Authentic Happiness : Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment

A national bestseller, Authentic Happiness launched the revolutionary new science of Positive Psychology—and sparked a coast-to-coast debate on the nature of real happiness. According to esteemed psychologist and bestselling author Martin Seligman, happiness is not the result of good genes or luck. Real, lasting happiness comes from focusing on one’s personal strengths rather than weaknesses—and working with them to improve all aspects of one’s life. Using practical exercises, brief tests, and a dynamic website program, Seligman shows readers how to identify their highest virtues and use them in ways they haven’t yet considered. Accessible and proven, Authentic Happiness is the most powerful work of popular psychology in years. Publisher description: Positive Psychology focuses on strengths rather than weaknesses, asserting that happiness is not the result of good genes or luck. Seligman teaches readers that happiness can be cultivated by identifying and using many of the strengths and traits that they already possess -- including kindness, originality, humor, optimism, and generosity. By frequently calling upon their "signature strengths" in all the crucial realms of life, readers will not only develop natural buffers against misfortune and the experience of negative emotion, they will move their lives up to a new, more positive plane. Drawing on groundbreaking psychological research, Seligman shows how Positive Psychology is shifting the profession's paradigm away from its narrow-minded focus on pathology, victimology, and mental illness to positive emotion, virtue and strength, and positive institutions. Seligman provides the Signature Strengths Survey along with a variety of brief tests that can be used to measure how much positive emotion readers experience, in order to help determine what their highest strengths are pt. 1. pt. 1. -- 1. pt. 1. -- 1. -- 2. pt. 1. -- 1. -- 2. -- 3. pt. 1. -- 1. -- 2. -- 3. -- 4. pt. 1. -- 1. -- 2. -- 3. -- 4. -- 5. pt. 1. -- 1. -- 2. -- 3. -- 4. -- 5. -- 6. pt. 1. -- 1. -- 2. -- 3. -- 4. -- 5. -- 6. -- 7. pt. 1. -- 1. -- 2. -- 3. -- 4. -- 5. -- 6. -- 7. -- pt. 2. pt. 1. -- 1. -- 2. -- 3. -- 4. -- 5. -- 6. -- 7. -- pt. 2. -- 8. pt. 1. -- 1. -- 2. -- 3. -- 4. -- 5. -- 6. -- 7. -- pt. 2. -- 8. -- 9. pt. 1. -- 1. -- 2. -- 3. -- 4. -- 5. -- 6. -- 7. -- pt. 2. -- 8. -- 9. -- pt. 3. pt. 1. -- 1. -- 2. -- 3. -- 4. -- 5. -- 6. -- 7. -- pt. 2. -- 8. -- 9. -- pt. 3. -- 10. pt. 1. -- 1. -- 2. -- 3. -- 4. -- 5. -- 6. -- 7. -- pt. 2. -- 8. -- 9. -- pt. 3. -- 10. -- 11. pt. 1. -- 1. -- 2. -- 3. -- 4. -- 5. -- 6. -- 7. -- pt. 2. -- 8. -- 9. -- pt. 3. -- 10. -- 11. -- 12. pt. 1. -- 1. -- 2. -- 3. -- 4. -- 5. -- 6. -- 7. -- pt. 2. -- 8. -- 9. -- pt. 3. -- 10. -- 11. -- 12. -- 13. pt. 1. -- 1. -- 2. -- 3. -- 4. -- 5. -- 6. -- 7. -- pt. 2. -- 8. -- 9. -- pt. 3. -- 10. -- 11. -- 12. -- 13. -- 14. pt. 1.-- 1.-- 2.-- 3.-- 4.-- 5.-- 6.-- 7.-- pt. 2.-- 8.-- 9.-- pt. 3.-- 10.-- 11.-- 12.-- 13.-- 14. Colophon......Page 2 Other Books by Martin E.P. Seligman......Page 3 Copyright......Page 4 Dedication......Page 5 Epigraph......Page 6 Contents......Page 7 Preface......Page 9 Part 1: Positive Emotion......Page 13 1. Positive Feeling and Positive Character......Page 14 2. How Psychology Lost Its Way and I Found Mine......Page 28 3. Why Bother to Be Happy?......Page 41 4. Can You Make Yourself Lastingly Happier?......Page 56 5. Satisfaction about the Past......Page 75 6. Optimism about the Future......Page 97 7. Happiness in the Present......Page 120 Part II: Strength and Virtue......Page 141 8. Renewing Strength and Virtue......Page 142 9. Your Signature Strengths......Page 151 Part III: In the Mansions of Life......Page 186 10. Work and Personal Satisfaction......Page 187 11. Love......Page 208 12. Raising Children......Page 232 13. Reprise and Summary......Page 281 14. Meaning and Purpose......Page 284 Appendix: Terminology and Theory......Page 296 Acknowledgments......Page 302 Endnotes......Page 305 Permissions......Page 360 Argues That Happiness Can Be A Learned And Cultivated Behavior, Explaining How Every Person Possesses At Least Five Of Twenty-four Profiled Strengths That Can Be Built On In Order To Improve Life. IN 1932, Cecilia O'Payne took her final vows in Milwaukee.