Ebook: Happiness

Everyone wants to be happy. Many, however, wrongly believe that happiness comes from having enough money, fame, personal comfort, worldly success, or even dumb luck. Happiness just seems to be so elusive and arbitrary--something all too often just out of reach. Joan Chittister sees happiness differently. To her it is not a by-product of wealth or success but, rather, a personal quality to be learned, mastered, and fearlessly wielded. Happiness, she says, "is an organ of the soul that is meant to be nourished." In these pages Chittister develops "an archeology of happiness" as she conducts a happiness "dig" through sociology, biology, neurology, psychology, philosophy, history, and world religions. Sifting through the wisdom of the ages, Chittister offers inspiring insights that will help seekers everywhere learn to cultivate true and lasting happiness within themselves.;Acknowledgments; introduction; 1. Happiness Is a Process; 2. The Meaning of Happiness in a Global Age; Happiness: The Universal Quest; 3. What Social Data Tells Us and What It Does Not; 4. What Makes People around the Globe Happy; 5. Group, Self, or Something Else; 6. What Makes a Person Happy; 7. Personal Health and Happiness; 8. Happiness Is a Cultural Expectation; Happiness: The Gift of Nature; 9. Happiness and the Brain; 10. Hardwired for Happiness; 11. Happiness Is a Goal; 12. Happiness Is a Value; Happiness: A Commitment to Choose; 13. Psychology and Happiness.