By contrast, so-called generative adults — those who score highly on tests measuring civic-mindedness, and who are likely to be energetic and involved — tend to see many of the events in their life in the reverse order, as linked by themes of redemption. They flunked sixth grade but met a wonderful counselor and made honor roll in seventh. They were laid low by divorce, only to meet a wonderful new partner. Often, too, they say they felt singled out from very early in life — protected, even as others nearby suffered.

Thus, our brain supports sharing in its very system-nature. This has profound implications for the creative process. Whenever you have an intention to create, you will find it easier to generate more creative ideas if you keep the sharing process firmly in mind. The idea-forming-process is not linear, but more like an avalanche of amplifications along the thinking path. It moves with the momentum of a creative snowball. If your internal cognitive system encourages sharing, you can engineer a feedback loop of happiness, which will help you generate even more ideas in return. It's a kind of butterfly- effect, as the small creative energy you spend will eventually return to make you, and the world, more creative.

"One of the great, but often unmentioned, causes of both happiness and misery is the quality of our environment: the kind of walls, chairs, buildings and streets we’re surrounded by." via mitten

Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert has made it his life's work to understand why people not only make errors in predicting what will make them happy, but also why they make the same errors over and over again.

we discussed how we could make 37signals one of the best places in the world to work, learn, and generally be happy.

Zelo as an attitude is a vital ingredient for any production. It is the positive attitude that says that the mag is half full. It's what we bring to the table every time. You sit down with us, you get up happy. Capisce?

We see clusters of happy and unhappy individuals in the social network like blinking lights in this complex fabric that is made up of people where some people are happy and some people are unhappy and there is a kind of gray zone between them.

a smile - ⌣ - just the smile; think of it as ) turned sideways. Not all fonts put it at the right height.

It is easy to be heavy; hard to be light.

Topping the list of needs that appear to bring happiness are autonomy (feeling that your activities are self-chosen and self-endorsed), competence (feeling that you are effective in your activities), relatedness (feeling a sense of closeness with others)

Wilson not only jumped off the happiness bandwagon—he also embraced his melancholy side and decided to blast a happiness movement that "leads to half-lives, to bland existences," as he argues in "Against Happiness," a book now reaching stores. Americans

Growth, some of the economists are conceding in perplexity, has been "decoupled" from widely shared prosperity.

In 1972 the concept of the Gross National Happiness (GNH) was created by the king of Bhutan, in a small Himalayan kingdom. It is his conviction that the ultimate purpose of the government is to promote the happiness of a people.

Position Vacant - Director of Happiness. This exercise takes about two weeks. Provide students with an advertisement for a fictitious job as the director of happiness at Smile-Mart - an organization that sells happiness to people.

from anil dash

But I’ve learned a few things as a trial-by-fire project manager, and one is that my attitude affects my team’s ability to work. So I made the call: it’s better to show up late than to show up angry. I went to Target instead of the office, and calle

director of happiness at pure visibility

she is director of happiness at pure visibility

What was the problem? Why did I never want to dress more nicely? Answer: because I do a lot of walking every day, and always try to walk more whenever possible, so I like to wear comfortable shoes.

twitter of ignite session on happiness, positive psychology as motivators for role playing games. jane mcgonigal. there's a slide show on slideshare.

Through controlled experiments, Sonja Lyubomirsky explores ways to beat the genetic set point for happiness. Staying in high spirits, she finds, is hard work

mise en place, everything in its place

write down the nicest things that happened to you every day, and why they happened. i'm starting to do this with walker tracker as the record keeping tool.

Achieving sustainable gains in happiness: change your actions not your circumstances.

small things, like keeping people in a good mood, have tremendous impacts on culture and performance in organizations.

part of dinah's daily series on discardia. liking it!

10-point todo list.

UC Riverside researcher on happiness