We’d like to wish you a Happy and Prosperous New Year

Initally this was just going to be a one line post as above, but there is an interesting discussion about the nature of happiness in the news at the moment. There was an article in the Economist just before Christmas, another in the Telegraph yesterday and one on the BBC website today.

This may just be the usual clutch of mid-winter blues articles in the media; there was an article in the Sunday Times in January 2005 which I saved and have now uploaded here. I may just be more sensitive to it now for some reason. However there does seem to be a groundswell of opinion saying that society is not happy, asking what happiness is and trying to work out how to be happy.

The Sunday Times article quotes Epicurus and Aristole as saying that happiness must be the ultimate goal in life as people search for money, fame, power, beauty in order to make themselves happy and no-one seeks happiness for a higher benefit.

Clearly what makes each individual happy is different, but there does seem to be themes. Positive supportive relationships with others; friends, family etc, is a consistent theme as is feeling that you are doing something worthwhile

Which brings me back to my “Whole People” post in July and Stephen Covey’s core philosophy that for people to be fulfilled they need to live, love, learn and leave a legacy.