science of generosity grant templeton positive psychology prize and a million dollar grant from the national institute of mental health she's also the author of the critically acclaimed book the myths of happiness dr little mercy joins us now from our los angeles studio a little risky walk of the program. it's a pleasure to be here thank you thank you for joining us let's start out with just the simple stuff what is your definition of happiness well i use the definition that researchers use which is that happiness essentially has two components so the first component is the experience of positive emotions joy serenity curiosity affection and the second component is the feeling of you feel the feeling that your life is going well that you're progressing towards your life's goal so you really need both of those components to be a truly happy person so where it seems like one is is positional kind of static and the other is an arc it's a sense of an arc that's moving in the right direction yeah i mean you could say that way one is i think of it as one is really emotional right it's