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The artist of this painting, Josephine Wall, depicts the Transcendental idea of free thought and the importance of nature in order to connect with the sublime. This photo illustrates that we have freedom and can reach a spiritual level when we are consumed by nature. By connecting with the beauty of the world, we rely on ourselves to guide us on the right path for the life we wish to live.

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News Article 2                                    By: Daniel Siegel

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News Article 2                                    By: Daniel Siegel

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In his article "How to Gain Freedom from Your Thoughts", Daniel Siegel explains the concept of "open awareness" in which one focuses on being aware, but does not pay attention to anything specifically. Through open awareness, Siegel describes how people feel true peace and tranquility with themselves. As people truly open their mind to new experiences, they will feel fresh and even safe. Similar to how many transcendentalists believe, Siegel feels that freedom is most important when it comes to your thoughts and your mind.

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If you practice meditation, you probably spend a lot of time training your focus-on the breath, the body, or your wandering thoughts and feelings. But if you only train focus, you may be missing out on some profound benefits.

Another valuable skill is called open awareness, where we simply rest in the awareness of awareness, feeling what it's like to be conscious without paying attention to anything in particular. In everyday life, open awareness means approaching situations with fresh eyes, letting go of our habitual reactions and our expectations for the future.

Credit: Maddie Siegel

Open awareness is part of the Wheel of Awareness practice, a meditation tool I've developed over many years and offered to thousands of individuals around the world. In the Wheel, we imagine awareness lying at the center of a hub and sending out spokes of attention to points on the rim-focusing on our first five senses; the interior signals of the body, such as sensations from our muscles or lungs; the mental activities of feelings, thoughts, and memories; and finally our sense of connection to other people and to nature. To practice open awareness on the Wheel, we visualize bending the spoke of attention around so it aims back into the hub, retracting the spoke, or simply leaving it in the hub.

In my new book , I offer a complete guide to the Wheel of Awareness and what may be happening in the brain when you practice it. While open awareness is one of the most advanced contemplative techniques, my research and clinical experience suggest that it has the potential to offer us more freedom, peace, and well-being in our lives.

The power of open awareness

Some people find that being aware of awareness is quite new. Some find it confusing, disorienting, difficult to hold on to. Some find it bizarre.

In one workshop, for example, a participant called this awareness-of-awareness experience "really odd." When I asked what "odd" felt like, he said, "I mean, it was really weird." So I asked him what "weird" felt like, and he said, "Just really strange."

I gently suggested that he stop comparing it to other experiences, and instead simply describe the feeling. He was silent, and then he smiled. His expression glowed, and he said, "It was incredibly peaceful. It was so clear, so empty, yet so full. It was amazing."

He was not alone. Others in that same group, and in workshops around the world, have come to say similar things. Here are some of the phrases that have been used to try to express what awareness of awareness feels like for them: "As wide as the sky." "As deep as the ocean." "Complete peace." "Joy." "Tranquility." "Safety." "Connection to the world." "God." "Love." "At home in the universe." "Timelessness." "Expansive." "Infinity."

And the pattern keeps on emerging as people dive into the practice. One participant even handed me a note; it said she couldn't openly state what happened in that step, which she experienced as "an amazing sense of expansiveness and peace, a feeling of wholeness I've never had before," because she thought others would think she was bragging. One person said he felt so much love that he couldn't share that experience for fear his professional colleagues in the seminar would consider him weak. Recently, I offered the Wheel practice to three thousand people in one room, and hundreds raised their hands when asked if they felt a sense of expansiveness or a loss of time. As I captured in a systematic survey, these descriptions share very similar themes of love, joy, and wide-open timelessness.

What is going on here? Why would these statements, though not expressed by all, be offered from such a disparate group of people from around the world?

To be clear, some participants have great difficulty with this step and don't offer any descriptions, or simply say that their minds wandered, they felt confused, or they simply focused on the breath. Each time I do my regular Wheel practice myself, this hub-in-hub step feels subtly different. Sometimes a shift doesn't even seem to happen and I am stuck on the rim, thinking of things I hope would happen, or being swept up by memories of past hub-in-hub practices and wishing those would occur again. If I expect things to go a certain way, they usually don't.

According to journalist Daniel Goleman and neuroscientist Richard Davidson, the brains of longtime mindfulness practitioners look different when they are practicing open awareness meditation. Gamma waves-which, for most of us, occur briefly and in one spot of the brain-are elevated all across their brains, corresponding to the sense of vastness and spaciousness they feel. Neuropsychiatric researcher Judson Brewer and colleagues also found similar electrical patterns during a range of meditative practices that are called "effortless awareness"-a state of being aware of whatever arises as it arises.

Social neuroscientist Mary Helen Immordino-Yang has also found that these attentional states are associated with neural firing in primitive brain stem regions associated with the most basic life processes. This state of awe and gratitude, this joy for life, is an inner sense of vitality and a relational sense of connection to the larger world around us. We can propose that open awareness naturally gives rise to the subjective experience of joy, awe, and peace-of meaning, love, and connection.

How filters constrain us

My patient Mona was a forty-year-old mother of three children under the age of ten, who found herself often at the end of her rope. She was raising her children without much help from her spouse or family and friends, and was becoming easily irritated with them, and then irate with herself for feeling this way. She had frequent experiences of shutting down and distancing herself from her children, and chaotic outbursts of sadness and anger.

Mona began to practice the Wheel of Awareness, and it enabled her to build the internal resources to become more present and aware. Practicing open awareness became a sanctuary of relief from her feelings of rage and burnout. It became easier for her to witness her children's behavior and experiences, and see new options for how to respond.

Why is open awareness so powerful? Without it, we typically see the world through a set of filters that can constrain our experience and keep us stuck in painful patterns of emotion.

Neuroscientists commonly call the brain an "anticipation machine." To predict and get ready for what is going to happen next, it constructs a perceptual filter that selects and organizes what we actually become aware of based on what we've experienced before. Filters shape what we focus on, which in turn influences the information our brains receive. And filters help us survive: If we are driving a car, we need to be scanning the road ahead for obstacles and primed to step on the brakes rapidly, filtering our options to a select few so that we can react quickly when needed.

Filters help us make sense of life and feel safe and secure in an often confusing, unpredictable world. As the military and other organizations like to say, we live in a time of "VUCA"-volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. In this challenging moment in human history, certain people may be hardening their filters unconsciously in an attempt to make the world seem more predictable and less threatening-one potential way of understanding today's extreme worldviews and sharp political divisions.

And filters continually reinforce themselves, giving us the appearance that what we perceive through them is accurate and complete. We might even see this as the basis of confirmation bias, where we selectively pay attention to evidence that conforms to our existing beliefs. We do not have immaculate perception; we perceive what we already believe.

Our human journey itself may be vulnerable to the development of rigid filters. Once we are adults and perhaps even before, during adolescence or late childhood, we've developed certain filters around our sense of self. They come from trying to fit into our social worlds, and trying to make sense of our personal experiences. Our top-down filters tell us who we are and what our personality is, how we typically behave, and what kind of future is open to us.

This may be why, as we move into adolescence and beyond, life can become dulled. We begin to filter too much through the knowledge and skills acquired through prior learning and lose touch with the novelty of "beginner's mind"-a mind that is open and eager, without preconceptions. The social psychologist Ellen Langer has revealed that being open to fresh distinctions is a source of well-being and vitality. In Langer's work, appreciating novel distinctions enhances our health and our learning.

The downside of such a filtering of reality is that we become limited in what we experience. Rigid filters may make it challenging to be present in life. We judge people and events before we allow ourselves to even experience them openly. But often we're not aware of our filters, and we don't even inquire as to their existence or validity.

Major growth can occur when we cultivate open awareness and lose or loosen some of the filters that arise in our lives-whether those filters represent our expectations about the future, our biases about other people, or the limitations we place on ourselves. But how to do this?

One way, of course, is to cultivate access to our hub beneath the filters of our rim. But beyond that, we can also be playful and have a sense of humor about who we are. Laughter and humor are gateways to open awareness and connection with others. Jokes are funny because they move in an unexpected direction-not where our filters expected the punchline to go. For a brief moment, we're wrestling with something we never saw coming. It feels as if top-down expectations are meeting bottom-up surprise.

In that way, humor actually opens us up to new learning and more openness. It likely enhances neuroplasticity as it promotes a receptive state and makes learning last longer as the brain may be more likely to grow new connections in that open state, and it builds trust and connection with others. Not bad for a good chuckle.

So this is your challenge: You can use your mind to shift the patterns in your relationships with others and in your brain. You are not a captive prisoner, even though your mental filters will tend to move you into old patterns. Getting lost in familiar places is a natural vulnerability we all have; using your mind and your capacity to be aware is how you can find your way. Patience and persistence will be your friends along this path to greater freedom.

Greater Good wants to know: Do you think this article will influence your opinions or behavior?

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If you practice meditation, you probably spend a lot of time training your focus-on the breath, the body, or your wandering thoughts and feelings. But if you only train focus, you may be missing out on some profound benefits.

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In this podcast, Rachel Hollis explains the importance of "physically challenging yourself" and embracing your true self. She also discusses that it is okay to not look or act like everyone else.  Hollis talks about how it is more important to feel good about yourself than worry about other problems in your life. This podcast can be related to how Ralph Waldo Emerson values time and feels that you must lead your own life and not waste time dwelling on the past or worrying about the future. Also, she describes how one should live a simple life which compares to Thoreau's idea of simplicity.

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81: Finding Out Who You Really Are with Chris Chandler

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Listen to this episode from The Rachel Hollis Podcast on Spotify. Today on the Rise Podcast, I sit down with one of my dearest friends, and most-feared SoulCycle teachers, Chris Chandler. Chris talks about his journey through the fitness space, how he found the courage to live authentically with his family, and we give you a preview of Rise Weekend's Health + Wellness day, which Chris will be emcee-ing.

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I took this photo in Hayesville, North Carolina last summer. The place I visited had tons of rock structures that people spray-painted. All the rocks had different images/sayings where people expressed their ideas through art that everybody could embrace. It was very fascinating to see everybody's different ideas that they could share with the world. Many transcendentalists would probably love to see how nature can be used in a multitude of ways including individualistic art.

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This image represents that nature can reach our souls and hearts. It depicts that when we are surrounded by nature, it can spiritually "touch" us because of how powerful the sights and sounds we experience are. We can be so inspired by nature that we almost feel a part of it. If we let our minds be free and relax, we can find the meaning of life and love the world around us.

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In Kelly Clarkson's song "Stronger", she explains that you should go after what you want even if it means there are obstacles in the way.
"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, stronger
Just me, myself and I
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger
Stand a little taller
Doesn't mean I'm lonely when I'm alone"
These lines of the song describe that it is okay to be alone because that may be the best time to think about yourself. When Thoreau lived alone in the woods, it gave him time to transcend into nature and find his true self. In the song, Clarkson believes you should continue to reach and nothing should limit you from doing what you love/believe.

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Kelly Clarkson - Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You) [Official Video]

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I created a wordle with a bunch of words and phrases that relate to transcendentalism. Some of the words include pure, grow, goal, spirit, consciousness, moment, meaning, and free thought. One of the main principles of transcendentalism individualism and the concept of nonconformity. Also, many transcendentalists support the idea of living in the moment/ living life to the fullest. Transcendentalists believe if you live each day with purpose and meaning, you can grow as an individual and reach your fullest potential.

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Poem -- Meditations                                                        

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Poem -- Meditations                                                        

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In this poem, Margaret Fuller discusses how she interacts with nature and how it is "pleasure to the mind." Throughout the poem, Fuller explains how the amazing sights and sounds she experiences reaches her soul on a deep level. Moreover, Fuller discusses how God speaks to nature and He watches over his creations.
"Content thee, beautiful world! and hush, still busy mind!"
This line of the poem demonstrates how it is important that when you are surrounded by nature, your mind should be still and focused on only yourself.

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The clouds are marshalling across the sky,

Leaving their deepest tints upon yon range

Of soul-alluring hills. The breeze comes softly,

Laden with tribute that a hundred orchards

Now in their fullest blossom send, in thanks

For this refreshing shower. The birds pour forth

In heightened melody the notes of praise

They had suspended while God's voice was speaking,

And his eye flashing down upon his world.

I sigh, half-charmed, half-pained. My sense is living,

And, taking in this freshened beauty, tells

Its pleasure to the mind. The mind replies,

And strives to wake the heart in turn, repeating

Poetic sentiments from many a record

Which other souls have left, when stirred and satisfied

By scenes as fair, as fragrant. But the heart

Sends back a hollow echo to the call

Of outward things, - and its once bright companion,

Who erst would have been answered by a stream

Of life-fraught treasures, thankful to be summoned, -

Can now rouse nothing better than this echo;

Unmeaning voice, which mocks their softened accents.

Content thee, beautiful world! and hush, still busy mind!

My heart hath sealed its fountains. To the things

Of Time they shall be oped no more. Too long,

Too often were they poured forth: part have sunk

Into the desert; part profaned and swollen

By bitter waters, mixed by those who feigned

They asked them for refreshment, which, turned back,

Have broken and o'erflowed their former urns.

So when ye talk of pleasure, lonely world,

And busy mind, ye ne'er again shall move me

To answer ye, though still your calls have power

To jar me through, and cause dull aching here.

No so the voice which hailed me from the depths

Of yon dark-bosomed cloud, now vanishing

Before the sun ye greet. It touched my centre,

The voice of the Eternal, calling me

To feel his other worlds; to feel that if

I could deserve a home, I still might find it

In other spheres, - and bade me not despair,

Though 'want of harmony' and 'aching void'

Are terms invented by the men of this,

I loved to see the lightnings flash athwart

The stooping heavens; I loved to hear the thunder

Call to the seas and mountains; for I thought

'Tis thus man's flashing fancy doth enkidle

The firmament of mind; 'tis thus his eloquence

Calls unto the soul's depths and heights; and still

I defied the creature, nor remembered

The Creator in his works.

The proud delight of that keen sympathy

Is gone; no longer riding on the wave,

But whelmed beneath it: my own plans and works,

Or, as the Scriptures phrase it, my 'inventions'

No longer interpose 'twist me and Heaven.

Today, for the first time, I felt the Deity,

And uttered prayer on hearing thunder. This

Must be thy will, - for finer, higher spirits

Have gone through this same process, - yet I think

There was religion in that strong delight,

Those sounds, those thoughts of power imparted. True,

I did not say, 'He is the Lord thy God,'

But I had feeling of his essence. But

''Twas pride by which the angels fell.' So be it!

But O, might I but see a little onward!

Father, I cannot be a spirit of power;

May I be active as a spirit of love,

Since thou hast ta'en me from that path which Nature

Seemed to appoint, O, deign to ope another,

Where I may walk with thought and hope assured;

'Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief!'

Had I but faith like that which fired Novalis,

I too could bear that the heart 'fall in ashes,'

While the freed spirit rises from beneath them,

With heavenward-look, and Phoenix-plumes upsoaring!

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Meditations by Margaret Fuller | Poetry Foundation

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The clouds are marshalling across the sky, Leaving their deepest tints upon yon range Of soul-alluring hills. The breeze comes softly, Laden with tribute that a hundred orchards Now in their fullest blossom send, in thanks For this refreshing shower.

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In this quote, Ralph Waldo Emerson explains that it is important to stay happy even through the rough times. He expresses that time is valuable and it is not possible to go back in time to change your emotions. If you spent time being angry or upset, you lost time that you could've spent making the most of life. He explains that being happy and living life to the fullest is the best decision to do even when you might not feel like it.

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In this quote, Henry David Thoreau describes that people cannot fully find themselves until they run into obstacles or overcome challenges. He believes that nobody is perfect and you must learn by your mistakes. In the book "Being Henry David", Henry finds his true identity when he stops worrying about what the consequences are going to be and just lives in the moment. Thoreau explains that once people give themselves time to just explore the world and get "lost" in nature, they can truly know what they are made of.

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In this quote, Ralph Waldo Emerson explains the concept of self-reliance. He values the idea that people should strive to make a difference in the world on their own instead of following in others' footsteps. If a person just follows what everyone else does, they will never know their true self and the way they can change the world. Emerson strongly urges people to lead an individual life instead of conforming to any social norms of society.

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In the song "It's My Life", the band Bon Jovi preaches the transcendentalist concepts of self-reliance and nonconformity. The band expresses that one must stand their ground and live in the moment. The song describes how you can be who you want to be and not take other people's opinions.
"It's my life
It's now or never
I ain't gonna live forever
I just want to live while I'm alive
(It's my life)"
These lines of the song focus on living in the present moment and not holding back from the life you wish to pursue. Similar to how Thoreau thought, the song demonstrates that your own happiness is more important than meeting the expectations that other people set.

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Bon Jovi - It's My Life (Official Music Video)

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News Article 1                                             By: Jason Marsh and Jill Suttie           

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News Article 1                                             By: Jason Marsh and Jill Suttie           

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In the article "Is a Happy Life Different from a Meaningful One?", the authors discuss how in order to have meaning in life, a person must focus on the past, present, and the future. Also, living a meaningful life may be difficult and one might have to undergo obstacles and challenges. Meaning derives from giving and caring for others rather than receiving from others. The article describes how there is more to life than just simply being happy. Similar to how Thoreau thought, this article discusses that one must reach above and beyond to fully live life.

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Philosophers, researchers, spiritual leaders-they've all debated what makes life worth living. Is it a life filled with happiness or a life filled with purpose and meaning? Is there even a difference between the two?

Think of the human rights activist who fights oppression but ends up in prison-is she happy? Or the social animal who spends his nights (and some days) jumping from party to party-is that the good life?

These aren't just academic questions. They can help us determine where we should invest our energy to lead the life we want.

Recently some researchers have explored these questions in depth, trying to tease apart the differences between a meaningful life and a happy one. Their research suggests there's more to life than happiness-and even calls into question some previous findings from the field of positive psychology, earning it both a fair amount of press coverage and criticism.

The controversy surrounding it raises big questions about what happiness actually means: While there may be more to life than happiness, there may also be more to "happiness" than pleasure alone.

Five differences between a happy life and a meaningful one

"A happy life and a meaningful life have some differences," says Roy Baumeister, a Francis Eppes Professor of Psychology at Florida State University. He bases that claim on a paper he published last year in the Journal of Positive Psychology, co-authored with researchers at the University of Minnesota and Stanford.

Baumeister and his colleagues surveyed 397 adults, looking for correlations between their levels of happiness, meaning, and various other aspects of their lives: their behavior, moods, relationships, health, stress levels, work lives, creative pursuits, and more.

They found that a meaningful life and a happy life often go hand-in-hand-but not always. And they were curious to learn more about the differences between the two. Their statistical analysis tried to separate out what brought meaning to one's life but not happiness, and what brought happiness but not meaning.

Their findings suggest that meaning (separate from happiness) is not connected with whether one is healthy, has enough money, or feels comfortable in life, while happiness (separate from meaning) is. More specifically, the researchers identified five major differences between a happy life and a meaningful one.

Happy people satisfy their wants and needs, but that seems largely irrelevant to a meaningful life. Therefore, health, wealth, and ease in life were all related to happiness, but not meaning.

Happiness involves being focused on the present, whereas meaningfulness involves thinking more about the past, present, and future-and the relationship between them. In addition, happiness was seen as fleeting, while meaningfulness seemed to last longer.

Meaningfulness is derived from giving to other people; happiness comes from what they give to you. Although social connections were linked to both happiness and meaning, happiness was connected more to the benefits one receives from social relationships, especially friendships, while meaningfulness was related to what one gives to others-for example, taking care of children. Along these lines, self-described "takers" were happier than self-described "givers," and spending time with friends was linked to happiness more than meaning, whereas spending more time with loved ones was linked to meaning but not happiness.

Meaningful lives involve stress and challenges. Higher levels of worry, stress, and anxiety were linked to higher meaningfulness but lower happiness, which suggests that engaging in challenging or difficult situations that are beyond oneself or one's pleasures promotes meaningfulness but not happiness.

Self-expression is important to meaning but not happiness. Doing things to express oneself and caring about personal and cultural identity were linked to a meaningful life but not a happy one. For example, considering oneself to be wise or creative was associated with meaning but not happiness.

One of the more surprising findings from the study was that giving to others was associated with meaning, rather than happiness, while taking from others was related to happiness and not meaning. Though many researchers have found a connection between giving and happiness, Baumeister argues that this connection is due to how one assigns meaning to the act of giving.

"If we just look at helping others, the simple effect is that people who help others are happier," says Baumeister. But when you eliminate the effects of meaning on happiness and vice versa, he says, "then helping makes people less happy, so that all the effect of helping on happiness comes by way of increasing meaningfulness."

Baumeister's study raises some provocative questions about research in positive psychology that links kind, helpful-or "pro-social"-activity to happiness and well-being. Yet his research has also touched off a debate about what psychologists-and the rest of us-really mean when we talk about happiness.

What is happiness, anyway?

Researchers, just like other people, have disagreed about the definition of "happiness" and how to measure it.

Some have equated happiness with transient emotional states or even spikes of activity in pleasure centers of the brain, while others have asked people to assess their overall happiness or life satisfaction. Some researchers, like Ed Diener of the University of Illinois, a pioneer in the field of positive psychology, have tried to group together these aspects of happiness under the term "subjective well-being," which encompasses assessments of positive and negative emotions as well as overall life satisfaction. These differences in definitions of happiness have sometimes led to confusing-or even contradictory-findings.

For instance, in Baumeister's study, familial relationships-like parenting-tended to be tied to meaning more than happiness. Support for this finding comes from researchers like Robin Simon of Wake Forest University, who looked at happiness levels among 1,400 adults and found that parents generally reported less positive emotion and more negative emotions than people without kids. She concluded that, while parents may report more purpose and meaning than nonparents, they are generally less happy than their childless peers.

This conclusion irks happiness researcher Sonja Lyubormirsky, of the University of California, Riverside, who takes issue with studies that "try too hard to rule out everything related to happiness" from their analysis but still draw conclusions about happiness.

"Imagine everything that you think would be great about parenting, or about being a parent," says Lyubomirsky. "If you control for that-if you take it out of the equation-then of course parents are going to look a lot less happy."

In a recent study, she and her colleagues measured happiness levels and meaning in parents, both in a "global" way-having them assess their overall happiness and life satisfaction-and while engaged in their daily activities. Results showed that, in general, parents were happier and more satisfied with their lives than non-parents, and parents found both pleasure and meaning in childcare activities, even in the very moments when they were engaged in those activities.

"Being a parent leads to all of these good things: It gives you meaning in life, it gives you goals to pursue, it can make you feel more connected in your relationships," says Lyubomirsky. "You can't really talk about happiness without including all of them."

Lyubomirsky feels that researchers who try to separate meaning and happiness may be on the wrong track, because meaning and happiness are inseparably intertwined.

"When you feel happy, and you take out the meaning part of happiness, it's not really happiness," she says.

Yet this is basically how Baumeister and his colleagues defined happiness for the purpose of their study. So although the study referred to "happiness," says Lyubomirsky, perhaps it was actually looking at something more like "hedonic pleasure"-the part of happiness that involves feeling good without the part that involves deeper life satisfaction.

Is there happiness without pleasure?

But is it ever helpful to separate out meaning from pleasure?

Some researchers have taken to doing that by looking at what they call "eudaimonic happiness," or the happiness that comes from meaningful pursuits, and "hedonic happiness"-the happiness that comes from pleasure or goal fulfillment.

A recent study by Steven Cole of the UCLA School of Medicine, and Barbara Fredrickson of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, found that people who reported more eudaimonic happiness had stronger immune system function than those who reported more hedonic happiness, suggesting that a life of meaning may be better for our health than a life seeking pleasure.

Similarly, a 2008 article published in the Journal of Happiness Studies, found several positive health effects associated with eudaimonic happiness, including less reactivity to stress, less insulin resistance (which means less chance of developing diabetes), higher HDL ("good") cholesterol levels, better sleep, and brain activity patterns that have been linked to decreased levels of depression.

But happiness researcher Elizabeth Dunn thinks the distinction between eudaimonic and hedonic happiness is murky.

"I think it's a distinction that intuitively makes a lot of sense but doesn't actually hold up under the lens of science," says Dunn, an associate professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia.

Dunn has authored numerous studies showing that giving to others increases happiness, both in the moment, as measured by positive emotions alone, and in terms of overall life satisfaction. In a recently published paper, she and her colleagues surveyed data from several countries and found supporting evidence for this connection, including findings that showed subjects randomly assigned to buy items for charity reported higher levels of positive emotion-a measure of hedonic happiness-than participants assigned to buy the same items for themselves, even when the spending did not build or strengthen social ties.

"I think my own work really supports the idea that eudaimonic and hedonic well-being are surprisingly similar and aren't as different as one might expect," says Dunn. "To say that there's one pathway to meaning, and that it's different than the pathway to pleasure, is false."

Like Lyubomirsky, she insists that meaning and happiness go hand-in-hand. She points to the work of researchers who've found that positive emotions can help establish deeper social ties-which many argue is the most meaningful part of life-and to University of Missouri psychologist Laura King's research, which found that feeling positive emotions helps people see the "big picture" and notice patterns, which can help one aim for more meaningful pursuits and interpret one's experience as meaningful.

In addition, she argues that the measurements used to distinguish eudaimonic from hedonic happiness are too highly correlated to separate out in this way-statistically speaking, doing so can make your results unreliable.

As University of Pennsylvania psychologist James Coyne-according to Dunn, a statistical "hardhead"-wrote in a 2013 blog post, trying to distinguish eudaimonic well-being by controlling for hedonic well-being and other factors leaves you with something that's not really eudaimonia at all. He compares it to taking a photo of siblings who look alike, removing everything that makes them resemble each other, and then still calling the photos representative of the siblings.

"If we were talking about people, we probably couldn't even recognize a family resemblance between the two," he writes.

In other words, just because it's statistically possible to remove the influence of one variable on another doesn't mean that what you end up with is something meaningfully distinct.

"If you parcel out meaning from happiness, the happiness factor may go away," says Dunn. "But, in terms of people's daily experience, is it actually the case that people face genuine tradeoffs between happiness and meaning? I don't think so."

Can you have it all?

Baumeister, though, clearly believes it is useful to make distinctions between meaning and happiness-in part to encourage more people to seek meaningful pursuits in life whether or not doing so makes them feel happy. Still, he recognizes that the two are closely tied.

"Having a meaningful life contributes to being happy and being happy may also contribute to finding life more meaningful," he says. "I think that there's evidence for both of those."

But one piece of warning: If you are aiming strictly for a life of hedonic pleasure, you may be on the wrong path to finding happiness. "For centuries, traditional wisdom has been that simply seeking pleasure for its own sake doesn't really make you happy in the long run," he says.

In fact, seeking happiness without meaning would probably be a stressful, aggravating, and annoying proposition, argues Baumeister.

Instead, when aspiring to a well-lived life, it might make more sense to look for things you find meaningful-deep relationships, altruism, and purposeful self-expression, for example-than to look for pleasure alone... even if pleasure augments one's sense of meaning, as King suggests.

"Work toward long-term goals; do things that society holds in high regard-for achievement or moral reasons," he says. "You draw meaning from a larger context, so you need to look beyond yourself to find the purpose in what you're doing."

Chances are that you'll also find pleasure-and happiness-along the way.

Greater Good wants to know: Do you think this article will influence your opinions or behavior?

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Is a Happy Life Different from a Meaningful One?

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A scientific controversy about the relationship between meaning and happiness raises fundamental questions about how to live a good life.

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This photo depicts the importance of nature in the world we live in. Without nature, our world would be consumed by technology. Nature allows us to see life in a different perspective that we have never seen before. The beauty of nature can help people forget about the negative problems they experience and escape to a whole new world.

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In this quote, Henry David Thoreau describes that one must live their own life instead of focusing on living up to other people's lives. He wants people to live their dream life and not let any obstacles keep them from doing what they wish to pursue. Thoreau wanted to explore the world and not let anything hold him back from the life he wished to live.

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This video describes how it is necessary for one to live for yourself. The speaker says that although technology consumes our everyday lives, we must take a break and focus on our own happiness. He talks about how staying "socially connected" to family and friends allows for a much happier and healthier life. When Thoreau lived alone in the woods, he focused on his own happiness and did not let the rest of the world consume him.

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What Makes a Good Life? Lessons from the Longest Study on Happiness | Robert Waldinger | TED

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The band, One Republic, expresses that one must fulfill their dreams and make use of every day even through the struggles in their song "I Lived."
"I owned every second that this world could give
I saw so many places, the things that I did
Yeah with every broken bone
I swear I lived"
This part of the song demonstrates that one must live their life to the fullest and not take anything for granted. The band wants people to travel and see the whole world and the beauty of nature.

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OneRepublic - I Lived - Lyrics Video (Native Album)