Session 9

The Science of Happiness, Session 9

Role Models and Happiness

Perhaps we could first mention the Dalai Lama with his famous remark

-          Wow, so many things I don' t need, Dalai Lama

We can then refer to someone who wrote with enchanted sentences about glorious days, birds singing.

Only she was writing from...jail

-          Rosa Luxembourg

-          birds, magnificent days...jail

Somerset Maugham has a short story in which the main character is a prisoner on an island, but happy as anyone can be

-          Louis Ramirez

-          Executioner & prisoner

These real and fictional characters have a passion to live, zest, meaning and goals in their life.

-          Ikigai, Okinawa

-          Highest proportion of over one hundred

Ikigai and a special diet are responsible for unusually high life expectancy rates on this island.

-          There is an example of a very unhappy individual.

-          He has reached the most powerful position in the world.

And yet, he is always grumbling, attacking men and women who are at a serious disadvantage on a permanent basis.

-          Absolute power

-          Unhappiness

-          North Korea

The same goes for his nemesis, Little Rocket Man, the communist leader

Gandhi was the opposite of these two alpha males.he insisted on the importance of peace

-          Gandhi

-          Be the change you want to see in the world

One study that demonstrates the importance of happiness, positivity involved...

-          The Notre Dame nuns

-          Diaries studied

Social bonds are the crucial element in the research regarding

-          Italian American community

-          High life expectancy rates plunged

Finally, if there is time left...

-          Dostoyevsky three minutes

-          Our very own Happy Role Model...

-          Razvan the Khan