Adventures in Reading

I’ve read Parts I (Positive Emotion) & II (Strengths & Virtue) of Martin E. P. Seligman’s Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment and I love it!

As I mentioned earlier, the basic concepts are not new to me but it’s how Seligman uses science and research that makes this book worth reading!

Here are some of the book’s main ideas:

Based on analysis of some two hundred virtue catalogs — including Aristotle and Plato, Thomas Aquinas and Augustine, the Old Testament, Confucius, Buddha, Lao-Tzu, Bushido (the samurai code), the Koran, Benjamin Franklin, and the Upanishads — the world’s cultures share twenty-four strengths that can be categorized into six core virtues:

Wisdom and knowledge

• Curiosity/Interest in the world
• Love of learning
• Judgment/Critical Thinking/Open-Mindedness
• Ingenuity/Originality/Practical Intelligence/Street Smarts
• Social intelligence/Personal Intelligence/Emotional Intelligence
• Perspective

Courage

• Valor and Bravery
• Perseverance/Industry/Diligence
• Integrity/Genuineness/Honesty

Love and humanity

• Kindness and Generosity
• Loving and allowing oneself to be loved

Justice

• Citizenship/Duty/Teamwork/Loyalty
• Fairness and Equity
• Leadership

Temperance

• Self-control
• Prudence/Discretion/Caution
• Humility and Modesty

Spirituality and transcendence:

• Appreciation of beauty and excellence
• Gratitude
• Hope/Optimism/Future-Mindedness
• Spirituality/Sense of Purpose/Faith/Religiousness
• Forgiveness and Mercy
• Playfulness and Humor
• Zest/Passion/Enthusiasm

Seligman believes that we each possess several signature strengths and that using your signature strengths every day in your life will bring abundant gratification (distinct from pleasures) and authentic happiness.

Seligman defines pleasures as “delights that have clear sensory and strong emotional components, what philosophers call ‘raw feels’: ecstasy, thrills, orgasm, delight, mirth, exuberance, and comfort” and gratifications as “activities we very much like doing…[that] engage us fully, we become immersed and absorbed in them, and we lose self-consciousness…[and] they last longer…they involve quite a lot of thinking and interpretation, they do not habituate easily and they are undergirded by our strengths and virtues.”

The pleasures can be categorized as follows:

• high-intensity: rapture, bliss, ecstasy, thrill, hilarity, euphoria, kick, buzz, elation, and excitement
• moderate-intensity: ebullience, sparkle, vigor, glee, mirth, gladness, good cheer, enthusiasm, attraction, and fun
• low-intensity: comfort, harmony, amusement, satiation, and relaxation

Based on his research, Seligman teaches readers to enhance pleasure by:

• preventing habituation - space out pleasurable activities so that they happen just frequently enough to keep making you happy, and even better “arrange it so that the people you live with or otherwise see frequently surprise each other with ‘presents’ of pleasure.” An unexpected cup of coffee, her favorite artist’s new album when she arrives home, a simple note of gratitude and appreciation.
• savoring pleasures - “basking (receiving praise and congratulations), thanksgiving (expressing gratitude for blessings), marveling (losing the self in the wonder of the moment), and luxuriating (indulging the senses.”
• mindful attention to the present - meditation helps with this one

Authentic happiness, Seligman’s research indicates, has social, intellectual and physical benefits such as increased creativity, improved memory, boosted, productivity, better health and longevity.

Sounds good to me :)

My favorite part of Authentic Happiness so far is this Buddhist story about mindfulness:

After three years of study, the novice monk arrives at the dwelling of his teacher. He enters the room, bursting with ideas about knotty issues of Buddhist metaphysics and well-prepared for the deep questions that await him in his examination.

“I have but one question”, his teacher intones.”I am ready, master,” he replies.

“In the doorway, you have just passed through, were the flowers to the left or to the right of the umbrella?”

The novice retires, abashed for three more years of study.

I’m very excited to learn more about positive psychology!

Just started Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment by Martin E. P. Seligman and am very much enjoying it so far. The basic concepts (money cannot buy happiness, finding meaning in life does lead to happiness) are not ground breaking but that Seligman backs these up with science and research, well that’s what does it for me!

Seligman is the founder of Positive Psychology, a new branch of psychology which focuses on the study of positive emotions, strengths-based character, and healthy institutions. As you probably know, psychology to date has largely focused on the abnormal. While this has done a great deal to treat mental illness, it hasn’t done much to help average folks live better lives.

Seligman’s research at the University of Pennsylvania has demonstrated that it is possible to learn to be happier — to feel more satisfied, to be more engaged with life, find more meaning, have higher hopes, and probably even laugh and smile more, regardless of one’s circumstances. Positive psychology interventions can also lastingly decrease depression symptoms.

Click here to read an except of Chapter One of Authentic Happiness. Here are the Parts/Chapter titles in case you’re curious:

Part I Positive Emotion
1. Positive Feeling and Positive Character
2. How Psychology Lost Its Way and I Found Mine
3. Why Bother to Be Happy?
4. Can You Make Yourself Lastingly Happier?
5. Satisfaction about the Past
6. Optimism about the Future
7. Happiness in the Present

Part II Strength and Virtue
8. Renewing Strength and Virtue
9. Your Signature Strength

Part III In the Mansions of Life
10. Work and Personal Satisfaction
11. Love
12. Raising Children
13. Reprise and Summary
14. Meaning and Purpose

Positive psychology seems like an interesting and exciting new field and I’ve checked out several other library books to learn all I can:

• The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom by Jonathan Haidt
• The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want by Sonja Lyubomirsky
• The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less by Barry Schwartz

Any other recommended books on Positive Psychology?

I had a book light in elementary school. And an electronic pocket dictionary. I remember begging my parents for both items and winning them over with the practical nature of these purchases. I could read even more; I would work harder in school and I’d get smarter.

These days, we all have access to an electronic dictionary online (aka google.com) and several years ago I added a dictionary to my Palm Pilot (okay they’re no longer called Palm Pilots but I got my first one so long ago I don’t know if I’ll ever stop calling them that). Now days, you can just go to google.com on your cell phone so really it’s no big deal to have an “electronic pocket dictionary” anymore.

As for book lights, I no longer own one. Not because I don’t want one but because eventually the bulb in my “itty bitty” book light died and it just seemed like too much effort to find a replacement bulb.

So when I heard about the LightWedge a few years ago I got really excited. As their website states, “LightWedge products use energy-efficient LEDs and patented LightWedge technology that directs all of the light down onto the page and not into the room.” They sell one that’s large enough for hardbacks (the original) and a smaller one for paperbacks and a Harry Potter one (very savvy marketing)! They also sell a mini one for travel purposes and a night vision safe one that uses red LEDs. All are reasonably priced (less than $40) and since they use LEDs (light emitting diodes) you shouldn’t have to buy replacement LEDs very often!

And they also sell cases for both the original and paperback!

I haven’t gotten around to buying one but I will have to remember to ask for one for Christmas this year!