There are four types of happy lives, the lives get better — but more challenging.

A life that successfully pursues the positive emotions about the present, past and future.

The goal is life as one long vacation. You want as many positive feelings and bodily pleasures as you can. Tasty food, aesthetic feeling, smiles, massages, and laughs. No regrets, no worries, and a head full of positive thoughts.

Research shows that often you don’t actually do what you enjoy the most — you do what is easiest. So you need to schedule pleasurable things.

Using your signature strengths to obtain abundant gratification in the main realms of your life.

Actively doing stuff you’re good at and getting lost in it. Trying to improve your skills. Accomplishing goals and trying to achieve “flow” as much as possible. Flow is when you’re working at something and you’re in the zone, not noticing the passage of time because you’re caught up in the activity.

While The Pleasant Life is all about feeling, The Good Life is focused on doing. And much like The Pleasant Life, The Good Life can still be meaningless. Video games are great at creating flow and devoting yourself to becoming the best player of a game.

Using your signature strengths and virtues in service of something larger than you are.

The Meaningful Life is The Good Life — but you’re using your signature strengths in a way that benefits others as well as yourself.

Work of expert quality that benefits the broader society consistently exhibit high levels of job satisfaction.

You have to care to have meaning in your life. And that’s going to mean occasional un-pleasant feelings: Meaningful involvements increase one’s stress, worries, arguments, and anxiety, which reduce happiness.

Take all of the previous three in moderation and you have The Full Life.

A full life consists in experiencing positive emotions about the past and future, savoring positive feelings from the pleasures, deriving abundant gratification from your signature strengths, and using these strengths in the service of something larger to obtain meaning.

It requires you deeply committed to lifelong goals and ambitions. It can be a lot to juggle. It’s tricky to stay consistent. You have to find a balance that works for you. But as the happiest people in the world know: it’s worth it.