Harvard classrooms are standing-room only for popular Israeli professor

By Laura Goldman

28 May 2006

Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar: Life is short, and many of us tend to clutter our lives with things that we do not really want to do.

Most university professors don't have students lining up outside their lectures hoping to find an extra space. But most professors haven't tapped an emotional and intellectual connection with his students like Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar has. Even his colleagues consider him the 'rock star' of positive psychology - the discipline he teaches.

In essence, Ben-Shahar offers his students what every person is struggling to find - the key to happiness. The 35-year-old Israeli psychologist lectures to a staggering one fifth of the student body at Harvard University. His class, Positive Psychology, is the largest ever in the history of the Psychology Department at Harvard, with an enrollment of 850 students.

Ben-Shahar's other class - the Psychology of Leadership - boasts 550 students and is the third most popular class at the university. His classes are so popular that Harvard was forced to move his lectures to Memorial Hall in Sanders Theatre, their largest lecture hall.

The Harvard catalogue describes the Positive Psychology course this way:

'Psychology 1504 focuses on the psychological aspects of a fulfilling and flourishing life. Topics include happiness, self-esteem, empathy, friendship, love, achievement, creativity, music, spirituality, and humor.'

Unofficially, it is called the 'how to get happy' course, and it's touched a nerve in the student body at Harvard.

How did a former soldier in the IDF anti-aircraft unit and an Israeli national squash champion come to study and teach Positive Psychology?

"I spent close to 30 years of my life unhappily successful. I was the Israeli national squash champion, completed my undergraduate degree at Harvard, studied at Cambridge, and was doing well financially," Ben-Shahar told ISRAEL21c.

"More than titles and degrees, though, I desperately wanted to be happy, or at least happier than I had been. I realized that external success would not, could not, make me happier - that happiness was mostly contingent on my state of mind, rather than my status or the state of my bank account. And it was then that I turned to psychology for some of the answers."

An expert on Israeli history and debating the conflict in the Middle East. Ben-Shahar graduated from Harvard, studied at Cambridge University in England, and was named a Graduate Fellow at the Harvard Center for Ethics and the Professions.

He studied with one of the founders of the Positive Psychology movement, Dr. Phillip Stone. Stone then turned over his classes to his former student after Ben-Shahar received his PhD.

Ben-Shahar believes that there is a strong mind body connection. Regular exercise, adequate sleep, and healthy eating habits lead to both physical and mental health.

There are three questions that he recommends that people ask themselves:

- What provides me a sense of purpose (what gives me meaning)?

- What do I enjoy doing (what affords me pleasure)?

- What am I good at (what are my strengths)?

"The challenge is then to find activities that fulfill these three criteria - of meaning, pleasure, and strengths," he explains.

He stresses that not only are people happier when choosing our work according to these criteria, they are also more successful in the long run - able to sustain long periods of effort and focus with relative ease.

One of the basic tenets of Positive Psychology is to simplify.

"Life is short, and many of us tend to clutter our lives with things that we do not really want to do. We are too busy trying to squeeze in more and more activities into less and less time. We compromise on our happiness by trying to do too much. All of us need to remember saying 'no' to others often means saying 'yes' to ourselves. The price we pay for doing too much is too high - it comes in the form of unhappiness, stress, and physical health," says Ben-Shahar.

He teaches that gratefulness is highly correlated with happiness. Because people are numbed by habit, they tend to take the good things in life for granted. This is why we so quickly return to our base levels of happiness after we receive a raise or get a new car. We adapt and no longer notice the wonderful things in our lives. People who regularly express and experience genuine gratitude for what they have - their family, a meal, their home, their work, their wealth, and so on - are happier, healthier, and more successful in the long run.

Students have picked up on Ben-Shahar's message - in a big way. According to the course evaluation guide, 99% of the students would recommend the course to their fellow students. 23% said it changed their life.

Rick Krumholz, one of his students, said, "Tal is one of the wisest people I have ever known. He an excellent role model, an incredible leader, and a great teacher. The most important lesson that I have learned from Tal is the importance of optimism."

Ben-Shahar's students say that a burden is immediately lifted from them just by signing up for the class. By taking the class, they have given themselves the permission to be human and to feel emotions both positive and negative. Other students say that the class helped them identify what they wanted to do with their lives.

Ben-Shahar's lectures are so in demand that they are filmed and available online at Harvard's website. Krumholz believes that "positive psychology will revolutionize the psychology field by shifting its focus from disease and neurosis to happiness and fulfillment."

In addition to becoming a star on campus, the media is also making Ben-Shahar a star in the homes of Americans. The Boston Globe, National Public Radio and CNN have all covered the charismatic lecturer, and the British daily The Guardian asked Ben-Shahar to write an op-ed piece after a British college decided to introduce a course on "happiness" inspired by his class.

Conquering Harvard is not enough for Ben-Shahar. He wants to spread his message to the rest of the world so he is taking off a year to write two books on the subject of Positive Philosophy. One is called Permission To Be Human and the other is The Ultimate Currency, which is not the shekel - but happiness.

Ben-Shahar has already written two other books in e-book form. A Clash of Values confronts the difficult questions that the West must address after September 11. His other book, A Question of Happiness investigates why America's wealth is rising at the same time that its level of happiness is declining - and asks the question 'can we be happy and successful at the same time?'

Even though he has been living in Cambridge, Israel has always been close to his heart. He is the resident scholar and master trainer at the David Project, a group that undertakes educational and hasbara efforts for Israel.

And because he wants to practice what he preaches, Ben-Shahar will soon be doing what makes him happy - he'll be returning to Israel with his wife Tami (who he met when he was 7) and his young son David.

"There is no better place to raise our son," he says. Now there's a positive development.