RESOURCES FOR HAPPINESS
WHAT MATTERS AND WHAT WORKS
REPLACED
(FOR FORMATTING AND BETTER USE)
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Basically any book on how to live life better will contribute to one's happiness, but the resources below focus more directly on happiness and should help clarify what actually makes one happy and what one can do to increase one's happiness.
I absolutely recommend reading books on gratitude.
Of course, my writings are designed to pull these together as to what seems to be most relevant and/or most effective. You can peruse and then link directly into what is of interest in Overall Contents/Links For Happiness.
HAPPINESS NOTEBOOK - May be included in the Gratitude/Reminders/Inspiration Notebook
Table of Contents - Being Written, just add anything you find on happiness to the
notebook, using the organized numbering system of the Re-mind-ers Notebook .
Easy to use:
www.happinessstrategies.com - A blog with content, that is easy to understand and
informative, nailing some things down very well. Free e-book is good.
JaredAkers.com - Good blog and sound thinking.
Other good to great sites:
Greater Good Science Center - Raising happiness, videos, podcasts, at Berkeley.
A1 www.happier.com - Backed by Seligman, it includes several very useful exercises and
assessments for use in the process of becoming happier. Absolutely recommended.
www.authentichappiness.org - Martin Seligman's website for his book Authentic Happiness,
with some great tests for happiness that one should take. Becoming very knowledgeable
in this area has huge dividends.
www.thehappinessshow.com - View the videos of all the shows and look at the pieces on
happiness. Incredible site. Better than television.
www.gethappy.net - Michael Fordyce's Happiness Research Website - Several good
happiness tests I'd recommend as a base, plus lots of good material.
Read his free on-line booklet on happiness and/or his extensive book of two
volumes. Authoritative and excellent.
The Happiness Operating Principles - From the "Executive Happiness Coach", to follow in your life.
BOOKS: I recommend that you read/scan as many happiness books as you can - and that you do it to the point where you are well-grounded in what makes a person happy and what to do to be happy. Read 1/week, or at least 1/month, until you are an expert. The order I suggest to read them is first the A's, and then by the number I've assigned (read 1 first, etc.). Immersion through reading a number of the books can be an excellent learning approach.
A+ The Buddha's Way Of Happiness, Thomas Bien - A great and understandable explanation of
how we make ourselves unhappy - and how correcting that is a portal to happiness. And
then it adds in ways to be happy. Magnificent and clear!
Books by Tal Ben-Sharar, the instructor of the most popular class ever at Harvard, on
Happiness:
A1 Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment.
The Pursuit Of Perfect: How To Stop Chasing Perfection And Start Living A Richer,
Happier Life
A3 The Joy of Appreciative Living, Jackie Kelm - 3 great exercises that work simply and
daily, plus alot of wisdom on happiness and joy (which are different).
A2 Authentic Happiness, Martin Seligman - The seminal work on happiness.
See the summary of the key points of this book and the How To Be (More) Happy
module in the Life Management Section..
Free How To Be Happy and Have Fun Changing The World, Michael Anthony. A good easy
read, with good basic points. Download for free from www.howtobehappy.org.
Free A1 You Can Choose To Be Happy On web for free, also a book. (Link is to discussion page, w/
links) , Tom G. Stevens - Possibly the best self help book, free on-line plus you might want to
purchase it.
A1 To Love Is To Be Happy With, Barry Neill Kaufman - Though it appears to be about
relationships, it is actually profoundly about happiness, and better than his best selling
Happiness Is A Choice.
The Art Of Happiness, The Dalai Lama - This book could change some vital viewpoints!
The Book Of Happiness, Heather Summers and Anne Watson - A great read and very
practical. A good one to add to your collection. Visit their website at
The Happiness Makeover - How To Teach Yourself To Be Happy And Enjoy Every Day -
M.J. Ryan - I very much enjoy her (practical) writings.
A2 The Science of Happiness, Stefan Klein - Excellent and illuminating and a definite buy.
*The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin - A fun, but practical, look at what she did to
increase her happiness more and more and to decrease her "not-happiness".
"A cross between the Dalai Lama's The Art Of Happiness and Elizabeth Gilbert's
Eat, Pray, Love."
A3 Happy For No Reason, Marci Shimoff - See the video summary on Philosophernotes site.
A2 The How Of Happiness, Sonya Lyubomirsky - Brian Johnson of PhilosopherNotes identifies
this as the one book to read if he could only recommend one book. Be sure to check out her
videos on YouTube.
Feel Happy Now, Michael Neill - Practical psychology
Happiness, A Guide To Developing Life's Most Important Skill, Matthieu Ricard - Molecular
biologist and eventually becoming a monk. High wisdom, plus practicality.
The Joy Of Living - Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche - Practical and beautiful.
Class, Videos: (As always, see YouTube, under the relevant topic of happiness and related ones you can think of.)
Class: Foundations Of Positive Psychology, taught by Tal Ben-Shahar, Ph. D. Includes
video teaching over a 12 week period. The instructor did the Happiness class at Harvard,
the most popular class ever, with 900 students in its third year. Cost seems too high, though,
but look for yourself.
YouTube and Ted.com Videos:
See this site's attempt to lead you to lots of good stuff: YouTube About Life
Matthiew Ricard on Ted.com, but watch ones on YouTube also
Dan Gilbert
Sonja Lyubomirsky
Marci Shimoff
Michael Neill
M.J. Ryan
Martin Seligman
Jackie Kelm - See Appreciative Inquiry video under JBKelm
Enter any author in the book list
HAPPINESS EXPERTS
Of course, the authors of the recommended books on happiness are experts, but I am adding a few here who I think are practical and produce results.
Alexander Kjerulf - The Chief Happiness Officer - A major proponent and effective in creating happiness at work and consulting with companies to create that.
