Consider the possibility of handling the everyday challenges of work, school, city dwelling, and creative pursuits with nothing more than your own mind. Speakers Daniel Lerner, Emily Esfahani Smith, and Charles Montgomery lay out straightforward actions towards living well, avoiding burnout, and maintaining your performance at work. Happiness is just one part of it.
Daniel Lerner: Balancing Passion with Everything Else
Sometimes it seems easier to focus on one passion at a time, to the exclusion of other beneficial activities. In this video, positive psychologist-slash-instructor of NYU’s enormously popular Science of Happiness course Daniel Lerner reveals the difference between healthy and dangerous passions. How and why should we ignite, explore, and stoke our healthy ones? Most of all, Lerner shows us how to recognize when things can be a little more harmonious.
Emily Esfahani Smith: A New Search for Meaning
Forget happiness—meaning is what makes a life. That’s the vital message at the core of Emily Esfahani Smith’s talk, The Power of Meaning, which provides four pillars essential to living a life that matters: belonging, purpose, transcendence, and storytelling. From the TED2017 main stage to her viral Atlantic article “There’s More to Life Than Being Happy,” Smith helps us aspire towards fulfilment—in life, and at work.
Charles Montgomery: Happy City, Happy People
Urban Experimentalist and author of The Happy City, Charles Montgomery establishes situations that build social connections. His canvas: the major cities of the world. Our physical surroundings have powerful affects over our contentment and ease within our lives. So, what makes us happier in our cities and neighborhoods? It begins with trust, says Montgomery, in this charming account of how he got a roomful of strangers to hug each other.
