Thursday Thought: Happiness from Giving

"Why do exercising gratitude, kindness and other virtues provide a lift? "Giving makes you feel good about yourself," says Christopher Peterson at the University of Michigan, . "When you're volunteering, you're distracting yourself from your own existence, and that's beneficial. More fuzzily, giving puts meaning into your life. You have a sense of purpose because you matter to someone else." Virtually all the happiness exercises being tested by positive psychologists, he says, make people feel more connected to others."

Source: TIME Magazine, January 17, 2005 (Subscription required.)