Page 40 - EH58
P. 40
38 EASTERN HORIZON | FEATURES
Katie Hope made the long journey to the Rinerhorn Base Camp to “discover happiness”
Is the secret to happiness
at the top of this Mountain?
By Katie Hope
Katie is a BBC business website editor and reporter.
“Everyone assumes that everyone “It went viral,” laughs Prof Santos, hour workshop on “discovering
else feels really awesome, but it’s who has now made the course happiness”, I’m accompanied by a
generally not true,” says Laurie available online for free. European royal family member and
Santos, a psychology professor at several chief executives from large
Yale University. She says the fact that even students multinational companies.
at one of the top universities in
Advertisement
Prof Santos has more insight than the world weren’t happy shocked
most into how happy people are. everyone. Some of the people in the room earn
hundreds of thousands of pounds
At the beginning of last year, she But it’s not just students that aren’t each year, but still want to feel
designed a new course called happy. happier.
Psychology and the Good Life. It was
Three steps to happiness
aimed at teaching students how to At the World Economic Forum in
lead a happier, more satisfying life Davos, amid all the high-powered The session starts on the journey
in twice-weekly lectures. meetings, networking and speeches, when we are told to sit next to
there’s barely enough time for someone we don’t know and tell
She expected about 40 students to lunch. them what is going well in our life,
sign up. In fact, a quarter of Yale’s and what we thought about when
undergraduates enrolled, making Yet when I make the long journey via we first woke up.
it the most popular course ever in coach and ski lift to the very top of
Yale’s 300-year history. the mountain, which is known as the It’s an uncomfortable exercise.
Rinerhorn Base Camp, for a three- Yet it provides three things that are
meant to improve happiness:
