Flourishing

We are focusing on the work of renowned thinker, Dr. Martin Seligman. He is a leading authority in the fields of Positive Psychology, resilience, learned helplessness, depression, optimism and pessimism. He is also a recognized authority on interventions that prevent depression, and build strengths and well-being (or flourishing.) He studies the rigorous science and useful practice of what makes life worth living.

 Quotes on Flourishing from Dr. Seligman

“Positive emotion alienated from the exercise of character leads to emptiness, to inauthenticity, to depression, and, as we age, to the gnawing realization that we are fidgeting until we die.”
 “P is positive emotion, E is engagement, R is relationships, M is meaning and A is accomplishment. Those are the five elements of what free people chose to do. Pretty much everything else is in service of one of or more of these goals. That’s the human dashboard.”
 “Changing the destructive things you say to yourself when you experience the setbacks that life deals all of us is the central skill of optimism.”
 “When well-being comes from engaging our strengths and virtues, our lives are imbued with authenticity.”
 “Just as the good life is something beyond the pleasant life, the meaningful life is beyond the good life.”
 “The good life consists in deriving happiness by using your signature strengths every day in the main realms of living. The meaningful life adds one more component: using these same strengths to forward knowledge, power or goodness.”
 “Success requires persistence, the ability to not give up in the face of failure. I believe that optimistic explanatory style is the key to persistence.”
 “Well-being cannot exist just in your own head. Well-being is a combination of feeling good as well as actually having meaning, good relationships and accomplishment.”

For more insight, here is Dr Seligman’s presentation at

Zeitgeist 2010