In recent weeks we’ve considered happiness from a variety of perspectives: what makes us happy, what doesn’t, and why we’re so bad at distinguishing between the two. Sometimes the insights offered have been surprising: turns out that getting more stuff or making loads of money doesn’t make us happy, while giving money away does. In this TEDTalk, Dan Pink — author of one of my favorites books in recent years, A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future — offers another surprise: contrary to popular wisdom, we are rarely motivated or made happy by the traditional rewards and carrots of...

So here’s my ongoing question: if we by and large agree that spending money on ourselves doesn’t buy happiness, then why do we regularly act like it does? I think I’m arriving at an answer. Or, at least, at a partial answer. And I think that partial answer has to do with how intangible “happiness” – or, for that matter, “fulfillment,” “meaning,” or “purpose” – really is. In fact, when you get right down to it, many of the things we say we want most – whether it’s “fulfillment” or “community” or whatever – are really hard to describe. I mean, what is “community”? What does it look like? How does one...