One professor's journey of discovering what makes people happy through conversations with over 500 strangers across 30 states and 50 cities. Work. Money. Life. Purpose. What do these mean to you? What should they mean to you? We all want happiness; but do we know what exactly happiness is? Does work bring us happiness? Does money ? And, while you are pondering these questions, ask yourself one more question, Why do we live? Why do YOU live? Is there a purpose to life? Can purpose bring us happiness?

In the new book 50 Faces of Happy, Ban Mittal—a social scientist and professor—explores these questions by sharing the answers from 50 people he randomly met on the street. In 2017, the author set out on a two-year road journey across the USA and Canada to discover what happiness meant to people. Conducting over 500 interviews with people he met at random, Mittal asked them “Five Big Questions” about money, work, life, purpose, and happiness.

"I had wondered for a few years why in all of the happiness literature, no one had taken the consumers’ or a person’s own perspective on happiness,' shares Mittal. "So I thought it would be a good idea to find out what consumers thought happiness was and what brought them happiness...Now, if you combine these three factors: Talking to strangers, understanding the totality of the person and a layman’s definition of happiness, it was an adventure I just couldn’t resist."

This collection includes engineers, doctors, attorneys, executives, professors, students, factory workers, sommeliers, museum curators, home-free wanderers and visitors from overseas; and, of course, other "ordinary" people from all walks of life, spanning all demographics. The diversity in these people’s outlook on life is unmistakable. While all stories offer engaging personal glimpses of the featured people (ordinary or not so ordinary), some reveal stunning personal goals, surprising life perspectives, and deep, homespun wisdom. 

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