Happiness is not really different in each person. In fact, science shows us happiness is basically the same for all of us. And our roadblocks to happiness are all basically the same as well — that we each think we are special and the research doesn't apply to us, so we just keep trying to [...]

One of the worst pieces of career advice that I bet each of you has not only gotten but given is to "do what you love."
Forget that. It's absurd. I have been writing since before I even knew how to write – when I was a preschooler I dictated my writing to my dad. And [...]

The New Year is a traditional time for predictions. So here are mine, for the workplace. I predict an end of work as we know it, of course. But don't get jumpy – it's not going to be here in 2008. It's going to come sooner than later, as the next generation infiltrates the ranks [...]

For those of you who graduated from college before happiness courses were available, you've got some reading to do. But luckily, almost all of the books I have seen on this topic are very interesting.
One of these books is Satisfaction: The Science of Finding True Fulfillment by Gregory Burns, a professor of psychology at Emory. His [...]

During the middle of the 20th century, the social fabric of community unraveled. Families fled to the suburbs, where they lived isolated lives. Baby boomers became hyper competitive – almost a necessity of being part of such a huge generation – and then baby boomers raised latchkey kids, and Generation X felt so isolated from [...]

I was standing at the bottom of the Word Trade Center when it fell. I was standing so close that I didn't know it fell. I thought earthquake, until I couldn't breathe. Then I thought nuclear bomb.
Now, when I let my head go back to that day, there are two moments I most easily go [...]

Stephanie Roberts and I hung out at the BlogHer conference, and she recently posted a recording of our conversation on her blog. She asks things people are scared to ask me in person, like how can I keep blogging about my husband? She asks me things no one ever asks, like how do I write a blog post? She [...]

By Ryan Healy – Soaring education, housing and health care costs in recent years have made simply staying afloat in a large metropolis next to impossible without a huge salary and benefits package.
These rising costs are causing the well educated to "sell their souls" to law firms, investment banks, and management consulting firms to maintain [...]

It is clear from a wide range of polls that the majority of both men and women under 40 are willing to give up power and money to get flexible and interesting work. The problem is that this is not so simple. Taking a low-paying, unimpressive job is not going to give you flexibility. In [...]

It turns out that money actually can buy happiness, but not a lot of it. At some point, well under $100,000, the happiness value of a dollar starts to plummet, according to Richard Easterlin, economics professor at University of Southern California. This is because social interactions impact happiness more than money does.
But here's a new [...]

We have been together for fifteen years and we have two kids. We have been in couples therapy enough different times for me to know that I hate being in couples therapy with him because he never changes. It's always been more productive for me to go to therapy alone, where at least I can [...]

Are you switching jobs every two years? Are you draining your savings to start companies with no business plan? Are you hiring a headhunter to find you a spouse? These are things you should be doing to find the success you're looking for in the new workplace. Sure, they create instability, but what else are [...]

A group of think tanks, lead by the Pew Charitable Trusts, found that for the first time, men in their 30s are earning less than their parents. For the first time ever, this generation will not be more well-off financially than their parents. What should we make of this new finding? Does this [...]

Advice for getting happier: Instead of focusing on what's wrong with people, try focusing on what's right with people -what makes people happy, successful and more productive. This is what the positive psychologists do.
Senia Maymin (pronounced Sen-ya) has a master's degree in applied positive psychology. What this means is that she uses the science of [...]

The biggest difference between the workplace today and the workplace twenty years ago is where the friction is. It used to be that the frontier of workplace change was feminism. Today it is time.
Women pushed for equal opportunity, equal pay, equal respect at home. Men pushed to hold their ground, hold their sense of self, [...]

By Ryan Healy — A question I have been thinking about for months is, what is more beneficial to a young person's career; putting in the extra time to do great work for a company that undervalues them, or finding a hobby that will positively contribute to the career they hope to have in the [...]

By Ryan Healy — Unless you are a professional athlete or working on Wall Street, an entry-level salary is not very exciting. When you couple this with the fact that the average college student graduates with tens of thousands in student loan and credit card debt and the cost of renting a place in [...]

There is room to be true to yourself within the framework of a career. Today we have so many options that when we are not being true to ourselves we cannot really blame the system. We make our own choices and create our own lives.
It's very hard to know what we want, though. So often our priorities get [...]

My friend Dylan sent me a warning that poetry can ruin your career.
But before I knew that, when I was a blogging beginner with no idea what to post, I posted workplace Haikus. And my career was not ruined. So here's another poem, from my friend Ben:
Employed
She just wants to be employed
for eight hours a day. She is not
interested [...]

One of my favorite topics is the science of happiness, which academia calls positive psychology. I love this topic because most of us think of our careers in terms of happiness. That is, we look for work that makes us happy. Positive psychology turns this hunt into a science. And then tells us to look [...]