ia play

Authentic Happiness is one of my ‘beloved’ books. It isn’t directly about play and it certainly isn’t about information architecture but it overlaps in its advocacy of an approach to your (working) life to achieve greater engagement and happiness.

It is written by Martin Seligman, a psychologist known for his work on the idea of ‘learned helplessness’, and his contributions to the field of Positive Psychology. The nice thing about “Positive psychology” is it is the study of optimal human functioning, focusing on mental wellness rather than mental illness, for once. Seligman’s book ‘Authentic Happiness’ covers his theories of how it is possible to be happier — “to feel more satisfied, to be more engaged with life, find more meaning, have higher hopes, and probably even laugh and smile more, regardless of one’s circumstances”. And who is going to argue with that?

He describes three approaches to happiness:

the Pleasant Life (having as many pleasures as possible and having the savoring and mindfulness skills to amplify the pleasures)

the Engaging Life (knowing what your signature strengths are, and then recrafting your work, love, friendship, leisure and parenting to use those strengths to have more flow in life)

the Meaningful Life (using your signature strengths in the service of something that you believe is larger than you are)

What I like about his definition of the engaging life (and the bit that is most useful in a professional sense) is the phrase ‘recrafting’. He doesn’t say ‘changing’ your work, he doesn’t insist you have to quit your desk job and become a poet. He says you have to recraft your work to use your signature strengths to achieve more flow. I want to talk about those three concepts: Flow, Signature Strengths, and Recrafting.