Happiness is a mental or emotional state of well-being characterized by positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. A variety of biological, psychological, religious, and philosophical approaches have striven to define happiness and identify its sources.

Various research groups, including Positive psychology, endeavor to apply the scientific method to answer questions about what "happiness" is, and how we might attain it.

Philosophers and religious thinkers often define happiness in terms of living a good life, or flourishing, rather than simply as an emotion. Happiness in this sense was used to translate the Greek Eudaimonia, and is still used in virtue ethics.

Happiness economics suggests that measures of public happiness should be used to supplement more traditional economic measures when evaluating the success of public policy.

Happiness is a fuzzy concept and can mean many things to many people. Part of the challenge of a science of happiness is to identify different concepts of happiness, and where applicable, split them into their components.

Eckhart Tolle (German pronunciation: [ˈɛk.haʁt ˈtʰɔ.lə], English: /ˈɛ.kʰɑrt ˈtʰɒ.lə/; born 1948) is a German-born Canadian resident, best known as the author of the The Power of Now and A New Earth, which were written in English. In 2011, he was listed by the Watkins Review as the most spiritually influential person in the world. In 2008, a New York Times writer called Tolle "the most popular spiritual author in the [United States]."

Tolle says he was depressed for much of his life until he underwent, at age 29, an "inner transformation", then spent several years wandering and unemployed "in a state of deep bliss" before becoming a spiritual teacher. Later, he moved to North America where he began writing his first book, The Power of Now, which was published in 1997 and reached the New York Times Best Seller lists in 2000. Tolle settled in Vancouver, Canada, where he has lived for more than a decade.

The Power of Now and A New Earth sold an estimated three million and five million copies respectively in North America by 2009. In 2008, approximately 35 million people participated in a series of 10 live webinars with Tolle and television talk show presenter Oprah Winfrey. Tolle's books and teachings have stimulated much commentary from theologians and journalists. Tolle is not identified with any particular religion, but his work has been influenced by a wide range of spiritual teachings.

Michael Laurence Nyman, CBE (born 23 March 1944 in Stratford, London) is a British composer of minimalist music, pianist, librettist and musicologist, known for the many film scores he wrote during his lengthy collaboration with the filmmaker Peter Greenaway, and his multi-platinum soundtrack album to Jane Campion's The Piano. His operas include The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Letters, Riddles and Writs, Noises, Sounds & Sweet Airs, Facing Goya, Man and Boy: Dada, Love Counts, and Sparkie: Cage and Beyond, and he has written six concerti, four string quartets, and many other chamber works, many for his Michael Nyman Band, with and without whom he tours as a performing pianist. Nyman stated that he prefers to write opera rather than other sorts of music.

Nyman was born in Stratford, London. He was educated at the Sir George Monoux Grammar School, Walthamstow. He studied at King's College, London under Alan Bush., and was accepted at the Royal Academy of Music in September, 1961, and studied with Bush and Thurston Dart, focusing on piano and seventeenth-century baroque music. He won the Howard Carr Memorial Prize for composition in July 1964.

Ray Barbee (born 5 October 1971) is an American skateboarder from San Jose, California. He was one of the first skateboarders to bring freestyle/flatland tricks to street, technical ollie combinations and numerous no comply variations. He is best known for his no comply's.

He had memorable video parts in the Powell Peralta videos "Public Domain" and "Ban This." Barbee also appears in the video game Skate 2 as a playable skater.

In 1991, Barbee left Powell Peralta for The Firm Skateboards (now defunct), headed by another Powell veteran, Lance Mountain.

Barbee has a signature shoe with Vans [1]. His other sponsors are Element Skateboards, Independent Truck Company, and WeSC.

A music writer and multi-instrumentalist, Barbee released his debut EP on Galaxia records in 2003, Triumphant Procession, a collection of jazz-influenced instrumental tracks which Barbee produced and engineered at home. His 2005 release, In Full View, also on Galaxia, featured guests appearances by drummers Doug Scharin (of HiM and June of 44) and Carlos de la Garza (formerly of Reel Big Fish). Barbee plays guitar, bass guitar, drums, harp and xylophone.