Happiness Links

Here are some recommended readings in happiness. This page is constantly changing, so check back often. Please email me if you have anything to suggest!

General Writing About Happiness and Meaning

BOOKS:
De Botton, Alain. Art as Therapy. Phaidon Press, 2013. A gorgeous book that seeks to render art useful to the individual and providing guidelines for how institutions and individuals can use art to guide our quest for meaning in life.

Kalanithi, Paul. When Breath Becomes Air. New York: Random House, 2016. This memoir is a beautiful rumination on meaning and purpose from a neurosurgical resident who was diagnosed with late-stage lung cancer at the end of his training. 

Rubin, Gretchen. Happier at Home. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2012. Rubin’s sequel to The Happiness Project, also a great, engaging read on further pursuits in happiness.

Rubin, Gretchen. The Happiness Project (Revised Edition). Revised Edition. New York: Harper Paperbacks, 2015. The book that began my own examination of the intentional cultivation of meaning and happiness. Easy and engaging read without being too light. 

ONLINE ESSAYS AND ARTICLES:
Storr, Will. A Better Kind of Happiness. New Yorker. 7 July 2016. Aristotle’s “good life”, meaning and loneliness expressed in our genes, and the value of personal projects.

Esfahani Smith, Emily. There’s More to Life Than Being Happy. The Atlantic. 9 January 2013. This article takes as its point of departure Viktor Frankl, who survived the concentration camps of the Holocaust, and his assertion that the pursuit of happiness thwarts happiness. Instead, it’s meaning that enriches life.

Relationships and Family Life

ONLINE ESSAYS AND ARTICLES:
O’Connor, Anahad. The Secrets to a Happy Life, From a Harvard Study. 23 March 2016. A study at Harvard, ongoing since 1938, has found that relationships matter: “Over and over in these 75 years,” Dr. Waldinger said, “our study has shown that the people who fared the best were the people who leaned into relationships with family, with friends and with community.”

Bruni, Frank. The Myth of Quality Time. 5 September, 2015. Maybe quantity trumps quality–or quantity begets quality–when it comes to spending time with the people we love. 

Work, Career, Finding Life Purpose

ONLINE ESSAYS AND ARTICLES:
O’Donoghue, Caroline. Why you should write your hero a thank-you note. The Pool. 10 August 2016. Fighting the temptation to believe that the thing you do most naturally is not valuable.

Thoughts on Creativity and Happiness

ONLINE ESSAYS AND ARTICLES:
Birbiglia, Mike. Mike Birbiglia’s 6 Tips for Making It Small in Hollywood. Or Anywhere. New York Times. 30 August 2016.

Fun Reads, Quizzes, and Other Miscellany

ONLINE ESSAYS AND ARTICLES:
Self-Knowledge Questionnaire from The Book of Life. An excellent, fun, enlightening quiz that uses art and unexpected questions to help you identify the values that motivate you.

Hamblin, James. How to Talk to Strangers. The Atlantic. 25 August 2016. How and why we should talk to strangers and the quality of life bump that often ensues.