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“WHAT THE LONGEST STUDY ON HUMAN HAPPINESS FOUND IS THE KEY TO A GOOD LIFE” Dear Friends, The title caught our eye – The longest study on human happiness? The key to a good life? What would you guess? Money? Success? A large house? The car of your dreams? Retirement at 35? None of the […]

Dear Friends, It feels as though January has flown by- how many people have already given up on New Year’s resolutions? “Winter Water.” To many people decluttering their space is a perfect resolution: Clear your space and clear your head! Make room for the new! There is indeed a lot to be said for creating

Dear Friends, In the last newsletter we asked you to help us inspire each other with photos and stories of what is good in our lives and what we are grateful for. “happiness is just being yourself” This week we are announcing a beautiful photographic exhibition from Dr. Natasha Shaginian-Needham that tries to do just

Dear Friends, Happy New Year to all of you! Thank you for being a part of our community and for supporting us through our second year. We are grateful for you and for every photo you post on our site. Your photos inspire us and warm our hearts. At the closure of each year, it

Dear Friends, How many of you remember your parents or grandparents “tinkering” around the house on their days off?  Often tinkering is just fiddling, puttering around, dabbling with the things you never usually prioritize in your daily routines. In our busy lives how often do we now just “dabble” in a new interest? It seems as if

Dear Friends, The SeeingHappy Team got together this month and took a field trip to NYC. We visited the Hebrew Union College, Jewish Institute of Religion, and saw the exhibition: Street Visions included remarkable photographs by a young American, Richard Scheuer, on a trip through pre-war Europe with his father in 1934. While the photos were

Dear Friends, This week you will be able to read Alec’s final blog in which he talks about the difference between street photography and documentary photography. Both can tell a story. What story will you tell? Alec says that although he describes himself as a street photographer he sometimes finds himself in a situation that calls

Dear Friends, This week you will be able to read Alec’s blog on creating a narrative. In this blog he says we can choose which story we tell. While this may seem self-evident, we don’t always stop to slow down and consider the implications our choices have on our well-being. Do you consistently choose to tell a of

Dear Friends, Today we remember 9/11. It has been 21 years since the attack on American soil that destroyed so many lives that day and in years to come.  The images are seared into our hearts. The Team at SeeingHappy

“Grief is the price we pay for love.” – HM Queen Elizabeth II Dear Friends, Today the team here at SeeingHappy want to pay our respects to the most famous and most photographed woman in the world, HM Queen Elizabeth II, who passed away in Scotland on Thursday. It was a sad day for many

Dear Friends, This week we have an introduction and an exciting announcement: SeeingHappy is starting a photography blog to go along with our newsletter! Alec Rill, a great street photographer from New York will be letting us into the secrets of his art, sharing his techniques with us, and talking about how his photography has

Dear Friends, Happy belated 4th to all our subscribers here in the USA! So often holidays, once over, leave us with a sense of let down – what’s next? Just in case this is you, you might relate to Adam Grant’s description of “Languishing”. Adam characterizes languishing as feeling joyless and aimless:  “It is a sense of

Dear Friends, This week we received a beautiful email from one of our subscribers, Yuzhi Li, who kindly allowed us to share her story with you.We think that everyone can benefit from hearing her wisdom about the power of photography to help get us through troubling times. Yuzhi reminds us of the literal importance of

Dear Friends, This week we wanted to share a beautiful photograph by David Evans – one that seems to invoke peace, quiet, and mindfulness. One of the local vineyards in brilliant autumn display. Speaking of mindfulness, what does mindfulness mean to you? The Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology categorizes mindfulness as an “openness to novelty,

Dear Friends, Whether you are going on a trip, spending time with family, enjoying the fresh air, or having a barbeque with friends, you are bound to embark on some sort of adventure this summer.  When you have something you are looking forward to, how do you look forward to what you have yet to

Dear Friends, Dorothea Lange’s iconic photo “Migrant Mother” symbolizes the hunger, poverty and hopelessness endured by so many Americans during the Great Depression. You probably have heard the story of how she was left destitute with many children to feed and had to sell the tires from her truck to feed them. Lange’s photograph was

Dear Friends, There seems to be so many things to worry about these days, and it can be difficult to turn off these thoughts and connect with the good in the world. One method that has been used to unplug for centuries is meditation. I love the beautiful scenery here. “Meditation is a simple practice

Dear Friends, Here in the US we are mourning the loss of 19 students and 2 adults in a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. According to NPR, 27 school shootings have happened thus far in 2022. Our hearts go to everyone during these tumultuous times. In occurances where there are wretched acts of violence and tragedy,

Dear Friends, This week I (Mandy) babysat my grandson, six months old Denny. Denny is a happy baby – he smiles and belly laughs constantly. He loves silly songs and stories and anything with anticipation. For instance, he loves stories like “This little piggy…”.  His happiness makes me happy. I began to think about smiling

Dear Friends, Happy Belated Mother’s Day to all the moms and grandmothers out there! Here is a lovely photo Jill Galloway Sherman sent us of her beautiful daughter:  Spring walk with my girl makes my day. Speaking of motherhood, this week we saw an interesting article about teaching children the importance of generosity in contrast

Dear friends, This week we are celebrating the one year anniversary of SeeingHappy. Thank you to each and every one of you for sharing your happy photos and for helping us build such an extraordinary community.   In cause of celebration, we are spotlighting the first photo to ever be posted on our site from May

Hi friends, When you submit photos to SeeingHappy.org, do you ever wish you had an easier way to upload photos straight from your phone? Well, with the new SeeingHappy app you can do just that: Over the span of the past week, we have launched our first ever mobile app onto the Apple App store

Dear Friends, We love this photo from Bob Turner – people of all ages focused on the same view: Never did learn what these folks were focused upon. Love walking around with my camera finding shooting opportunities such as this one! This week we wanted to draw your attention to a brilliant new book by

Dear Friends, We love this photo by Ellen Rosenberg – it exemplifies what we want to tell you about this week: The magic of bubbles… translucent, connecting, childhood memories, magical… mimicking joy in our lives. When you look back to your childhood and about the joy of creating bubbles or playing on a playground, how does

Dear Friends, When you turn on the television or open your laptop there is much to worry about. The world is a troubled place. The news is filled with images and stories that horrify us. It certainly is hard to digest on a daily basis. Fortunately, most of us do not live in a war

Dear Friends, This week we would like to tell you about an article in The Atlantic by our favorite contributor, Arthur Brooks: In this article, Arthur argues that “just like exercise and sleep, engaging with the arts is a necessity for a full and happy life”.  According to Arthur “two-thirds of U.S. adults say the arts ‘lift

Dear Friends, This week we would like to spotlight a photo from the World Happiness Summit— thank you Teresa Burns! We agree with Teresa— we met so many amazing people and wonderful speakers. We have so much exciting news to share with our SeeingHappy community and will do so in the coming weeks and months. Attending WOHASU

Dear Friends Last week spotlighted a very special photo that came to us from Oksana in Ukraine. Oksana has sent us more photos which we would like to share with you this week:  Refugees in Lviv (Ukraine) from Kharkiv. Kharkiv is a city in Ukraine, almost totally destroyed by Russian army during last 18 days

Dear Friends This week we want to spotlight a very special photo that comes to us from Ukraine. Oksana writes “Snowdrops in the yard are growing despite the snow….. like Ukrainian people”. Snowdrops in the yard are growing despite the snow… Thank you Oksana for sharing with us a glimmer of hope despite being surrounded

Dear Friends, This week we are sharing with you a video from BBC which explains the idea of Ubuntu. Ubuntu is an African philosophy which has its roots from the Nguni word of what it means to be human. It represents the idea of humans’ interrelatedness with each other and with our planet: “I am