Refining the concept of "happiness"
Apart from collecting and analyzing the data from my students, I am doing a lot of reading to better understand the concept of happiness. In truth, there are a number of inter-linked concepts:a) Hope
b) Optimism
c) Resilience
At the moment, my focus is on better understanding Martin Seligman's work on optimism. He argues that many people are pessimistic because of the way think. Typically, they think that problems will last for a long time and that one problem will destroy their whole life ("I have always been a loser and now my whole life is finished"). However, when people become aware of how they think, they can be trained to see their problems in a more optimistic way. Typically, a problem is temporary and the impact is limited ("I didn't do well just now but it's no big deal. I still have a wonderful job and a great future). The next step is to try developing these skills in the classroom.
