He was admired by many for his passion for learning and his long hours of study.
He was coming to the end of his second year at university where he was taking a master’s degree in Applied Positive Psychology, with a special interest in methods of discovering the nature of happiness and how happiness itself makes people thrive. He spent a good deal of time outside of regular university study hours to meet up with volunteers, who would contribute to his happiness studies. These were people willing to discuss their own personal experiences regarding the things that made them happy.
He usually met his subjects at a bar or in a café where they could spend time in private discussion. He kept a simple, unobtrusive, spiral bound notebook for the purpose of taking notes. It would be back in his flat the he would type them up and file them, as part of his study project. The files he was building would be the backbone of his final thesis. They contained a most varied and comprehensive catalogue of what above all made people happy. Most of his contacts spoke quite openly about what made them happy, while others had a more difficult time of it. Much of these cases caused embarrassment as there was a great deal of shame attached to what made them happy. He was totally non-judgemental with what he was told and his assurance of anonymity helped to ease the humiliation.
Finally, his thesis was submitted, gaining excellent marks, and his degree was bestowed. In the months that followed, he made no immediate efforts to find employment using his newly awarded qualification. Instead, he concentrated on a system that would provide a steady income as time went on. Over a period of two years he had gathered a sufficient number of future clients. From these, he carefully selected a number of them that would receive simple instructions on how to avoid exposure…