Arthur C. Brooks is a modern day sage. We could go as far as calling him a champion for happiness. He is for lack of a better term, an expert in this regard. So much so that he teaches a class on this very subject, Happiness at of all places Harvard. No surprise there’s an extensive waiting list. Not to mention he’s a columnist for the Atlantic, How To Build A Life the subject – you guessed it – Happiness.
His most recent venture partnered him up with no less than Oprah. And unlike most of Oprah’s collabs this one brought Oprah asking to work with Arthur himself. Their collaboration a New York Times best-seller – Build The Life You Want: The Art And Science Of Getting Happier. Another exceptional read, a favorite of mine From Strength To Stregth: Finding Success, Happiness And Deep Purpose In The Second Half Of Life.
Checkout these other great titles by Arthur below.
Arthur believes happiness is as attainable as it is elusive. Now that’s encouraging cause far too often we give up on the idea of sustained happiness because of our inability to hold and grasp it for very long.
Happiness is not a destination. Happiness is a direction.
Arthur c. brooks
Arthur’s 2 Tips For Happiness
Arthur says pure happiness should not be the ultimate goal. Getting a little happier is a more reasonable thing to strive for. No one can be happy all the time.
He says the biggest mistake we make is believing happiness to be a feeling of some sort. And then we begin mistakingly chasing that feeling. “It’s not a feeling. Feelings of happiness are really evidence of happiness.”
His further analogizes – “The smell of dinner is not evidence of dinner. It’s the feeling of dinner. It’ll be a very disappointing dinner if it were just the smell.”
- Don’t work on getting happier. It’s not a feeling. It’s a project.
- It’s not a feeling. It can be worked on. It’s a skill that can be inquired and enhanced.
An Assignment To Try From Arthur Brook’s Happiness Class At Harvard
He does a remarkable exercise with his class at Harvard. Remarkable because of the exceptional results he’s been accruing.
Arthur has his students do the following exercise for the duration of the class –
- Every Sunday you make a list of 5 things you are grateful for
- You spend 5 minutes every single morning thinking about those things – Exercising gratitude for those. Really leaning into it. Focused attention on them.
- Then come the following Sunday you come up with 5 new things – let these things be small minute, something in your world that you’ve never paid much mind to even, yet are grateful to have.
- No coincidence that the first 5 on week 1 seemingly are challenging to come up with
- It gets easier – week by week – which is essentially affirming your expansion into the realm of gratitude – what this means is you are becoming more grateful cause it’s easier to pick out the little things you normally don’t give much consideration to at all.
The results are what I found the most incredibly astounding – I’d expect him to tell us you’d be 1% happier or 5%. Ok let’s push it and go for 10% happier, but Arthur says that after 15 weeks of doing this exercise for the duration of the semester – students are 30% happier.
Now this is a game changer we all must try.
For more on happiness check out this previous post on the Happiest Man In The World.
And for more inspiration and insights be sure to listen in to the Blossom Your Awesome Podcast or checkout this article from our sister site – The Science Of Happiness
