Practical Coach: Management Skills for Everyday Life, The

Happiness

What is happiness? Researchers dryly call happiness “subjective well-being” or, even more dryly, “SWB.” David Myers and Ed Diener explain that, “high subjective well-being reflects a preponderance of positive thoughts and feelings about one's life.” In other words, people who experience high subjective well-being (or happiness) are generally and genuinely pleased with themselves, their work, personal relationships, and other parts of their lives. They also tend to “feel primarily pleasant emotions.” In contrast, people with low SWB see their lives as generally undesirable and feel more negative emotions such as “anxiety, depression, and anger.”^[1] Notably, nine out of ten North Americans describe themselves as at least “pretty happy,” ...