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
Suppose you could be hooked up to a hypothetical 'experience machine' that, for the rest of your life, would stimulate your brain and give you any positive feelings you desire. Most people to whom I offer this imaginary choice refuse the machine. It is not just positive feelings we want: we want to be entitled to our positive feelings.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes that genuine experiences and emotions are more valuable than simply feeling good through artificial means.
In this quote, Martin Seligman presents the idea of an 'experience machine' that could provide individuals with endless positive feelings. However, he notes that most people would reject this machine, suggesting that human beings crave authentic experiences and a sense of entitlement to their feelings, rather than just the numb pleasure given by a fabricated reality. This reflects a deeper philosophical inquiry into the nature of happiness and what it means to live a fulfilling life.
Themes
HappinessExperienceAuthenticityFeelingsPhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
During a lecture on the nature of happiness, this quote can illustrate the importance of real experiences.
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.
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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.
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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.
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The good life is using your signature strengths every day to produce authentic happiness and abundant gratification.
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