Positive Psychology

In a recent Ted Talk, Shawn Achor explained how he studied the happiness of the Harvard freshmen class. He said no matter how happy the students were when they got accepted to Harvard, after the first two weeks of school their brains were focused, not on the privilege of being there, or on their classes. Their brains were instead, focused on the competition, the workload, the hassles, the stresses, and the complaints. The students had forgotten to be happy about the privilege of studying at Harvard.

Achor’s study demonstrates how happiness is correlated to the inward state more than to outward circumstances. This concept is the key to understanding the science of happiness. In our culture we often assume that the circumstances of our external world predict our happiness. But in reality, Achor says “if I know everything about your external world, I can only predict 10 percent of your long-term happiness,” which means 90 percent of long-term happiness is predicted by the lens through which we see the external world.