Welcome to episode 314 of Live Happy Now.

Many of us go through times when we wonder what it would take to make us happier.

But today's yes took that question to a whole different level.

I'm your host Paula Phelps, and this week we're talking with Jackson Kirchus, who created

and earned a Bachelor of Science

degree in Happiness.

His work integrates insights from neuroscience, positive psychology, religion, philosophy,

and direct experience to provide a comprehensive study of what makes us happy.

He also designed and now instructs the University of Alabama's first ever Happiness 101 course, which is

built around his Happiness Habits Project. He's here to tell us a little more about it.

Jackson, welcome to Live Happy Now. Hey, Paula. Thank you so much. It's great to be here.

I'm really glad to have you on the show. We've been talking for a little while, wanting to get you on

the show, and so I'm glad that we're finally able to make this happen. In the introduction, I told people a little bit about you. So I wanted to know, though, how your interest in studying happiness began, because we all want to be happy, but you actually became a student of it. Yeah, well, that's a great question. So really my

story, I'd say, started out as a freshman year at college. And I wasn't necessarily unhappy,

but I think I was a little lost and unsure with this question of sort of, you know, what should I do

with my life? And maybe if you think about college, you've experienced that

question before. And I kind of externally, I guess, wanted to be successful and everything. But I think

on the inside, I was a little scared. And I still am scared sometimes of, you're kind of looking back

on my life with regret or looking back and saying, you know, well, why did I spend my life this way? And what I

realized was that, well, I want to be successful, right? But success without happiness,

ultimately is a failure, in my opinion. And so, you know, when I think back on my life as kind of

an old man or something, you know, and I ask, how do I spend this? I want to say,

...