We are interested in (predominantly western) ideas about how to achieve a happy life. We loosely define ‘happy’ as a spectrum of positive emotional states, extending fromcontentment to joy. More sophisticated definitions exist – but these differ from each otherand only completely satisfy their creators. Our loose definition may be broadly acceptable.We are not offering ‘Positive psychology’ (a term coined in 1998) – an emerging scientificapproach to understanding human ‘flourishing’ and ‘well-being’. Our aim was to discoverany general rules of happiness which could be of interest/value to the general population.