The following is from the author's self-prologue
This is not a collection of academic papers, just a collection of essays written by academic people. My daily routine is to read and write, but I read the literature and write papers. Fortunately, I like to read "messy" books that have nothing to do with my major, and I also like to write down what I think. I taught at Xi'an Jiaotong University for more than three years, teaching courses in social psychology and positive psychology. Thanks to the students, all the students will choose more than a thousand people, and all the classes will crowd the classroom. What makes me particularly happy is that in addition to the college students who choose courses and the college students who audit the class, there are many psychology colleagues in Xi'an, students from other schools, psychology enthusiasts from other places, and even a few elderly people who do not fall behind once. I have always felt that each person's own understanding of knowledge must be unique, and the lectures are about themselves rather than the understanding of knowledge in books. I don't like textbooks, so I recommend many reference books, and after each class, I try to write down the teaching content to promote students' understanding, which is the source of most of the chapters of this book - what I talk about in class. In addition, there are some of my experiences in studying positive psychology and thinking about events in life related to positive psychology. Sometimes the views of different occasions are not completely consistent, and some cases and ideas have been mentioned or verified more than once, which are testimonies to my constant thinking at different stages of life and governance.
So, this book is personal positive psychology knowledge, it is my understanding of positive psychology. Maybe you agree, maybe you disagree, I try to base my research on scientific psychology, but still in a way that I understand.
This is a book of thoughts, and you should be able to read my thoughts on happiness, meaning, and other issues, deep or shallow, and hope that it will be beneficial to you. This is a book with emotions, and you should be able to read the emotions, sorrows or joys, when I wrote or spoke these words, and hope that it will infect you. This is also a book with personality, and you should be able to read the author's unique appearance, light or dark, and hope that it will come alive. All in all, this is a unique book that wants you to understand the study of positive psychology and to apply it to life in pursuit of happiness and meaning. I think these words are not written for researchers, but for everyone, it is not academic, but life. Positive psychology is important not only academically, but also practically used in life.
I excerpted 34 positive psychology articles on my 34th birthday, which are a summary of my own experience. I left Xi'an Jiaotong University at the age of 34 and returned to wuhan university in my hometown to teach. The story made me better understand human nature and human heart, and I can better appreciate the value of positive psychology in the difficulties of life. My long-term desire was to write a novel, but this experience came. At the age of 30, I gave up my teaching position at Tsinghua University to become a professor of psychology at Xi'an Jiaotong University, a choice that many people could not understand. I took a small article "Thirty" as a postscript, and perhaps the reader could understand my state of mind at that time. I once wrote a poem to my Doctoral roommate: "Flowers are only three or two months, how can I blame the empty branches for not retaining." And look at the next year's branches, do you know whether the new shoots are thicker than the fallen flowers. The flowers fell in the boundless place, looking back, Fang hated the year of the water. Sigh again at that time nostalgia, has been rested, do not brew the old wine into a new sorrow. This book is also the work of saying goodbye to the past and telling myself that "don't make old wine into new sorrows".
The past is always the past, and what the future holds, you can take the initiative to pursue. I hope that everyone can learn something after reading it. My requirements are so low that even if there is a sentence in a book that can touch you or slightly tickle your heartstrings, the book is not read in vain. Hope that's the case with the book in front of you.