{"id":92156,"date":"2020-04-28T07:00:27","date_gmt":"2020-04-28T11:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=92156"},"modified":"2020-04-27T18:54:03","modified_gmt":"2020-04-27T22:54:03","slug":"rns-yales-popular-happiness-class-gains-an-online-following-among-the-socially-distanced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=92156","title":{"rendered":"(RNS) Yale\u2019s popular happiness class gains an online following among the socially distanced"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a huge opportunity for introspection, spiritual renewal and creativity,\u201d said Arthur Brooks, a senior fellow at Harvard Business School who taught Tabrizi in the happiness and leadership class and has also begun a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/family\/archive\/2020\/04\/how-increase-happiness-according-research\/609619\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">column in The Atlantic on happiness<\/a>. \u201cThese opportunities don\u2019t come along that often.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Brooks, a practicing Christian, said happiness shouldn\u2019t necessarily be the highest goal of life.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe need a full range of emotions and experiences,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>But happiness studies can lead people to seek out meaning and purpose \u2014 a goal of working toward something bigger than the self, whether it&#8217;s religious \u2014 like faith \u2014 or secular, working toward the common good.<\/p>\n<p>The irony of happiness studies, Brooks said, is that many people take the class for purely personal reasons but wind up learning that focusing on the self may not be the key to lasting happiness.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf I live under the illusion I\u2019m the only thing that matters, which is very easy to do,\u201d Brooks said, \u201cI become anxious and unhappy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Retraining the brain to think more broadly is the key to the class.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis stuff is cool,\u201d he said. \u201cIt&#8217;s serious and it matters.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/religionnews.com\/2020\/04\/27\/yales-popular-happiness-class-now-offered-online-is-a-pandemic-remedy-for-the-masses\/\">Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">One fallout of being stuck at home is time to ponder serious questions about happiness. For more than 2.2 million, the question has brought them to Yale professor <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/lauriesantos?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@lauriesantos<\/a>: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/nWuQZSRY7Z\">https:\/\/t.co\/nWuQZSRY7Z<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Yonat Shimron (@YonatShimron) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/YonatShimron\/status\/1254904400251957253?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">April 27, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a huge opportunity for introspection, spiritual renewal and creativity,\u201d said Arthur Brooks, a senior fellow at Harvard Business School who taught Tabrizi in the happiness and leadership class and has also begun a column in The Atlantic on happiness.<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=92156\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,111,129,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anthropology","category-education","category-psychology","category-theology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=92156"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92159,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92156\/revisions\/92159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=92156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=92156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=92156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}