A Counterintuitive Guide to Happiness

If you make happiness your primary goal, you might miss out on the challenges that give life meaning.

Most of us believe that if we tick a series of boxes (great job, fancy car, etc.,) we will arrive at success and live happily every after. But happiness isn’t a destination.

Social conditions and inequality affect well-being. So, why do we keep insisting "happiness is a choice"?

What if we’re wrong about the keys to our own contentment?

After reading all the studies on happiness, I concluded that modern happiness research could be summed up in one sentence, a sentence we might jokingly call the data-driven answer to life.

Positive thinking and visualising success can be counterproductive—happily, other strategies for fulfilment are available.

There can be substantial trade-offs between seeking happiness and seeking meaning in life.

The ordinary suffering of life—aging, illness, death, change itself—shouldn’t be seen as irritations that get in the way of the “real work” of happiness. Any happiness we cultivate has to swim in these same waters.

Essential, data-derived advice for leading a happy, healthy life, shared by researcher and psychiatrist Robert Waldinger.

The road to happiness is indirect and full of frustration.

Why it’s impossible to always be happy.