Book of the Week: The Happiness Hypothesis

06 Dec 2015

This week I read The Happiness Hypothesis, which was mentioned in another book I read. I didn’t like the book. Most of the happiness books I read tell things up front and go over different research studies. This book does have some research studies, but I’ve read about those studies in other books. What’s different about this book is that it approaches happiness from historical philosophical and religious perspectives. Ancient wisdom isn’t as compelling to me as peer reviewed research that provides concrete information about happiness. It is good to read books that approach happiness from a different angle even though you may not like it. Divided Self

Moral arguments are much the same: Two people feel strongly about an issue, their feelings come first, and their reasons are invented on the fly, to throw at each other. When you refute a person’s argument, does she generally change her mid and agree with you? Of course not, because the argument you defeated was not the cause of her position; it was made up after the judgement was already made.

The book beings with explaining how the mind is divided and in conflict with itself. Many of the results are consequences of this division and refer back to it. Children If you smother your kids with love, they will become useless. If you’re completely cold, you wind up with emotionally messed kids. The best is to provide a foundation of love, so they can explore the world while feeling safe. If they don’t feel safe, they will never explore the world. What you want is your kids to start a company while letting them live in the basement if they fail. Prozac Prozac works as well as cognitive behavioral therapy, but once you stop taking it, you’re back to square one. Cognitive behavioral therapy has lasting gains, but taking Prozac is so much easier if you don’t mind the side effects like nausea, difficulty sleeping and feeling like your brain is dry. Lawyers

One of the reasons people are often contemptuous of lawyers is that they fight for a client’s interests, not for the truth. To be a good lawyer, it often helps to be a good liar. Although many lawyers won’t tell a direct lie, most will do what they can to hide inconvenient facts while weaving a plausible alternative story for the judge and jury, a story that they sometimes know is not true.

I went into the book looking for happiness and came away with information about lawyers and Prozac. The Meaning of Life

The final version of the happiness hypothesis is that happiness comes from between. Happiness is not something that you can find, acquire or achieve directly. You have to get the conditions right and then wait. Some of those conditions are within you, such as coherence among the parts and levels of your personality. Other conditions require relationships to things beyond you: … If you get these relationships right, a sense of purpose and meaning will emerge.

Okay… That was sure useful. Purchase The Happiness Hypothesis on Amazon.com or check it out from your local library.