I used to think that the topic of positive psychology was happiness, that the gold standard for measuring happiness was life satisfaction, and that t… - Martin E P Seligman

The best therapists do not merely heal damage; they help people identify and build their strengths and their virtues.

Sister Cecilia used the words “very happy” and “eager joy,” both expressions of effervescent good cheer. Sister Marguerite’s autobiography, in contrast, contained not even a whisper of positive emotion. When the amount of positive feeling was quantified by raters who did not know how long the nuns lived, it was discovered that 90 percent of the most cheerful quarter was alive at age eighty-five versus only 34 percent of the least cheerful quarter. Similarly, 54 percent of the most cheerful quarter was alive at age ninety-four, as opposed to 11 percent of the least cheerful quarter. Was it really the upbeat nature of their sketches that made the difference? Perhaps it was a difference in the degree of unhappiness expressed, or in how much they looked forward to the future, or how devout they were, or how intellectually complex the essays were. But research showed that none of these factors made a difference, only the amount of positive feeling expressed in the sketch. So it seems that a happy nun is a long-lived nun.

Negative emotions warn us about a specific threat: when we feel fear, it is almost always preceded by a thought of danger. When we feel sad, there is almost always a thought of loss. When we feel angry, there is almost always a thought of trespass. This leaves us room to pause and identify what is going on when our negative emotional reaction is out of proportion to the reality of the danger, loss, or trespass out there. Then we can modulate our emotional reaction into proportion. This is the essence of cognitive therapy, but in a preventive mode.