Author Description

What is happiness? How would you describe it? Is it feeling good or is it the absence of feeling bad? Is it both? Can you control it? Can you trigger and sustain happiness? Happiness may be triggered by different things and may be described differently by different individuals; but I think it's fair to say what we all want is to feel happy. In general, most of us would say good health, a modicum of wealth, and loving relationships would be major components of happi-ness. In short, health, wealth and relationships are all connected to happiness. The search for happiness can be said to drive all human existence. The constant if not consistent release of endor-phins triggered by external stimuli that makes one feel good appears to be the universal goal of our species. Be it trig-gered by love, companionship, affection for family and friends and sports teams, physical activity, humor, food, power, philanthropic pursuits, travel, cars, boats, pets, sex or visual stimuli; I think it is safe to say that the end goal of all human activity is to feel good. A good meal, sharing a warm hug, helping a fellow, receiving a sincere smile, achieving a certain vocational and or economic status that allows one to enjoy the things and experiences that make us feel good drives us, our ancestors and our prodigy forward. It always has and probably always will. That being said, our material achievements almost always ring hollow if we aren't happy. Further, according to a recent Harris Poll, only 1 in 3 Americans consider themselves to be very happy. What does that say about the remaining two-thirds? With these thoughts in mind, a couple of years ago I de-cided to give a go at creating a keynote speech around happiness. I began to talk to people about happiness. I asked if they were happy. The happy people I spoke with had suffi-cient levels of what I call "The Four Factors of happiness" in their lives. The unhappy people simply didn't. Based on this informal research, I created what has