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A Counterintuitive Guide to Happiness

For true contentment, adjust your approach.

Amy Maoz

Read when you’ve got time to spare.

There’s no one article that can tell you how to be happy. This reading list doesn’t even try. Read on to learn why the true path to happiness is a winding one.

Image by Carmen Martínez Torrón/Getty Images

What the Second-Happiest People Get Right

If you make happiness your primary goal, you might miss out on the challenges that give life meaning.

What You Were Taught About “Happiness” Isn’t True

Most of us believe that if we tick a series of boxes (great job, fancy car, etc.,) we will arrive at success and live happily every after. But happiness isn’t a destination.

How Much Control Do You Have Over Your Own Happiness?

Social conditions and inequality affect well-being. So, why do we keep insisting "happiness is a choice"?

Why Is It So Hard to Be Happy? [LISTEN]

What if we’re wrong about the keys to our own contentment?

The Rich Are Not Who We Think They Are. And Happiness Is Not What We Think It Is, Either.

After reading all the studies on happiness, I concluded that modern happiness research could be summed up in one sentence, a sentence we might jokingly call the data-driven answer to life.

Why It’s Time to Stop Pursuing Happiness

Positive thinking and visualising success can be counterproductive—happily, other strategies for fulfilment are available.

The Differences Between Happiness and Meaning in Life

There can be substantial trade-offs between seeking happiness and seeking meaning in life.

“Our Concept of Happiness Needs to Be Spacious Enough for the Vastness of Life Itself.”

The ordinary suffering of life—aging, illness, death, change itself—shouldn’t be seen as irritations that get in the way of the “real work” of happiness. Any happiness we cultivate has to swim in these same waters.

Four Lessons From the Longest-Running Study on Happiness

Essential, data-derived advice for leading a happy, healthy life, shared by researcher and psychiatrist Robert Waldinger.

Happiness and Why “Happily Ever After” Is a Myth

The road to happiness is indirect and full of frustration.

Unhappiness Is a Palate-Cleanser

Why it’s impossible to always be happy.