Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced Chick-Sent-Me-High-ee) has been writing interesting books like Flow and delving into well being for some time. Time magazine, in Getting Serious About Happiness gives us a heads up about his newest endeavor, a doctoral program at Claremont Graduate University. He will lead his graduate students in analyzing happiness and learning about positive psychology. His rationale works for me:
Even though the things that make people happy seem ephemeral and immaterial, they are the most important things in life, and they have not been studied very seriously.
As I’ve clearly lived more than half a lifetime, experience in this area does count for something. I’d like to offer a few tips that Csikszentmihalyi may want to pass along to the incoming class. First, consider the people who have something to say about happiness and give up some of your assumptions. Cheryl Honey, founder of Family Support Network International, recently won the Jefferson Award for her work in weaving a grassroots web of support on behalf of a more caring, just, and civil society. When she talks about people living with few financial resources, she focuses on their resilience and how they find pleasure when they give of themselves. They may be poor, underemployed, challenged by circumstances that are unexpected. They are happy. Second, do more than try to assign a number to everything. Some of the best theory is first collected as stories. Narrative research is relatively new on the landscape of most people. Wake Me Up When the Data is Over covers some of what I’m talking about. I know that Csikszentmihalyi is enthusiastic about probing people’s psyche at particular moments — you know, taking their ‘happiness temperature’. Some of my techie colleagues might be happy to help him out with their Twitter access. But I’m more prone to see broader periods of contentment in my life than isolated experiences of it. As I’ve explained in my appreciative inquiry blog, discovering the best of what is comes in wonderful recollections. And in telling the stories . . . we are happy.
