Everything I write comes down to one thing: replacing default with intention. Default is what you do without choosing it, repeating what was done before or what others do. Intention is consciously committing to a direction. Each piece approaches it from a different angle, and together they build toward an authentic, happy and meaningful life.

Throughout these pieces, we have been exploring how to live an authentic, happy and meaningful life: getting to know ourselves, recognizing a direction, and giving ourselves to it while surrendering to how it unfolds. So where does happiness come into that picture?

In my piece on purpose, I introduced the Well: a model that brings together what nourishes you and what you make possible for others. For me, happiness belongs in both. It can grow through living in accordance with your path, and it can also support you in continuing, creating, and contributing. That is the connection I want to explore here, and put into practice throughout the next pieces.

What we think makes us happy
Most of us have a default answer to what would make us happier: more money, nicer things, the right partner, a better body. Those things can affect our wellbeing, and having enough money for safety and everyday needs matters enormously. But we can also expect a change in circumstances to bring a lasting happiness it does not necessarily provide. A new car feels wonderful at first, and then it becomes simply our car.

This getting used to things has a name: hedonic adaptation. The pleasure of something new often fades as it becomes familiar. If our happiness keeps depending on the next acquisition or achievement, there is always another thing we need before we can be happy. This connects with what we explored in the previous pieces: placing fulfillment in a future result instead of recognizing what is already worthwhile in the life we are living now.

Happiness in living your path
In the earlier piece on purpose, I introduced two ways psychologists understand wellbeing. Hedonic wellbeing concerns pleasure and enjoyment: feeling good, laughing with someone, enjoying a meal. Eudaimonic wellbeing concerns meaning and self-realization: expressing what you value, developing what you have been given, and living in a way that feels authentic to you.

Both belong in the life we are exploring here. Enjoyment can make an ordinary experience wonderful. Meaning can give you a sense of fulfillment in what you are doing, including when it asks for effort or involves something difficult.

Knowing yourself can help you recognize ways of living that feel authentic to you. Using your natural strengths can bring enjoyment and a sense of involvement. Understanding what you value and what you feel called to serve can bring meaning to what you do. These experiences can support each other: you recognize yourself in how you live, things start adding up, life starts working out, and it feels fuller.

How happiness supports your willpower
The connection also works in the other direction. When something brings enjoyment, interest, or satisfaction, that experience can obviously help you stay involved.

Research offers a useful example. In two experiments by psychologists Alice Isen and Johnmarshall Reeve, a positive mood increased people’s interest and enjoyment in an engaging task. When there was also less interesting work that needed to be done, people in the positive mood condition completed that work as well. Feeling good did not simply draw them toward whatever was most enjoyable; it could coexist with following through on what the situation required.

This helps explain how happiness comes into the dynamic willpower circle of the manifestation model. Your strengths and purpose can help make what you do fulfilling. That fulfillment can, in turn, support your willingness to keep giving yourself to it. Willpower still involves attention, practice, perseverance, and returning after a ‘setback’, but happiness can help sustain that involvement, including through moments that are less enjoyable.

Researchers Barbara Fredrickson and Thomas Joiner also found a mutually reinforcing relationship over time: positive emotions predicted broader ways of coping, such as considering different approaches, and broader coping predicted later positive emotions. Their study offers a useful picture of how feeling better and responding more openly can support each other.

What you bring to others
This reaches beyond your own experience, too. When you enjoy exploring an idea, that interest can show in how you share it. When you feel connected to what you are doing, someone else may recognize a possibility for themselves through seeing you do it. Or the satisfaction you find in helping can encourage you to offer that support again.

This connects to what I explore in the later piece on becoming an alchemist: how the way someone lives can spark movement in others. Happiness can be part of what you bring to those encounters. So can honesty, courage, and the willingness to be present through something difficult. You do not need to perform constant positivity to contribute something good.

What we can practice
Alongside understanding ourselves and our purpose, there are everyday ways to nourish happiness. Being kind to others. Real connection, even with strangers. Gratitude. Savoring what is good while it is happening. Keeping your attention in the present. Moments of awe. And becoming deeply absorbed in an activity that challenges your abilities, which can give rise to what psychologists call flow.

Many spiritual traditions have taught practices like these for centuries. Psychological research offers another perspective on their benefits and on how we might bring them into everyday life.

Where each element sits in the Well
What stood out to me while learning about these, is that these elements fall naturally into the two sides of the Well. Some help nourish you. Gratitude and savoring, attention, and awe can all contribute to that. So do the basics that support everyday wellbeing, including sleep and movement. Making room for these is part of looking after the foundation from which you live and contribute.

Others take place between you and someone else. Kindness, connection, and compassion can benefit both the person offering them and the person receiving them. Flow can happen in something you do for yourself, or while using your strengths in service of others.

Gratitude shows clearly how these sides connect. Noticing what you are grateful for can increase your appreciation of your own life. Telling someone why you are grateful to them can help them feel seen and valued. Awe can nourish you, and research also suggests that it can encourage generosity and helping. What you experience can influence what you bring to others, and those encounters can feed into you in return.

The Well and the manifestation model may help understand these connections. Knowing yourself and exploring your purpose help you recognize what feels right to give yourself to. Happiness can grow through living that way, while also supporting the willpower, openness, and involvement with which you continue. What nourishes you can become part of what you offer.

What comes next
In the coming pieces, I will explore the elements that are proven to make us happy: awe, gratitude and savoring, attention, connection, kindness, and flow: what each involves, what research helps us understand, and how we can practice it.

Diener, Lucas & Scollon (2006)
Fredrickson & Joiner (2002)
Isen & Reeve (2005)
Kahneman & Deaton (2010)
Killingsworth (2021)
Piff et al. (2015)
Ryan & Deci (2001)