Tuesday, September 15, 2015

The Science of Happiness: Welcome to the Course!

9/8/2015: Week #1: Introduction to the Science of Happiness

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The first thing I'm prompted to do this week is to take the Happiness Survey [link], which you'll see I already did. Next I have to watch a video entitled...

"What Makes You Happy"

Yeah.  I got this.

It's a cute video, showing brief snippets of people from around the world (including the course instructors) talking about things that make them happy: good food, good music, beautiful scenery, pretty much the type of thing you'd expect.  I'm prompted to introduce myself in the forum, but I've already done that, and to make my own video of what makes me happy, which I'm not going to do, at least not this week.

Onward to the next video, in which the two instructors introduce themselves. They discuss their histories and credentials.  They also clarify what they mean by "happiness" -- it's more complicated than just pleasure or joy. Happiness is something most of us need to work at, and this course discusses the tools and techniques one uses to do that work.

The final part of this introduction is a review of the course structure, and another video is basically a review of the syllabus, week by week, followed by one about the specific course componants: grading, readings, etc.

I'm asked to find a notebook to keep tracks of my thoughts as I practice these exercises.... well, that's going to be right here, isn't' it?

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