25 Feb a happiness story from Baltimore
Here’s a happiness story from Baltimore…in which we even get a mention!
Happiness is… ?
Researchers cheerfully examine the question of what makes us feel good — and why some of us feel better than others
By Joe Burris | Sun reporter
February 24, 2008
The crowd began assembling at a Washington bookstore an hour before Eric Weiner’s lecture on happiness. When the author of the New York Times best-seller The Geography of Bliss took to the podium, more than 200 people sat before him, with another 50 or so peering from behind walls and bookshelves.
For the self-described grump – “my name sounds like ‘someone who whines’,” he says – the turnout goes to show that everyone wants to learn more about happiness. Namely: What makes us happy? When and where are we most likely to be happy? Which groups are happier than others?
Those questions are central to Weiner’s book and to a growing field of behavioral study: happiness research. After years of being regarded as scientific trivia, happiness research is being driven by scores of authors, economic analysts, government officials and college professors committed to gauging our feelings and moods.
Nowadays, such cheery initiatives seem to be sprouting everywhere. There are Happiness Institutes in Sydney, Australia, and Wilmington, N.C.; the World Database of Happiness in Rotterdam, The Netherlands; the Happiness Project in Surrey, United Kingdom. At Harvard University, one of the most popular courses two years ago was Psychology 1504: Positive Psychology, which probed such topics as happiness, self-esteem and friendship.
To read more about happiness and the positive psychology movement – click here