Happy is a word that’s gotten a lot of play in the last couple of weeks as we’ve been wishing each other “happy holidays,” “happy New Year,” and tossing the occasional “merry” into the mix of seasonal good will. However, achieving happiness and maintaining a realistic state of contentedness is no easy feat.
A recent New York Times article points out that helping people find happiness has become a mighty industry fortified by self-help books and pricey sessions with life coaches. But before knocking down the money making industry of merrymaking, is there something to be said about using whatever means we can to get to happiness? Particularly when our Founding Fathers said the pursuit of happiness is one of our unalienable rights?
Today Harvard Business School’s Nancy Koehn joined us to talk about the happiness industry. At its best, Koehn sees effective life coaching as being similar to good therapy or parenting--it’s dedicated to helping someone learn how to be more responsible for taking care of his or her emotional awareness. However, Koehn also sees this booming business as a symptom of a societal ill. Life coaches could be taking the place of the organic institutions (our families, churches, neighborhoods, etc..) that traditionally have given us the support that we need to figure our way out of some emotional, moral, or psychological hole.
To hear this and more in her words, listen here:
