Wishes touch on so many aspects of positive psychology. That is because wishes tell us something about what it means to be human. They frame for us our vision of what is important – both those things that are “big I” Important that give us meaning and purpose, as well as the little pleasures and comforts that ease and aide us in our enjoyment of life. Wishes help us define a vision of what is possible and show us what life could be.

While all people possess the ability to have hope, variability – like different grades of fuel – exists from person to person. The good news is that hope is malleable, which is to suggest we can bring people to more premium grades of hope.

Do you sometimes move automatically and unconsciously through life, reacting to people and situations? It often seems that mindlessness, rather than mindfulness, permeates our lives.

We mindlessly stuff ourselves at the dinner table, whittle away hours in front of the tube, or succumb to our shopping urges and overspend. Mindless habits like these often steer us off-course on our road to health and happiness. Are we on automatic pilot or do we have a choice?

If Walter Vale – the lonely, isolated professor in The Visitor – walked into my office… he could be described as an automaton, consuming and floating along the surface of life. Walter eats alone, drinks wine alone every night, and is disengaged at work meetings. The Visitor has been selected for the Sundance film festival, the Toronto film festival, and others. Psychologist Corey Keyes of Emory University writes about social well-being as critical in a healthy adjustment to life. … Walter is not socially healthy initially. But he changes. Does he comes alive? [...]

You are in front of the traditional, very tempting Holiday buffet. If you choose self-regulation over temptation, chances are you will be satisfied and energetic. If you give in and pig out, you will experience a bloated and guilty feeling. So what do you do? Here are my top 10 strategies for healthy buffet-management.

It’s that time of year again. If you are anything like me – Type A, and goal-oriented – your annual list of New Year’s resolutions is beginning to take shape. In prior years, I would construct my new resolutions on the shaky foundation of last year’s failures. …This year, I am determined to change it up and see what happens when I focus on what has worked rather than what has not.

A few weeks back, I overheard a friend bemoan the lack of pure altruism in the world. Pure altruism is the act of doing something good to increase another person’s well-being for which the giver receives no benefit. As many of us prepare for holiday season highlighted by traditions of giving, I felt it might be a good time to give the old philosophical search for pure altruism a closer look. The lack of pure altruism among humans is a truly beautiful thing.

Several years ago, my mother gave me The Soul of Money by Lynn Twist, and it is one of the best gifts I’ve received. In the book, Lynn presents a candid, genuinely transformative treatise about the meaning and impact of our relationship to money.

The vast majority of people, particularly, working parents, struggle to combine work and family. They report feeling guilty, rushed for time, and overloaded. The work-family balance concept assumes a scarcity model.

At the end of 2008, Daniel Goleman published another paper with Richard Boyatzis about Social Intelligence (SI) and Leadership. They define social intelligence as ‘a set of interpersonal competencies built on specific neural circuits (and related endocrine systems) that inspire others to be effective.’ SI may rock the fields leadership and management, just as Emotional Intelligence did 10 years ago.