I wanted to share what I learned from this TED Talk by Martin Seligman.  First and most important, I found his separation of causes of happiness eye-opening.  He claims there are three ways to increase happiness: 1. living the pleasant life, or seeking rewards, 2. Living the engaged life, or being in "flow", and 3. living a meaningful life, or helping a cause bigger than you.  The second thing I learned was about the history of psychology.  Psychology used to focus entirely on the mentally ill, but now is starting to spread out to the "normal" people.  The very important question, How can we maximize happiness?, is being pursued.

I comforted in finding out that living the pleasant life was not enough for the overwhelming majority of people.  For most people, it was combining at least one of the other types of lives with the pleasant life that caused the highest ratings of happiness.  But, I think this is a very important observation and one that can be used to support the difference between "happiness" and "well-being".  I think I'll spend time personally differentiating those two terms in another post.