August 2017 Bar Bulletin
By Lawrence R. Mills
Of the top 20 happy songs of all time, my favorite is Bobby McFerrin’s 1988 classic “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” narrowly edging out The Turtles’ “Happy Together” (1967) and Pharrell Williams’ “Happy” (2014). In keeping with the theme of this issue, the translation of the Latin title of this article is intended to be “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.”
The “pursuit of happiness” is enshrined in the Declaration of Independence as a basic human aspiration. In the field of conflict resolution, unhappy people are more likely than happy people to find themselves in unproductive or destructive conflict. Drawing on recent research...