Joy on Demand by Chade-Meng Tan

Joy is the root of happiness. Joy is a sustainable state that fuels our creativity and inspiration for innovation. It strengthens our ability to attract friends and to get along with people. Learning to cultivate joy is a fundamental secret to success. Chade-Meng Tan shows us how anyone, no matter where they are, can access this source of happiness. Meng writes, "If you have been unhappy, or you are happy and aspire to be even happier, know that your happiness set point can be upgraded. I know because I did it, I have seen many others do it, and scientific studies have measured it. Of course, Buddhist monks and other contemplative people have been doing it for thousands of years, but it's not something in the water in the Himalayas; it's something you can do too, wherever you are. I think the main problem is most people aren't aware that it is even possible. Or, if we've heard of it, many of us think it is unattainable so we don't even try. We don't know it's something that every single one of us can learn." The path to joy on demand is through mindfulness, but it doesn't have to be a lot of work, take a lot of time, or require you to abandon all your possessions and live in a hut on a remote island. And the benefits extend to every aspect of life -- our brains work better, our bodies function better, we achieve greater success at work, and we find ourselves highly attractive to the people around us. The more we exercise this skill, the more familiar we become with joy, the more we effortlessly gravitate toward it, and in so doing create a sustainable sense of wonder and contentment that can carry us throughout our entire life.

Outstanding book on Joy.

If you're looking to find joy, don't read this book and definitely don't read this review.

75% of this book was just trying to convince you that joy on demand is even possible, and the rest just trying to convince you on why you should meditate to achieve this. This is what I'd expect from the introduction of the book, not the whole 250 pages. For a book so short it really shouldn't feel so long.

Another thing was that the writing style was just PAINFUL. The author seemed to just ramble on and on for forever about things that really could have just been a sentence or too. I feel like this book really could have just been stripped down to an article or bulleted list without losing any relevant content. He goes from story to story to analogy and back to story again, all for one small point and none of which that was interesting.

Throughout the book the author almost came across as braggy and self-centered. He kept talking about how he got the nickname Jolly Good Fellow and how cool that was, which was fine the first time. He also kept talking about his job as an engineer at google and just how absolutely cool it was and on and on again about all the cool stuff he does. For how much of an emphasis there is on going beyond self, this book really had a lot of himself shoved into it.

He was also insensitive throughout the whole book, but mostly from that I'd just say don't read this book if you're mentally ill. This book is meant for people that already have a little joy in their lives and not for people who just struggle to even make it through the day. The author claimed he knew meditating worked because he used to be miserable his whole life growing up and kept alluding to how he got out of it the whole book, only to finally say that the joy had been there the whole time and that he just had to recognize it. Which, no hate to him, is an entirely valid experience but isn't really relevant for people who struggle with mental health, and was kind of frustrating to hear. Towards the end of the book he also brought up how writer friends of his and him had talked about how writing a book is kind of like having a baby. Which is just, not true. maybe as a rule of thumb just don't say that and definitely don't put it down in a book that you publish.

Not to say this book didn't have any good parts, I actually believe there were some good advice for when it comes to meditating and some of the interesting benefits, it was just buried under the rest of the nonsense so I didn't get to appreciate it as much as I wanted to. I was also excited to read this book, I like meditating and I like to practice mindfulness, but this book mostly just felt like it was trying to convince me to do something I already do, not how to approach it in a more joyful and open way.