on this page won't give quick tips or hacks. They are more like explorations of the metabolism of happiness – brief looks at our environments and what makes us feel good, and how our lifestyles get in the way of it.
Fifty Ways to be Happy
Not everyone experiences happiness in the same way, or values the same positive feelings and experiences. How are you happy? This list will help you figure it out. (If you're new to the site, this is a good place to get started.)
Great if You'd Been Here
The Price of Admission: The Gamification of Wealth
Turning things into games is a good way to get eyeballs - and create addicts. What happens when your identity turns into a game?
The Apple Watch's Peculiar Kind of Happiness
Can technology bring us happiness? To some extent - but until designers give up their faulty assumptions about what happiness is, we'll be stuck with an impractical version.
The Creepiness of Cats: A Movie Set in the Uncanny Valley
Why is it that so many critics don't just dislike the movie version of Cats, but really hate it? Explore the psychology of the uncanny.
Looking for Fairness in a Luck-Bound World
Success is an important component of happiness. That's why you're luck if you live in the USA: because in a meritocracy, everyone gets what they deserve. Or, actually, maybe not…
Wonder and the Interstate Highway System
Growing up involves exchanging a fuzzy sense of optimism for unpleasant but practical insight. We lament the loss of possibility so intensely that we often overlook the more subtle advantages of knowing.
Maslow's Hierarchy Is Probably Not What You Think
What does Maslow's famous hierarchy actually do? It's not really a ranking of universal human needs, but a way of thinking about yourself.
Paradise: Lost and Found
Paradise is a paradox - it's almost always defined as someplace where you're not. Vacationing in Hawaii, I found two visions of the good life: one that involves escape from every-day realities, and one that celebrates the connections that hold us to them, and to one another.
On the Clock: Trapped in Time? You're not Alone.
What was life like before the clock was invented, when the tight schedule, being on time, and guilt over showing up late didn't exist? And just how did our society become so obsessed with time?
Happiness Comes from Trees. And Other Things.
Why do so many feel-good gurus recommend spending some time in the woods? It doesn't tell us as much about human nature or the great outdoors as it does about modern urban lifestyles.
Wake Up Your Books – What Marie Kondo Tells Us about Ourselves
Kondo is on to something: we often forget that, on some level, we treat everything as though it were alive. This forgetting can make us very unhappy.
From the Present to the Moment
Do we pass through time, or does time pass through us? How we think about time shapes the ways we become happy. Living in the present is fine but living in the moment can be bliss - if you can keep from slipping out.
What’s the Connection Between Money and Happiness?
Money buys you happiness, up to $75,000 - at least, that's the theory. Let's explore the nuts and bolts. And the history.
Finding Your True, Authentic Self and Changing It to Something Else Entirely
Do you have an authentic inner self, or don't you? Time to explore the conflict between two opposing views of human happiness that never gets talked about.
Hooray for Money! - The Not-So-Subtle Promotional Program
American higher ed sends out clear but often unnoticed messages about what should make us happy. When we buy into them, those messages often get in the way of actually finding happiness.
Happiness in Times of Plenty - and Scarcity
Do shortages when times are tight really put an end to feeling good? It all depends on the metaphors you use.
