Happiness
I watched the documentary Happy when it came out in 2012 and loved it. I watched it again recently, after experiences grief and pain and heartbreak, and I still loved it. I find it fascinating that happiness is a science that can be studied and measured! That people will forever be prying and dissecting it - to deduce where it come from and what it's made of. That there are real factors that have been proven to make people less happy (long commutes to work!) and more happy (nature!). And that there are places and nationalities that are much more happy or much less happy than others around the world.
I always thought of happiness as a blessing. I thought of it as something you are born with, a nature, of sorts. Much like a talent or a demeanor. I thought of it as the luckiest gift one could get - because it made everything in the world better. As a (legitimate?) grown up I still believe much of this to be true; I know that motherhood - by watching two very different girls grow from birth to childhood, and seeing their innate natures from when they were only a few weeks old. In general though, I do strongly believe that "the nature of man is to be happy - look at children and you will see". I'm not sure where things go awry, but it seems to be that as we grow we stop pursuing happiness the same way we did when we were young. And as it turns out - the most proven formula for happiness? Random acts of goodness and kindness. In any case! Just wanted to share the documentary here (and it's on Netflix so you can enjoy it asap).
P.S. For those of you with a good JLI in your district, the new course "How Happiness Thinks" looks like a winner.
And for those of you in the greater Los Angeles are, this looks interesting too.