The Myths of Happiness
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The bestselling author of The How of Happiness reveals how to find opportunity in life’s thorniest moments Focusing on life’s biggest, messiest moments, Sonja Lyubomirsky provides readers with the clear-eyed vision they need to build the healthiest, most satisfying life. Lyubomirsky argues that we have been given false promises—myths that assure us that lifelong happiness will be attained once we hit the culturally confirmed markers of adult success. This black-and-white vision of happiness works to discourage us from recognizing the upside of any negative and limits our potential for personal growth. A corrective course on happiness and a call to regard life’s twists and turns with a more open mind, The Myths of Happiness shares practical lessons that prove we are more adaptable than we think we are. It empowers readers to look beyond their first response, sharing scientific evidence that often it is our mindset—not our circumstances—that matters most.
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I read children's picture books and travel narratives and creative nonfiction and literary fiction and Books About Happiness.
Yes, Books About Happiness. It's one of my favorite genres.
I've read Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman and Happiness: Lessons from a New Science by Richard Leyman and Gretchen Rubin's Happiness Project and Happier at Home and the Dalai Lama's The Art of Happiness and Sonja Lyubomirsky's earlier book, The How of Happiness.
How could I pass up Lyubomirsky's new book, The Myths of Happiness?
Of course I couldn't.
And I am happy to report that reading it was four hours happily spent.
Lyubomirsky's underlying theme relies on the truth of two quotes: Pasteur reminds us, “Chance favors the prepared mind,” and Socrates notes, “He who is not contented with what he has, Would not be contented with what he would like to have.”
Chapter by chapter, Lyubomirsky examines all the myths of happiness we Americans hide in our hearts—all the I'll Be Happy When's and all the I Can't Be Happy If's—and explodes them, using a lovely combination of scientific research and case studies.
Turns out, we are much more resilient than we think we are. We keep walking through great traumas with scarcely more than a few months' dip in happiness. We keep walking through great good fortune with scarcely more than a few months' rise in happiness.
Interesting. Unexpected. Good to know.
