happ(i)ness for everyone

everyone wants to find happiness - in fact, every decision that we make is made to make us happy or bring us happiness.  in 2016 we talked with over 3,000 young adults about happiness and we confirmed that happy with a "y" is pretty different than happiness (happy with an "i").  there are some very interesting paradoxes surrounding happiness:

• happy is not the same thing as happiness (although people use the two words interchangeably) 
• everyone says that they want to be happy (but very few people have an intentional plan for doing this)
• the sources of our happiness are very obvious (but a lot of the literature surrounding happiness makes finding it difficult, complex and complicated)
  • healthy people find more happiness than people who are unhealthy
  • people who are learning, creating, growing find more happiness than people who are bored
  • people who have close connections with others find more happiness than lonely people
  • people who have a relationship with a higher power (who are good) find more happiness than people who are bad
• kids of all ages already know the list of things that they are likely to regret when they are 50 years old (but almost none of them have a plan to avoid this regret)
• happiness is a journey, but most people treat it like it is a destination (missing the beauty of the journey along the way)
• little accomplishments are not exciting enough for people to focus on (even though every big accomplishment is a series of very little things that were accomplished)

these are some of the ideas that the gunnar project wants to explore.  each of us needs to intentionally pursue happiness everyday.  we know in our hearts that we want to do it, the "noise" in the world has made it somewhat difficult to know exactly what to do.  enjoy the moment - enjoy the journey to a life that is fulfilled and worthwhile.