Dare You To...

At some point over the past year, you likely saw someone -- or many people -- share a photo on social media with the hashtag #100happydays.


It's exactly what you think it is, where you record through photos 100 happy days in your life, in a row.  The movement began from 100happydays.com, which explains the problem of today's "too busy" lifestyles and promises to send you a book of your photos when you complete the challenge (though I never got mine...).  However, the hashtag has ballooned out into a viral exercise in happiness, where people do it just for themselves.

And it's not for nothing, either!!  In my post daring you to write three good things, I explained the psychological research behind intentionally identifying the good things in your daily life.  Practices like writing three good things or taking a snapshot of one thing that made your day happy force you to acknowledge something POSITIVE in your life, even if your day was otherwise so-so or miserabl…

This dare is just as the title suggests: I dare you to write down three good things in your life, every day.



The end!

Just kidding, I'll explain:

When I studied positive psychology(the scientific study of happiness) in college, many lessons stuck with me.  For example, money increases happiness only up until a certain threshold, at which point basic needs are satisfied.  Having children decreases momentary happiness, but dramatically improves long-term life satisfaction.  A lengthy commute significantly diminishes happiness--far more than people may predict.  ... SO many interested findings!

Martin Seligman, the father of positive psychology, tested various interventions to measure effects on human happiness.  One of the simplest was called Three Good Things in Life: "Participants were asked to write down three things that went well each day and their causes every night for one week. In addition they were asked to provide a causal explanation for each good thing" (Seligma…