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Optimism is invaluable for the meaningful life. With a firm belief in a positive future, you can throw yourself into the service of that which is larger than you are.

Martin Seligman

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Martin Seligman
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: August 12
Bridge Player
Psychologist
University Teacher
Writer
Albany
New York
Martin E. P. Seligman
Martin E P Seligman
M. E. P. Seligman
M E P Seligman
M. Seligman
M Seligman
Seligman
Seligman M
Seligman M.
Seligman M. E. P.
Seligman MEP
Martin Elias Peter Seligman
Positive
Belief
Invaluable
Future
Optimism
Life
Larger
Firm
Meaningful
Throw
Service

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Optimism generates hope...hope releases dreams...dreams set goals...enthusiasm follows
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Finding temporary and specific causes for misfortune is the art of hope: Temporary causes limit helplessness in time, and specific causes limit helplessness to the original situation.
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The good life is using your signature strengths every day to produce authentic happiness and abundant gratification.
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Ten years ago, when I was on an airplane and I introduced myself to my seatmate, and told them [I was a psychologist], they'd move away from me. ... And now when I tell people what I do, they move toward me.
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There is one aspect of happiness that's been well studied, and it's the notion of flow. Ask yourselves, when for you does time stop? When are you truly at home, wanting to be no place else?
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On the relationship side, if you teach people to respond actively and constructively when someone they care about has a victory, it increases love and friendship and decreases the probability of depression.
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What are the enabling conditions that make human beings flourish? How do we get from zero to plus five?
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Money, amazingly, is losing its power... Our economy is rapidly changing from a money economy to a satisfaction economy.
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Self-esteem cannot be directly injected. It needs to result from doing well, from being warranted.
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One of the things psychologists used to say was that if you are depressed, anxious or angry, you couldn't be happy. Those were at opposite ends of a continuum. I believe that you can be suffering or have a mental illness and be happy - just not in the same moment that you're sad.
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Just as the good life is something beyond the pleasant life, the meaningful life is beyond the good life.
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There are physical characteristics which are inherited. These include things like good looks, high intelligence, physical coordination. These attributes contribute to success in life, and success in life is a determinant of optimism.
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You go into flow when your highest strengths are deployed to meet the highest challenges that come your way.
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We're not prisoners of the past.
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I believe that traditional wisdom is incomplete.
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The belief that we can rely on shortcuts to happiness, joy, rapture, comfort, and ecstasy, rather than be entitled to these feelings by the exercise of personal strengths and virtues, leads to legions of people who, in the middle of great wealth, are starving spiritually.
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Flow occurs in your life when your highest skills are matched to challenges that quite exactly meet them.
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Well-being cannot exist just in your own head. Well-being is a combination of feeling good as well as actually having meaning, good relationships and accomplishment.
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Whether or not we have hope depends on two dimensions of our explanatory style pervasiveness and permanence.
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