I'm trying to broaden the scope of positive psychology well beyond the smiley face. Happiness is just one-fifth of what human beings choose to do.
Martin SeligmanRead
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. A life that does this is pregnant with meaning, and if God comes at the end, such a life is sacred.
Interpretation
What this quote means
A fulfilling life is achieved by utilizing your strengths daily, while a meaningful life enriches this by impacting others positively.
In this quote, Martin Seligman emphasizes that true happiness comes from recognizing and utilizing our unique strengths in our everyday lives. He suggests that a deeper, more meaningful existence is achieved by applying these strengths not only for personal gain but also to contribute positively to the world, leading to a life filled with purpose and connection, which he considers sacred.
Themes
HappinessMeaningStrengthsPurposeContributionLife
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a motivational speech about personal development.
More from Martin Seligman
All quotes →One of my worries about America is the epidemic of depression we've been in. One of the possibilities about that is that the 'I' gets bigger and bigger, and the 'we' gets smaller and smaller.
Martin SeligmanRead
The dirty little secret of both clinical psychology and biological psychiatry is that they have completely given up on the notion of cure.
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The belief that we can rely on shortcuts to happiness, joy, rapture, comfort, and ecstasy, rather than be entitled to these feelings by the exercise of personal strengths and virtues, leads to legions of people who, in the middle of great wealth, are starving spiritually.
Martin SeligmanRead
I believe psychology has done very well in working out how to understand and treat disease. But I think that is literally half-baked. If all you do is work to fix problems, to alleviate suffering, then by definition you are working to get people to zero, to neutral.
Martin SeligmanRead
The good life is using your signature strengths every day to produce authentic happiness and abundant gratification.
Martin SeligmanRead
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