Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. — Carl G. Jung                      

This opening quotation from Jung is a good start to a discussion of happiness. As many others have said, a “happy” life is a process and it includes the ability to embrace and experience darkness and sadness. I like the quote because it reminds us to not take happiness in the direction of toxic positivity. We don’t need that. At the same time, we need skills and attitudes to extend and prolong positive experiences and cope with our emotional challenges.

I’ve shared a bit about the Montana Happiness Project before, but it’s time for an update.

The Montana Happiness Project has four BIG initiatives.

• Happy Schools
• Happy Families
• Happy Colleges
• Happy Media

We’ve gotten started on all these initiatives, but in particular, Dylan Wright and Lillian Martz have us rolling forward on the Happy Schools initiative. This past Friday, Dylan and Lillian presented their work in Frenchtown School at the “GradCon” event at the University of Montana. They didn’t win the grand prize, but they were in the running. Their work is amazing and I’m proud to have them as a part of the Montana Happiness Project. Given their hard and smart work, it’s only a matter of time until they win some sort of grand prize. To give you a taste of their work and all that’s going on with the project, here are a couple of video clips.

A “Three Good Things” Tik Tok video produced by a high school student: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDXoFkQdE9ofT-WZCd7loEg

And here’s a link to the Dylan and Lillian’s presentation at GradCon. It’s under 15 minutes and will give you a great taste of the potential of integrating happiness into the lives of high school students: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZvHqIMQNGg

Just in case you’re as inspired as I am, after you watch those videos, you’ll want to follow the new Montana Happiness Project YouTube site . . . and then you’ll probably want to go to Facebook where you can follow our new Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100073966896370

Thanks, in advance, for your interest in and support of infusing happiness skills into Montana and beyond.

John SF