In the Zone

According to Martin Seligman, author of Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment, there are two broad categories of activities that people can do to boost their happiness:

1. Experience sensory pleasures, as I've described in several blog posts recently
2. Get in the zone--do things that totally absorb you and challenge your best strengths and skills.  Seligman's calls these activities "gratifications".  He spends most of his book talking about "gratifications" because he says that filling your work and personal life with absorbing, energizing action leads to "the good life".

My Son's You Tube Video

For a perfect example of a "gratification", look no further than my son's YouTube video.  See the link above.  His "gratification", the thing that gets him in the zone, is to analyze college football talent.  He's a self-proclaimed 14 year old "college football scout".  He had his own NFL draft blog for 2 years and now writes for NFLMocks.com, one of the most popular NFL draft websites available.

Seligman says that a gratification, unlike a pleasure, doesn't depend on pleasant sensations and doesn't necessarily generate pleasant feelings.  You may instead be very serious and intense, with no strong emotions at all.  You're just INTO what you're doing.  You give it everything you have to give.   You can see all this in the video.