by Mark DeNicola, Collective Evolution

The pursuit of happiness: To some of us, it is life’s greatest purpose, while to others, it is merely a cliché sentiment best reserved for motivational posters and cheesy internet memes.

In either case, happiness is certainly something that we all strive for in this world, and amazingly all seem to find in different places.

As part of an ongoing analysis to better understand human behaviour, a team of researchers tracked the realtime moods and activities of over 28,000 European people for an average of 27 days each. The goal? To identify whether or not we as humans are in fact guided by what psychologists call the hedonic principle, which is the making of choices based on either minimizing its negative or maximizing its positive impact on us.

The Study

The massive study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was conducted through a multi-platform smartphone application that would ask users to regularly rate their mood (on a scale from 1 to 10) as well as log what they were doing at the time.

by Maseeh Ghani, Collective Evolution

To excel in science and academia and become a person of significance in those areas requires thorough knowledge of the subject you’re studying. Indeed, being knowledgeable, analytical, and clever are some of the major criteria required to be considered intelligent in our highly detail-oriented and rigorous educational system.

But taking a closer look at what actually drives the success of our most revered minds tells a surprisingly different story.

Here is a list of five of the greatest scientific achievers of our time, who have contributed the most to humanity. While they may fit the above criteria for intelligence, they were also intensely spiritual people.

1. Albert Einstein

Considered by Western society to be one of the smartest men who ever lived, Einstein was a physicist who spent his entire career trying to understand the laws of the universe, eventually making major scientific breakthroughs which have shaped our world ever since. But what our history and science textbooks don’t tell us is that he owes his scientific achievements to things decidedly unscientific.

by Amanda Monteiro, Collective Evolution

To say I’m not a morning person would be a gross understatement, but it hardly feels like the choice has been my own. Each night I routinely beg my consciousness to wake me up at 7:30am every morning with “ample amounts of energy,” only to find myself struggling to rise the next day, rolling over and continuously pressing snooze on my physical and mental alarm.

Simply put, I struggle. A lot.

I firmly believe that once you have your morning routine down, the rest of your day is bound to be full of productivity and optimism.

One piece of information I’ve always been privy to and will never forget is the benefit of waking up 2 hours before you have to leave the house. This is a common habit ‘successful’ people have adopted. Doing this ensures you have some ‘me’ time, especially if you have a family where your evenings are occupied playing catch-up with your children and/or spouse.

The moment you put the needs of others above your own most basic ones is the moment you enter into the game of catch-up with yourself. Avoid putting yourself on the back burner, because the lower we put ourselves on our list, the less effective we are, and that includes in our efforts to help those around us. Taking time for yourself is vital to the stability of your mind.