Flourish, by Martin Seligman

Over the summer, I took a few days to read Flourish by Martin E.P. Seligman, the founder of positive psychology and the head of the University of Pennsylvania's positive psychology center.

The book begins with a simple definition of positive psychology, which, paraphrased roughly, is the science of the good life.  Put another way, it's the scientific study of what's right with people, rather than traditional psychology's emphasis on what's wrong.

I won't summarize the entire book, but I do want to draw attention to Seligman's acronym PERMA, which he uses to codify well-being theory:  Positive Emotion: happiness in general; Engagement: flow, or hyper focus; Relationships: think about the worldwide blue zones and the importance of social capital; Meaning: purpose, reason for being; Accomplishment: success in endeavors for its own sake.

I'm interested in how our kids might put each of the five aspects of PERMA onto their own pie graphs.  Would we be surprised?  How does their knowledge of self differ from our knowledge of them?  How much awareness is too much to an adolescent?  Will too much self-knowledge downplay the growth that remains in their lives?

For what it's worth, Flourish may be the most important book I've ever read.

Hans