Biography
Biography: L Ari Kopolow
Abstract
During my years as a student of Abraham Maslow, I learned a great deal about the pursuit and experience of Happiness. The late 1960s were turbulent times but Maslow offered a positive perspective on life and living. It is no accident that he was the first to use the term positive psychology and break from academic psychology’s focus on pathology and animal studies. I had the opportunity not only to read his writings but also to discuss with him what was the meaning behind the words. He used his own life story to help us understand crucial concepts. Even though he declared there was no path to happiness, we filled up our notebooks with the stories of his journey and thus gained insight into how and where to look for the answers we sought including achieving a state of Being. Maslow’s focus on human nature and especially our potential to develop our capacities and potentials to be fully ourselves led him to examine the characteristic of self-actualized people. What he found were people who were fully themselves. People who were exceptionally aware of conditions around them and within themselves. And significantly for this meeting people whose lives frequently were characterized by periods of” pure joy” we will now look at Maslow’s take on Happiness and the kinds of experiences which he described as being so wonderful that they “validated life”. This lecture will focus on Maslow’s approach to happiness and wellbeing and unreported strategies for living better. Maslow saw happiness as an experience “ en passant” and cautioned us not to expect the joy to last. If he did not show us the exact paths to follow to achieve happiness or self-actualization he made sure to point out where to look for them.