I like this foray into pop-psych, or common sense, or whatever. Yes, we are all responsible for our own happiness. The alternative is to accept being flotsam and jetsam in the oceanic currents of life. Be a message in a bottle instead.

Best,

Nick

Very interesting topic. Thanks.

Thank you for acknowledging I’m not a proponent of nor advocating for dining on ‘positive’ psychology alone. But in the grand mix of things, like the eight spokes mentioned in your referenced link, ‘attitude’ is critical.

And I am a bit critical of the positive psychology movement but that’s not what you are advocating.

Liked what Mark Vernon said:

“Take the Buddhist writer Matthieu Ricard’s book, Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life’s Most Important Skill. This French monk, who has spent years living in Nepal, has also written a sophisticated tome on philosophy and a penetrating volume on the interface between science and religion. But his happiness book is a huge disappointment. It trades in the more or less obvious, and seems mostly concerned to align Buddhism with positive psychology, presumably so as to gain from the good PR of the so-called science of happiness.

“The concern is that Ricard knows better. Right at the end of his book he explains why the science of happiness actually won’t do. However commendable and altruistic its goals, he explains, it bases its analyses ‘on a rather fuzzy assessment of the nature of happiness, lumping together superficial pleasures and deep-felt happiness.’”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/may/13/buddism-western-spirituality