Engineering Happiness into Our Daily Lives

Engineering Happiness into Our Daily Lives

From The Pulse by WHYY

May 28, 2026 · 50 min

About this episode

The episode explores the science of happiness and how to engineer greater contentment in our lives through insights from psychologists and writers.

Think about the last time you were really happy — where were you? What were you doing? Who were you with? And, most importantly, how can you recreate that feeling? Happiness can feel like lightning in a bottle — beautiful in the moment, but hard to find and harder yet to sustain. So what is it that makes for a happy life? And how do we engineer our lives for greater contentment, fulfillment, and joy? On this encore episode: the science of happiness and how we can experience more of it every day. We talk with psychologist Eric Zillmer about why certain places bring us joy, and how to engineer happiness in our lives. We hear about one reporter’s experiment to bring more moments of serendipity in her life. And, writer Daniel Coyle explains why community is at the heart of what it means to flourish. Drexel University psychologist Eric Zillmer created a “ happiness map ” of Philadelphia with the help of his students. He says it holds greater lessons on why certain places bring us joy, and how we can reverse-engineer happiness into our days. Zillmer directs the happiness lab at Drexel University. Writer Daniel Coyle built his career on exploring what it is that makes people successful…

People in this episode

Guests: Eric Zillmer, Daniel Coyle

Topics covered

  • happiness
  • psychology
  • community
  • fulfillment
  • serendipity
  • engineering happiness

Keywords

  • happiness
  • psychology
  • community
  • fulfillment
  • serendipity
  • Drexel University
  • Eric Zillmer
  • Daniel Coyle

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Drexel University

Books & works: Flourish: The Art of Building Meaning, Joy, and Fulfillment

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