9781422287675

life, after that happy time is over. Let’s say that you and your friends decide to build a tree fort. You argue a lot, trying to agree how big it should be and what to name it. Maybe you get frus- trated with your friends and you feel angry with them. It’s a lot of hard work, too. You cut your legs and arms hauling in wood from the woods. You struggle along the way, making mistakes and starting over when things go wrong. Boards break, nails are hard to find, and at some point maybe you even think about giv- ing up altogether. But you don’t give up, and once the tree fort is finished, you look back and think, “Wow, that was a lot of fun.” You realize you’ve really happy during the time you were working to build it. Happiness can be like that, making you feel good even when you don’t realize it. HAPPINESS AND OTHER PEOPLE Other people can make us happy. Usually, other people make us happy when we feel they understand us and love us. Both parts are important: both being understood and being loved. To be understood, you have to be willing to be vulnerable first. To be vulnerable means to be honest about your thoughts, fears, strengths, and weaknesses. It’s not always easy to be vul- nerable in today’s world. Sometimes other kids are quick to tease, taunt, and put you down. To be vulnerable takes bravery. It’s hard to be yourself when you know other people might hurt you with their words. But researchers agree that vulnerability is a common trait shared by happy people. If you never take the risk of letting other people see who you really are, you’ll never feel the satisfac- tion of knowing that someone has understood you. Lots of people try to make others like them by pretending to be someone they are not. A boy might make a lot of jokes at school. He might tease other students so that people will laugh. Their laughter makes him feel happy, for a while. But the feeling doesn’t last. Deep inside, he knows that those people laughing at his jokes don’t really know him. They can’t really like him, because they don’t really know him.

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What I s Happi nes s?