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Happiness as Wholebeing

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Happiness Studies
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Abstract

So what is happiness? There have been many answers to this question, ranging from the absence of suffering to the experience of pleasure, from living a life of meaning to fulfilling one’s potential, from cultivating our body to saving our soul, from serving others to actualizing the self, and the list goes on. Here’s a small sample of the countless attempts to define happiness.

To me the only satisfactory definition of happiness is wholeness.

—Helen Keller

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Keller, H. (1957). The Open Door. Doubleday.

  2. 2.

    Lyubomirsky, S. (2008). The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want. Penguin Books.

  3. 3.

    Lakhotia, S. (2012). Miracles of Health and Happiness. Diamond Pocket Books.

  4. 4.

    Ibid.

  5. 5.

    Seneca, L. A. (2017). Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency (R. L’Estrange, Trans.). Franklin Classics.

  6. 6.

    Ben-Shahar, T. (2007). Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment. McGraw-Hill Education.

  7. 7.

    Saxe, J. G. (1872). The Poems of John Godfrey Saxe. J. Osgood.

  8. 8.

    Mbiti, J. S. (1969). African Religions and Philosophy. Heinemann.

  9. 9.

    Merton, T. (2002). No Man Is an Island. Mariner Books.

  10. 10.

    Winfrey, Oprah. What Oprah Knows For Sure About Finding the Courage to Follow Your Dreams. Oprah.com. https://www.oprah.com/spirit/what-oprah-knows-for-sure-about-finding-your-dreams (accessed August 15, 2019).

  11. 11.

    Senge, P. M. (2006). The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. Doubleday.

  12. 12.

    Ibid.

  13. 13.

    Slater, R. (1998). Jack Welch and the GE Way: Management Insights and Leadership Secrets of the Legendary CEO. McGraw-Hill.

  14. 14.

    Branden, N. (1995). The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem: The Definitive Work on Self-Esteem by the Leading Pioneer in the Field. Bantam.

  15. 15.

    Plato. (2014). The Dialogues of Plato, Volume 1. (B. Jowett, Trans.). CreateSpace Independent Publishing.

  16. 16.

    Ross, L. and Nisbett. R. E. (2011). The Person and the Situation: Perspectives of Social Psychology. Pinter & Martin.

  17. 17.

    Christakis, N. A. and Fowler, J. H. (2009). Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives. Little, Brown and Company.

  18. 18.

    Mullainathan, S. and Shafir, E. (2014). Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much. Picador.

  19. 19.

    Thurman, H. (2007). The Inward Journey. Friends United Press. This excerpt is used by permission of Friends United Press. All rights reserved.

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Correspondence to Tal Ben-Shahar .

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Ben-Shahar, T. (2021). Happiness as Wholebeing. In: Happiness Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64869-5_2

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