H's Happiness Health

There are flowers everywhere for those who look- Matisse

Over the past decade or so, the field of positive psychology has flourished thanks to researchers such as Martin Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihaly among several others. And it's just about everywhere we look in pop culture. It's all about making yourself happy, what's wrong with you that you're not like people in commercials with giant smiles running through a grassy field with dogs.

But happiness is particularly important to me. Not necessarily because I strive to avoid unhappiness- that's not healthy. My family has a long, long history of "mental health issues". Enough so that my main priority as of recent years is to keep track of my happiness meter to evade the scary shadow of emotional catastrophe.

So what do I do? I'm far from figuring out what makes me tick and a part of me doesn't even want to know that much. But I try to eat well, observe my emotional characteristics, and semi- recently took up actively exercising.

After all, it's not about just knowing. It's about learning and living.

Luke: What's in there?

Yoda: Only what you take

What makes you happy?