Tal Ben-Shahar and his Short Cuts to Happiness
Would you like to be happier? What are the obstacles that keep you from the happiness you deserve? Where does happiness live and how do you find the address and move in?
The first step to finding happiness is probably understanding the misconceptions that abound. Then we can get down to business: accept painful emotions, focus on quality relationships, exercise, show gratitude and simplify our lives.
Tal Ben-Shahar is a happiness expert. He is the New York Times-bestselling author of Happier and Choose the Life You Want. He taught two of the three most popular courses at Harvard, “Positive Psychology” and “The Psychology of Leadership.” He knows happiness, and he understands well the troubling paradox. Those actively pursuing happiness and thinking about it consciously tend to be less happy. Yet research shows increased levels of happiness has benefits for being healthier, more creative, experiencing better relationships and making our time here on earth a heck of a lot more enjoyable. So, maybe the answer is found in how we are thinking about it and the manner with which we choose to pursue it. We can actively seek and pursue happiness, we just need to do it in indirect ways. And, luckily for all of us, these indirect ways are charmingly and effectively illustrated in Tal’s new book, Short Cuts to Happiness: Life-Changing Lessons from my Barber.