Positive psychology

[likethewatch]

An article in the NYT on the science of being happy.

The article has that now-typical "two perspectives" thing going wherein the author tries to find people who have something negative to say about positive psychology. Yeah, some of it sounds a little woo-woo, but I'm a little woo-woo. Even the way I have gone about weight training has been woo-

Comments

[grokfairy]

i found the article very interesting; it's a little new-agey, but it seems like it does have as solid foundation that -- while perhaps not based in firm science -- is at least sort of level-headed and down-to-earth.

i've always been amused that we call ourselves hedonists, since what we do on saturday nights is way beyond hedonism. it's about coming together and sharing and experiencing joy. through pleasure, sure, but through paying attention to pleasure and to each other.

a lot of this seems to share practices/ideas with some areas of buddhist psychology. have you seen pictures/videos of buddhist monks? they are the fucking happiest people i have ever seen.