The One Thing That Changed How I Think About Happiness
I became a psychologist because I wanted to understand the secret to a happy life. I assumed that somewhere—in the research, the theories, the textbooks—I would find a clear answer. Instead, I found dozens of partial ones. It wasn't until years later—after decades of clinical practice, researching positive psychology, navigating my own seasons of growth and loss, and sitting with countless patients nearing the end of their lives—that my thinking changed. The biggest lesson wasn't how to become happier. It was that happiness is rarely something we achieve directly.
For years, I assumed happiness was something to pursue—a destination reached through the right achievements, relationships, or habits. But over time, I began to see that this way of thinking was backwards. The happiest people I met weren't chasing happiness itself. They were cultivating lives marked by meaning, integrity, purpose, and connection. Happiness wasn't the goal. It was the consequence. It emerges as a byproduct of practicing connection: to ourselves, to other people, to our honest priorities and to a life that reflects what we truly value. What began as a personal question gradually became the organizing principle of my life and work.
What Is Connection?
Through years of research, I've come to believe that connection isn't simply something we feel. It's a way of relating—to ourselves, to other people, and to the lives we're living. And because it's a way of relating, it's also a daily practice. It's the ongoing choice to notice when we've drifted from what matters and to gently return—to our bodies, our values, our relationships, and our sense of purpose. To understand connection, it helps to begin with its opposite. Disconnection is one of the deepest sources of human suffering, yet it rarely announces itself dramatically. More often, it slips quietly into everyday life. It begins as a subtle misalignment—between what we believe and what we say, between what we value and how we spend our days. We drift from ourselves first. We ignore the signals of our bodies. We quiet our instincts. We postpone difficult questions because answering them might require us to change. Eventually, that distance becomes so familiar we stop noticing it. Like background noise, it fades into the scenery of our lives. From there, disconnection spreads outward. Our relationships lose their depth. Conversations become efficient rather than intimate.
We speak without revealing ourselves and listen without truly hearing. We perform belonging while quietly feeling unseen. The consequences are rarely dramatic. They're cumulative. Meaning begins to dull. Joy feels conditional. Even success can feel strangely empty when it's built on priorities we never consciously chose. Perhaps the most dangerous thing about disconnection is how easily it disguises itself as productivity, independence, or resilience. On the surface, everything appears fine. Underneath, there's a quiet sense that something essential has been misplaced. Connection is the daily practice of finding our way back—to ourselves, to one another, and to what matters most. Not through one transformative moment, but through a series of small, deliberate returns. To honesty. To presence. To our values. To one another. It asks us to exchange comfort for authenticity and numbness for aliveness. In doing so, it restores not only how we feel, but who we become.
How Do We Practice Connection?
One of the most hopeful discoveries I've made is that connection doesn't require reinventing your life. It begins by paying closer attention to the one you're already living. Over the years, my research team and I have studied what connection actually is, how it shapes well-being, and how we can measure and strengthen it. That work—together with insights from psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, and behavioral science—became the foundation for a practical framework to help people recognize where they've become disconnected and, more importantly, how to reconnect. My hope has always been to translate that science into practices people can use in everyday life. Those ideas eventually became my first book, Connection: How to Find the Life You're Looking for in the Life You Have. Whether the work begins with rebuilding trust in yourself, strengthening your relationships, reconnecting with your body, or discovering a deeper sense of purpose, the destination is the same: a life that feels coherent, meaningful, and unmistakably your own.
That's the conversation I hope to have here each week. I'll write about the science of well-being, the psychology of meaningful relationships, the habits that help us flourish, and the questions that lead us back to ourselves. Sometimes I'll share new research. Sometimes I'll challenge conventional wisdom. Sometimes I'll simply offer practices that have helped me—and the people I've worked with—live with greater intention and connection. My hope is that these essays don't just give you something interesting to think about. I hope they help you build a life that feels more connected, more intentional, and ultimately, more fulfilling.
These days, I no longer ask myself, "Am I happy?" I ask a different question: Am I connected? To myself. To the people I love. To what matters most. I've found that when the answer is yes, happiness has a remarkable way of taking care of itself. If you'd like to explore these ideas more deeply, they became the foundation of my first book, Connection: How to Find the Life You're Looking for in the Life You Have. I'd be honored to have you join me on that journey.
