Live Your Life, Love Your Life Blue Mug

"Live your life, love your life." is available in several other colors and on matching tees. Happiness is a mental state of well-being characterized by positive emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. A variety of biological, psychological, religious, and philosophical approaches have striven to define happiness and identify its sources. Various research groups, including Positive psychology, endeavor to apply the scientific method to answer questions about what "happiness" is, and how we might attain it. Philosophers and religious thinkers often define happiness in terms of living a good life, or flourishing, rather than simply as an emotion. Happiness in this older sense was used to translate the Greek Eudaimonia, and is still used in virtue ethics. Happiness economics suggests that measures of public happiness should be used to supplement more traditional economic measures when evaluating the success of public policy. There are various factors that have been correlated with happiness, but no validated method has been found to improve happiness in a meaningful way for most people. Psychologist Martin Seligman provides the acronym PERMA to summarize Positive Psychology's correlational findings: humans seem happiest when they have 1. Pleasure (tasty foods, warm baths, etc.), 2. Engagement (or flow, the absorption of an enjoyed yet challenging activity), 3. Relationships (social ties have turned out to be extremely reliable indicator of happiness), 4. Meaning (a perceived quest or belonging to something bigger), and 5. Accomplishments (having realized tangible goals).