This 3-part series on the how of happiness inspired by Arthur Brooks gives us insights into what we can do to boost our happiness, even when we don’t always feel like being happy.  

Transcript:

Welcome to Everyday Happiness where we create lasting happiness, in 2 minutes a day,  through my signature method of Intentional Margins® (creating harmony between your to-dos and your priorities), happiness science, and musings about life. 

I'm your host Katie Jefcoat and Arthur Brooks is an accomplished scientist and professor at the Harvard Business School and also writes a column for The Atlantic.  He says there are 3 equations for well-being to manage your own happiness.  Yesterday I said that we were going to dig into habits.  The second equation that Arthur Brooks identifies that help us get to the how of happiness is this:  HABITS = FAITH + FAMILY + FRIENDS + WORK.

He’s convinced and I agree, long lasting happiness comes from human connection, and he adds productive work.   Faith, he says, is anything you want where you can ponder life's deeper questions - it’s not religious, although it can be.  We all know family comes in all shapes and sizes from blood relation to our chosen family - we’re talking about deep meaningful relationships with others.   A study was done years ago where psychologist George Vaillant, summarized the findings as “Happiness is love. Full stop.”

Now, I know a lot of people that don’t love their jobs, so why put work into the happiness equation.  Well, Arthur Brooks said, after reviewing so much scientific research, that it was overwhelmingly clear that a “productive human endeavour creates a sense of purpose in life”.   So, what the research indicates is that being unemployed is bad for happiness and there is a sliding scale to good jobs and bad jobs.  When we talk about work, this also includes stay-at-home parenting and I’m adding in hobby creation if you are retired.   Arthur Brooks says “What makes work meaningful is not the kind of work it is, but the sense it gives you that you are earning your success and serving others.”

Now, work doesn’t mean money.  And really, work might be more useful in the context of satisfaction.  Does this work, how you are spending your time, satisfy you?  Satisfaction is a big question and that’s what we are going to unpack tomorrow.  What’s the key to feeling satisfied and how do we do it.  

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