Happiness is this…. it’s, it's kind of something
that everyone wants.
When you ask people what they want in life, you know,
people a lot of the time say they want happiness.
But no one really knows what it is or how to achieve it.
There's a culture of stress and people are working too hard
and people aren't prioritizing the right things.
And there are so many things, like, tugging on your attention
that it's hard to find time for sleep and friends and meals and classes
And I just thought that this class would just allow
me to take some distance from it and just,
like, remind myself of how to live a good life at Yale,
as cheesy as that sounds.
I had no idea we were going to get as much press for the
class as we got. It blindsided me as much as it blindsided
everybody else.
I didn't realize that this was an issue that mattered to so
many people.
The class has been talked about in Spanish,
Portuguese, French,
German, Vietnamese,
Swedish, Norwegian,
Dutch, Thai,
Turkish, Persian, and I'm sure…oh,
Croatian!
It was really nice to be able to share this information with
the public.
It means Yale has been this leader and it's become
a global thing where students are thinking about college
mental health, they’re thinking about adult
mental health generally.
Not that this isn't something that people already know about,
but I think it's that it's something
important that we should all be focusing on.
It's it's humbling, but also really really cool.
In the beginning of the course, we talked a lot about what won't
make us happy. Having a good job,
having a good salary, getting good grades,
having, you know, looking pretty, something like that.
We'll finally be finishing up this section on what really does lead to happiness.
And it was really interesting to hear Professor Santos talk
about how that's not the case, and that these are
misconceptions we have.
I knew that the course wouldn't be some kind of a like a magic
potion to become happier. But I don't think I anticipated
how difficult it was going to be to implement some of the habits.
I mean it is! If you really want to put the time in for
this stuff, it's hard.
30 minutes of exercise a day that actually works wonders.
I was really, like, skeptical about that,
but it actually works. Also, meditation. That was
the one, I was just like, nah it’s not going to work.
But it works so well.
We have a gratitude journal, is one of them,
where you write down something you're really grateful for.
It makes you step back and think about how fortunate you are.
That's something I found really valuable.
I think all of these things show that the data are correct.
The results are suggesting these practices will make you happier,
then they really will.