In Happiness Studies, Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar tells us:
“Psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky defines happiness as ‘the experience of joy, contentment, or positive well-being, combined with a sense that one’s life is good, meaningful, and worthwhile.’ Denis Waitley, a motivational speaker and consultant, offers an alternative definition: ‘Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude.’ To former track star and cardiologist George Sheehan ‘Happiness is different from pleasure. Happiness has something to do with struggling and enduring and accomplishing.’ Then there is the very serious definition by Stoic Roman philosopher Seneca—’Human happiness is founded upon wisdom and virtue’—and the very adorable definition by Charles Schulz, creator of the Peanuts comic strip—’Happiness is a warm puppy.’ Two decades ago, when I first started to write about life’s ultimate currency, I defined happiness as ‘the overall experience of meaning and pleasure.’ Today, the definition I find most useful as a student and teacher of happiness draws on the words of Helen Keller who more than a century ago wrote: ‘To me the only satisfactory definition of happiness is wholeness.’ Drawing on Keller’s words, I define happiness as ‘the experience of wholeperson wellbeing.’ To further simplify the definition, melding the compound words wholeperson and wellbeing, one might say that happiness is ‘the experience of Wholebeing.’“
Happiness is wholeness; happiness is the experience of wholeperson and well-being or wholebeing.
wholebeing = wholeperson + well-being
happiness = wholebeing
When we refer to happiness in The Fundamentals Guide we are referring to wholebeing, the SPIRE elements, the PERMA +V elements, and the Big 3×2 elements of energy, work, and love.
