You go into flow when your highest strengths are deployed to meet the highest challenges that come your way.

Optimism is invaluable for the meaningful life. With a firm belief in a positive future, you can throw yourself into the service of that which is larger than you are.

Reaching beyond where you are is really important.

If we just wanted positive emotions, our species would have died out a long time ago.

The pursuit of happiness is enshrined in the Declaration of Independence as a right of all Americans, as well as on the self-improvement shelves of every American bookstore. Yet the scientific evidence makes it seem unlikely that you can change your level of happiness in any sustainable way. It suggests that we each have a fixed range for happiness just as we do for weight. And just as dieters almost always regain the weight they lose, sad people don't become lastingly happy, and happy people don't become lastingly sad.

The pleasant life: a life that successfully pursues the positive emotions about the present, past, and future.

Life inflicts the same setbacks and tragedies on the optimist as on the pessimist, but the optimist weathers them better.