by Jim McCarthy
Thanks to the amazing Christopher Ategeka for asking me to do my first TEDx Talk in Oakland, California, in November 2018. It was entitled, “What Cancer Taught Me About Happiness.”
Closer to home, I’d like to thank my brother Michael and his wife JoAnn McCarthy, my sister Kathy Chamberlain and her husband Duane, and my brother Dan and his wife Nilufar Umaralieva. I’m lucky to call you family. I’m also fortunate to call family David and Judy Lam, Amy Lam, Mr. and Mrs. Lam (my parents-in-law), and the extended Lam family.
Unique gratitude to my daughters, Coco and Daisy, and to my stepchildren, Matt, Andrew, and Kei — you continue to teach me about life and love, pleasure and purpose.
I do not have the words to express my eternal thanks to my mom, Joan McCarthy, and my dad, Edward J. McCarthy. They are very different people … and I feel like I’ve gotten the best from each of them! They have always loved and encouraged me, even when they did not always understand what I was doing, or why.
And finally, praise to my wonderful wife, Stacy. Every day, when I do my gratitude practice, I am thankful that she is beautiful, kind, sexy, funny, tough, courageous, smart, scrappy, creative, loyal, adventuresome, fun, forgiving, and compassionate.
She has taught me more about happiness than anyone.
Notes
Introduction
1. Wikiquote contributors, “Apology (Plato),” Wikiquote, December 21, 2016, https://en.wikiquote.org/w/index.php?title=Apology_(Plato)&oldid=2205038.
2. Rick Hanson, Just One Thing: Developing a Buddha Brain One Simple Practice at a Time (Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications, 2011), 8-9.
3. Tara Parker-Pope, “Writing Your Way to Happiness,” Well (blog), New York Times, January 19, 2015, https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/19/writing-your-way-to-happiness/.
Chapter One
1. “Prostate Cancer - Statistics,” Cancer.Net, June 11, 2018, https://docplayer.net/62942406-Stress-in-america-the-state-of-our-nation.html.
2. “Study Focuses on Strategies for Achieving Goals, Resolutions,” Dominican University of California, accessed December 31, 2018, https://www.dominican.edu/dominicannews/study-highlights-strategies-for-achieving-goals.
Chapter Two
1. American Psychological Association, “Stress in America: The State of Our Nation: Stress in America TM Survey,” 2017, https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/stress/2017/state-nation.pdf.
2. Dan Gilbert, “What is Happiness?” Big Think, video, 4:00, November 14, 2007, https://bigthink.com/videos/what-is-happiness.
3. Marjorie Korn, “5 Ways to Practice Compassion—and Get Better at It,” Yoga Journal, October 7, 2015, https://www.yogajournal.com/yoga-101/importance-compassion-finding-happiness.
4. “Compassion Definition | What Is Compassion,” Greater Good, Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, accessed December 31, 2018, https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/topic/compassion/definition.
5. David M. Buss, “Mate Preferences in 37 Cultures,” in Psychology and Culture, eds. Walter J. Lonner and Roy Malpass (Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1994), 198, http://eyewitness.utep.edu/3331/Lonner&Malpass1994%20Chap%2028.pdf.
6. Martin E. P. Seligman, Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being (New York: Atria, 2011), chap. 1, location 427, Kindle.
7. “Compassion Definition | Why Practice It,” Greater Good, Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, accessed December 31, 2018, https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/topic/compassion/definition#why-practice.
8. Ibid.
9. Dacher Keltner, “The Compassionate Species,” Greater Good, Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, July 31, 2012, https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/the_compassionate_species.
10. Korn, “5 Ways to practice Compassion.”
11. Kare Anderson, Adam Rifkin, and Panda Whale, “Pay It Forward With the Five-Minute Favor,” Forbes, July 17, 2013, https://www.forbes.com/sites/kareanderson/2013/07/17/pay-it-forward-with-the-five-minute-favor/.
12. Albert Schweitzer, “Albert Schweitzer Quotes,” Goodreads, accessed January 6, 2019, https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/47146.
13. James Baraz and Shoshana Alexander, “The Helper’s High,” Greater Good, Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, February 1, 2010, https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/the_helpers_high.
14. Lara Aknin, Elizabeth Dunn, and Michael I. Norton, “Happiness Runs in a Circular Motion: Evidence for a Positive Feedback Loop Between Prosocial Spending and Happiness,” Journal of Happiness Studies 13, no. 2 (April 2011), DOI: 10.1007/s10902-011-9267-5.
15. Adam Grant, Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success (New York: Penguin Books, 2013), chap. 6, location 2868, Kindle.
16. “Doing Good Is Good for You: 2013 Health and Volunteering Study,” United Health Group, accessed January 1, 2019, https://www.unitedhealthgroup.com/content/dam/UHG/PDF/2013/UNH-Health-Volunteering-Study.pdf.
17. Baraz and Alexander, “Helper’s High.”
18. Stephen G. Post, “Altruism, Happiness, and Health: It’s Good to Be Good,” International Journal of Behavioral Medicine 12, no. 2 (2005): 69-70, https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/images/uploads/Post-AltruismHappinessHealth.pdf.
19. Grant, Give and Take, chap. 6, location 2905.
20. Mitchell Leslie, “The Vexing Legacy of Lewis Terman,” Stanford Magazine, June 2, 2011, https://www.webcitation.org/5z8BMMDUy
21. Howard S. Friedman and Leslie R. Martin, The Longevity Project: Surprising Discoveries for Health and Long Life from the Landmark Eight-Decade Study (New York: Penguin, 2012), chap. 12, location 2622, Kindle.
22. Ibid., chap. 11, location 2494.
23. Ibid., chap. 11, location 2519.
24. Arthur A. Stone, Joseph E. Schwartz, Joan E. Broderick, and Angus Deaton, “A Snapshot of the Age Distribution of Psychological Well-being in the United States,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107, no. 22 (June 1, 2010):9985-90, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1003744107.
25. David B. Blanchflower and Andrew J. Oswald, “Is Well-being U-shaped Over the Life Cycle?” Social Science and Medicine 66 (2008): 1733-49, https://www.dartmouth.edu/~blnchflr/papers/welbbeingssm.pdf.
26. Laura Carstensen, interview by Guy Raz, “Why Should We Look Forward to Getting Older,” TED Radio Hour, on NPR, June 19, 2015, https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=414999589.
27. Ibid.
28. Jessica Pappas and Vanessa Sink, “Connections with Community and Family—Not Money—Most Important for Seniors’ Quality of Life,” National Council on Aging, June 5, 2018, https://www.ncoa.org/news/press-releases/connections-with-community/.
29. Tom Wolfe, interview by Morley Safer, on 60 Minutes, YouTube video, 11:30, aired November 22, 1998, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tW9RNE0gyQ.
30. “Buddha Quotes,” BrainyQuote.com, BrainyMedia, accessed January 1, 2019, https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/buddha_164946.
31. 2018 Cigna U.S. Loneliness Report, Cigna Intellectual Property, Inc, 3. https://www.multivu.com/players/English/8294451-cigna-us-loneliness-survey/docs/IndexReport_1524069371598-173525450.pdf.
32. Ibid., 3.
33. Ibid., 6.
34. Jean M. Twenge, Thomas E. Joiner, Megan L. Rogers, and Gabrielle N. Martin, “Increases in Depressive Symptoms, Suicide-Related Outcomes, and Suicide Rates Among U.S. Adolescents After 2010 and Links to Increased New Media Screen Time,” Clinical Psychological Science 6, no. 1 (November 14, 2017): 3-17, https://doi.org/10.1177/2167702617723376.
35. “Guys, We Have A Problem: How American Masculinity Creates Lonely Men,” hosted by Shankar Vedantam, Hidden Brain, on NPR, March 19, 2018, https://www.npr.org/2018/03/19/594719471/guys-we-have-a-problem-how-american-masculinity-creates-lonely-men.
36. Ibid.
37. Augustine J. Kposowa, “Marital Status and Suicide in the National Longit
udinal Mortality Study,” Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 54, no. 4 (2000): 254, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1731658/pdf/v054p00254.pdf.
38. Martin Pinquart, “Loneliness in Married, Widowed, Divorced, and Never-Married Older Adults,” Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 20, no. 1 (February 1, 2003): 31-53, http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/02654075030201002.
39. Kenneth Cramer and Kimberley A. Neyedley, “Sex Differences in Loneliness: The Role of Masculinity and Femininity,” Sex Roles 38, no. 7-8 (April 1998): 2, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FA%3A1018850711372#page.
40. Kira Asatryan, “3 Surprising Truths About Gender and Loneliness,” Psychology Today, January 4, 2016, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-art-closeness/201601/3-surprising-truths-about-gender-and-loneliness.
41. Rhitu Chatterjee, “Americans Are A Lonely Lot, And Young People Bear The Heaviest Burden,” Shots (blog), NPR, May 1, 2018, https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/05/01/606588504/americans-are-a-lonely-lot-and-young-people-bear-the-heaviest-burden.
42. Julianne Holt Lunstad, Timothy B. Smith, and J. Bradley Layton, “Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-analytic Review,” PLOS Medicine 7, no. 7 (July 27, 2010), http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1000316.
43. Twenge, Joiner, Rogers, and Martin, “Increases in Depressive Symptoms .”
44. “Guys, We Have A Problem,” Hidden Brain.
45. Cigna U.S. Loneliness Index, 21.
46. Jill Suttie, “Compassion Across Cubicles,” Greater Good, Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, March 1, 2006, https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/compassion_across_cubicles/.
47. Melinda Sacks, “Chief Kindness Officers,” Stanford Magazine, December 15, 2017, https://stanfordmag.org/contents/chief-kindness-officers.
48. Ibid.
Chapter Three
1. Bronnie Ware, The Top 5 Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departing (Carlsbad, CA: Hay House, 2012), Contents.
2. Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Voiceless, Bartelby.com: Great Books Online, https://www.bartleby.com/100/456.16.html.
3. Emily Esfahani Smith and Jennifer L. Aaker, “Millenial Searchers,” New York Times, Sunday Review, November 30, 2013, https://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/01/opinion/sunday/millennial-searchers.html.
4. Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want (New York: Penguin Group, 2007), 23.
5. Adam Grant, “Wharton’s Adam Grant on the Key to Professional Success,” interview by Rik Kirkland, McKinsey & Company, June 2014, https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/whartons-adam-grant-on-the-key-to-professional-success.
6. Laszlo Bock, Work Rules! Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live and Lead (New York: Hatchett Book Group, 2015), chap. 2, location 737, Kindle.
7. Laszo Bock, “Google’s Using Workplace Data to Build a Better Employee,” interview by Stephanie Ruhle, Bloomberg, video, 1:30, November 11, 2015, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2015-11-11/google-s-using-workplace-data-to-build-a-better-employee.
8. Amy Wrzesniewski, “Working for a Living: Scholar Explores Difference Between ‘Callings’ and ‘Jobs’,” interview by Tabitha Wilde, Yale Bulletin and Calendar, October 26, 2007, http://archives.news.yale.edu/v36.n8/story4.html.
9. Ibid.
10. Shawn Achor, The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles that Fuel Success and Performance at Work (New York: Virgin Books, 2011), 79.
11. Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, rev. ed. (New York: Washington Square Press, 1984), 101.
12. Lucy Dawidowicz, The War Against the Jews: 1933-1945 (New York: Bantam Books, 1986), 403.
13. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, 95.
14. Ibid., 100-101.
15. Ibid., 86.
16. Alexander W. Astin, Robert J. Panos, and John A. Creager, National Norms for Entering College Freshman: Fall 1966 (American Council on Education, 1967), 21, https://www.heri.ucla.edu/PDFs/pubs/TFS/Norms/Monographs/NationalNormsForEnteringCollegeFreshmen1966.pdf.
17. Ibid., 47.
18. Kathleen Elkins, “The Age When 17 Self-Made Billionaires Earned Their First Million,” Inc., February 11, 2016, https://www.inc.com/business-insider/when-billionaires-made-their-first-million.html.
19. Robert Waldinger, “The Good Life,” TEDx Talks, YouTube video, 0:45, published November 30, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-7zAkwAOYg.
20. David G. Myers and C. Nathan Dewall, Psychology, 11th ed. (New York: Worth Publishers, 2015), 482-83.
21. Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton, “High Income Improves Evaluation of Life but not Emotional Well-being,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States 107, no. 38 (September 21, 2010): 16489-93, http://www.pnas.org/content/107/38/16489.
22. Ibid.
23. Ethan Wolff-Mann, “What the New Nobel Prize Winner Has to Say About Money and Happiness,” Money, October 13, 2015, http://time.com/money/4070041/angus-deaton-nobel-winner-money-happiness.
24. Carey Goldberg, “Too Much of a Good Thing,” Boston Globe, February 6, 2006, http://archive.boston.com/yourlife/health/mental/articles/2006/02/06/too_much_of_a_good_thing/.
25. Nattavudh Powdthavee, “Putting a Price Tag on Friends, Relatives, and Neighbours: Using Surveys of Life Satisfaction to Value Social Relationships,”The Journal of Socio-Economics 37, no. 4 (August 2008): 1459-80, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1053535707001205.
26. Eilene Zimmerman, “Research: All Money is Not Created Equal,” Insights, Stanford Graduate School of Business, January 6, 2014, http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/headlines/research-all-money-not-created-equal.
27. Eilene Zimmerman, “Who Will Listen to a Billionaire’s Troubles?” New York Times, February 19, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/19/your-money/who-will-listen-to-a-billionaires-troubles.html.
28. Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton, Happy Money: The Science of Happier Spending (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2013), chap. 1, location 133, Kindle.
29. Ibid., chap. 2, location 437.
30. Ibid., chap. 3, location 796.
31. Ibid., chap. 4, location 1155.
32. Ibid., chap. 5, location 1497.
33. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “Quotes,” Goodreads, accessed January 2, 2019, https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/111306-at-the-moment-of-commitment-the-entire-universe-conspires-to.
34.“Class Notes,” Stanford Business, Summer 2018, 114.
35. Charles R. Swindoll, “Charles R. Swindoll Quotes,” Goodreads, accessed January 2, 2019, https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/5139.Charles_R_Swindoll.
36. H. Irving Grousbeck, “H. Irving Grousbeck Speech - President’s Distinguished Speaker Series,” University of New Hampshire, September 13, 2012, https://www.unh.edu/president/Grousbeck-Speech.
37. H. Irving Grousbeck, “Irv Grousbeck: Finding One’s Way on the Entrepreneurial Path,” interview by Michael Freedman, Insights, Stanford Graduate School of Business, October 7, 2013, https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/irv-grousbeck-finding-ones-way-entrepreneurial-path.
38. Fran Hawthorne, “The Biggest Regret of All,” Kellogg Insight, February 2, 2012, https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/the_biggest_regret_of_all.
39. Wilco W. van Dijk, Lotte F. van Dillen, Mark Rotteveel and Elise C. Seip, “Looking into the Crystal Ball of Our Emotional Lives: Emotion Regulation and the Overestimation of Future Guilt and Shame,” Cognition and Emotion 31, no. 3 (2017): 616-24, DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2015.1129313.
Chapter Four
1. Stanford University Roundtable, “Are You Happy Now?” moderated by Katie Couric, October 18, 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oheja4D6wDk.
2. Clifton B. Parker, “Stanford Rese
arch: The Meaningful Life is a Road Worth Traveling,” Stanford News, January 1, 2014, https://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/january/meaningful-happy-life-010114.html.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. “One Boy’s Heroism in the Face of AIDS,” All Things Considered, NPR, December 1, 2004, https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4195336?storyId=4195336.
6. “Ten Times Al Gore Inspired Us to Act on Climate,” The Climate Reality Project (blog), November 23, 2015, https://www.climaterealityproject.org/blog/ten-times-al-gore-inspired-us-act-climate.
7. Smith and Aaker, “Millennial Searchers” (see chap. 3, n. 3).
8. Wikipedia contributors, “Protestant Work Ethic,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, accessed January 2, 2019, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Protestant_work_ethic&oldid=86809414.
9. Daniel Gilbert and Annie McKee, Happiness: HBR Emotional Intelligence Series (Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing, 2017), 51.
10. B. J. Miller, “What Really Matters at the End of Life,” TED2015, YouTube video,13:08, March 2015, https://www.ted.com/talks/bj_miller_what_really_matters_at_the_end_of_life.
11. Emily Esfahani Smith, “Meaning Is Healthier than Happiness,” The Atlantic, August 1, 2013, https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/08/meaning-is-healthier-than-happiness/278250/.
12. Joseph Sniezek, Matthew M. Zack, Richard E. Lucas, and Adam Burns, “Well Being Assessment: An Evaluation of Well Being Scales for Public Health and Population Estimates of Well Being among US Adults,” Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being 2, no. 3 (2010): 281, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/j.1758-0854.2010.01035.x?referrer_access_token=UrTMlSfL59rH50Fo7OBkv4ta6bR2k8jH0KrdpFOxC67W0HU0qrNgjiZn5tOhsa9-68-ZbOoADRGRSNc-kS0u5pJY2AIBa2aGItQ-yhq6T66_uQdLbUBmgn2uVjji1NZWTur98KeZBJnlopt7u46vjw%3D%3D.
13. Smith, “Meaning is Healthier.”
14. F.B Ahmad, L.M. Rossen, M. R. Spencer, M. Warner, and P. Sutton, “Provisional Drug Overdose Death Counts,” National Center for Health Statistics, last updated December 12, 2018, https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/drug-overdose-data.htm.