In Homer's "Odyssey," Odysseus finds himself having to navigate a ship down a strait that sits between two sea monsters: Scylla, a six-headed carnivore perched on the cliffs who likes to snap up sailors in her jaws, and Charybdis, a whirlpool that can easily suck an entire boat and crew down to unsurvivable depths. Years of watching the evolution of positive psychology — in articles, books, and, most impactfully, social media posts — have left me wondering whether Americans are destined to approach happiness as a similarly precarious, if not entirely impossible, tightrope walk.
Positive psychology is a branch of the study of the human mind and behavior that focuses on positive emotion, traits, experience, and institutions. It tends to be about optimism and resilience in the face of life's challenges. Just listen to Andrea Bonior, Ph.D.
