Hi everybody.

This short segment is what we call for the good of the order.

It's something we used to do at the end of my sorority meetings, if you can believe that,

where someone would share something that they came across in the course of the week, a poem, a song lyric, a short story, that they found enormously helpful as they went about daily life.

And I wanted to pick up the thread because I am so often wowed by something I see in the world

that I want to bring back and hand off to you.

So every Friday we produce a short segment called for the good of the order.

Think of it like an audio greeting card, a thing to share with the people that you love around the country

who you don't get to see or talk to enough. A thing to discuss with the people you do see and talk to

on a more regular basis.

This is Kelly Corrigan Wonders at the Aspen Ideas Festival.

So first there was this basic definition of happiness, which one person defined as all of your

parts are aligned.

You're in that great flow state, where you have a sense of internal

harmony. Another person defined it as a lack of perseverating, which I related to.

And another person pointed out that although American life is driven by a tyranny of achievement,

happiness rests on accomplishment, which could be as small as a piece of origami well-folded or learning a basic

Tom Petty song on the guitar. And then this esteemed panel including Adam Gopnick, Tamara Gendler, David Brooks, Sarah Lewis, talked about how they themselves achieve happiness.

And there were nods given to Tai Chi and running and painting and reading and the making of art of all kinds.

Someone else mentioned that Jefferson and Franklin had made a big point about

lists as a tool for happiness which is to say dumping all of your thoughts onto a

piece of paper so that you can get a decent night's sleep

...