And smile (I’m talking about an inward smile of deep satisfaction and delight in the delicious fabric of life, not just the yellow-button smiley-face thing) when you say that!

A brand new magazine just hit the newsstands, and if you look close, you’ll find my byline peeking out at you.

The journal’s called Live Happy, and its mission is:

…to impact the world through a happiness movement that inspires people to engage in living purpose-driven, healthy, meaningful lives.

My article, “The Happiness Revolution,” is a broad-strokes sweep at the birth and impact of positive psychology and the happiness movement over the past fifteen years. Here is the first few paragraphs:

A young psychology student at Cal State, Ed Diener had grown up on a San Joaquin Valley farm and had been around farm workers all his life, and he thought it would be interesting to study happiness in migrant farm workers.

“Mr. Diener,” his professor sniffed, “you are not doing that research project — for two reasons. First, farm workers are not happy. And second, there is no way to measure happiness.”

Ed knew from firsthand experience that his professor was wrong on his first point. But just how do you scientifically measure the level of a person’s happiness?

Ed was convinced this was worth looking into. He abandoned the project and did his paper on the topic of conformity. (History does not record whether the professor appreciated the irony.)

To find out what happened to young Ed Diener (and whether or not scientists ever figured out how to measure happiness) (hint: they did) go hunt your newsstand!

And meanwhile, you can read the first two pages of the piece here.

Enjoy!