title: Happiness: Lessons from a New Science
author:  Richard Layard 
description: "Impressive . . . An excellent job of recounting the collective findings of much of this new science."<BR> <I>The Wall Street Journal</I> <BR><BR> "His lively new book . . . will not make conventional economists happy, but it should cause all of us to reflect more deeply on what really makes life worth living."<BR> Robert D. Putnam, author of <I>Bowling Alone</I>
zlib_text: FEARNE COTTON
  
   **HAPPY**
  
  >  **TO JESSE, REX, HONEY, ARTHUR AND LOLA, FOR ALL THE HAPPINESS YOU BRING.**
  
  ![](Images/image00149.jpeg)
  
   **Contents**
  
  Title Page
  
  A Little Note
  
  Happy Not
  
  Happy Balance
  
  Happy Now
  
  Happy Face
  
  Happy Choices
  
  Happy Mind
  
  Happy Body
  
  Happy Families
  
  Happy Thanks
  
  Happy Shared
  
  Happy Heart
  
  Happy
  
  Copyright
  
   **A LITTLE NOTE**
  
  Happiness. I think we often assume it’s just around the corner, in the hands
  of others, or only for a chosen category of people. The beautiful thing is,
  it’s actually there for the taking, inside us all the time, bubbling away
  waiting to be embraced.
  
  I began my own exploration into the nebulous subject of happiness because
  throughout my life I have had patches where I have felt quite the opposite of
  ‘happy’. Moments where I have stumbled into a darker territory – happy’s grey
  and spiky sister: depression.
  
  I have always been interested in looking at the world from various angles and
  exploring different emotions and their boundarie