Happy: Why more or less everything is absolutely fine

A Stoic guide to self-help

Happy takes a look at the ancient world's most zen philosophers – the Stoics – and asks what thinkers like Epicurus, Seneca and Marcus Aurelius can teach us about happiness. The answer according to Derren Brown? A great deal. Packed with insights into the robust and rational outlooks of these Greek and Roman sages, these blinks illuminate a vital chapter in the history of Western philosophy while showing us how we can lead better, more fulfilling lives today.

Derren Brown is a writer and television presenter best known for his 2000 series Mind Control, a fascinating and occasionally unnerving exploration of psychological manipulation. Brown is also the author of Tricks of the Mind and Confessions of a Conjurer.

This was one of the best books I've read in a long time. I'd award it 6* if I could.

Some of my notes:

The happiest among us are those who have learned to stop worrying about the things they can't control.
You can't buy your way to happiness; you can keep a lid on your temper; Twitter and Facebook make us miserable.
Stoicism builds on the insights of Epicureanism, and it can help us live more happily in a consumerist age.
Stoics, as the creed's followers are known, believe that the key to happiness is accepting life as it is rather than pursuing new pleasures or trying to avoid inevitable hardships.
Happiness isn't dependent on material goods – what really matters is how we feel about possessing or lacking certain things. Put differently, unrealistic ideas about what we need and deserve make us miserable. True happiness comes from accepting what we already have or can reasonably expect to acquire over the course of our lives.
Stoics argue that you can't change the world around you, but you can change how you react to it.
The cornerstone of Aurelius' Stoicism was a theory of human emotions. According to the philosophical emperor, emotions are anything but permanent and are constantly changing in reaction to external events.
The cause of those sudden turnarounds aren't objective facts “out there” in the world but the subjective stories we tell ourselves about our experiences.
External events and other people don't control our emotional reactions – we do.
You can't change the past, and dwelling on it makes you miserable. But it doesn't have to be this way.
Learning to let go of the things you can't control is a liberating experience.
Life is unpredictable. Like a ship on the high seas, we're rocked by the winds and waves of fortune. Accepting that is hard, and plenty of folks can't. They become obsessed with the idea of exercising control over every last detail of their lives as well as those around them. Stoics might sympathize with that urge but they ultimately reject it.
There are only two things we can control – our thoughts and our actions. Everything else is out of our hands. We can't change our fate or influence what other people say and do.
Next time you find yourself confronted with a problem, ask yourself into which category it falls. If it concerns your thoughts and actions, you can try to change it; if it concerns anything else, accept that it's beyond your control and move on.
Focusing on your performance is a better use of time than obsessing over outcomes.
In most situations, we only have limited control over outcomes.
Take a leaf out of American actor Bryan Cranston's book. As he put it in his speech at the 2012 Academy Awards, the only part of an audition actors can control is their performance. If you give it your all, create a strong character and deliver your lines as convincingly as you can, you can be rightly proud of your work even if you fail to land the part. And that pretty much hits the Stoical nail on the head: the only outcome in your hands is how well you play your part.