Being happy isn’t always easy, but it’s incredibly important. I’ve learned that in my own life, but also in a seminar about positive psychology I was enrolled in this semester. This seminar, led by graduate student Sam Von Gillern, taught its students about positive psychology and happiness through studies, discussions and Shawn Achor’s book “The Happiness Advantage.” 

A month into the course, it hit me that the principles we were learning should be known by all college students, but were only being discussed in a class of about 17. Thus, Happiness: The Iowa State of Mind was created to let students see how important happiness is and that it can be changed by what we do.

We invited four Iowa State Daily staffers and four non-staffer students to join in this four-week series and reflect on what each weekly activity did for them. Through short journals at the end of each week accompanied by videos, these students were able to share their own experiences and if the weekly activities were working for them or not.

Happiness is extremely important; as Achor discusses in “The Happiness Advantage,” happiness brings success and not the other way around. Happier people have characteristics that make them more likely to succeed. Happiness also provides a more pleasant life, even when everything seems to be going wrong.

And most importantly for college students, happiness can help push past hard spots in the academic year. It makes it easier to get things done and bounce back when things don’t go the way you wanted or needed them to.

Although everyone experiences happiness in a different capacity and changes it in their own way, I do believe people are able to create their own happiness. I’m not going to say it’s easy – it took me years to discover my own way of creating happiness in my life. I’m saying it’s possible.