Comic Art in America by Stephen Becker
The 80/20 Manager by Richard Koch
500
Books Reviewed on Keenan’s Book Reviews
Get
Your Sh*t Together by Sarah
Knight
The How of Happiness by Sonja
Lyubomirsky
Investigating Lois Lane by Tim Hanley
It’s
Not Always Depression by
Hilary Jacobs Hendel
Late
Bloomers by Rich Karlgaard
Metering
for America by Alfred Leif
Research psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky made a study of the things that contribute to happiness. Even if you haven’t read her book, The How of Happiness, some a particular facts she introduced have been shared by many authors since, and you may have heard them. Name, people have a natural happiness set point, which accounts for half of how happy they feel. One’s life circumstances account for one-tenth of the happiness one experiences. The remaining 40 percent is the result of a person’s actions and ways of thinking.
There are some important lessons to take from this discovery.
*Do not compare your
happiness to others. Some people are naturally more or less happy than you.
Give yourself a break if you cannot sustain the ecstasy someone else seems to
have and be graceful to those who never seem to be as happy or upbeat as you
are.
*You probably do not
need to change your life circumstances to be much happier. Admittedly, someone
facing severe poverty or routine physical danger has a lot of reason to be
unhappy; better life circumstances will make a big difference for them.
However, if you live in a safe place and have enough to meet your needs,
getting more is not likely to make a significant improvement in your happiness.
*A large portion of your
happiness is under your control, and you can choose to take actions and think
in ways that make you happier.
That is, you can learn to be happier. Any learning requires
effort and commitment, but it is within your reach
Much of the book is a discussion of strategies for becoming happier that are backed by research. You do not need to try them all. You can play to your strengths and use strategies that fit your values. The book contains a test to help you identify the strategies that may be most useful to you. You can skip straight to the relevant chapters to find things you can do and get started right away, though reading the other chapters will be useful because you may discover other things in them that are fitting for you.
Lyuobomirsky’s strategies suggest there is more than one kind of happiness and more than one way to be happy. Everyone is unique, so if something that works for someone else isn’t working for you, there is still a route to happiness for you, and you might find it in this book. For myself, I’ve noticed that my perspectives and priorities have changed over the course of my life, and the amount that various things contribute to or detract from my happiness have changed as well.
If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
The Beethoven Factor by Paul
Pearsall
Happiness is a Choice by Barry
Neil Kaufman
The 100 Simple Secrets of Happy People by David
Niven
100 Ways to Happiness by Timothy
Sharp
The Relaxation Response by Herbert
Benson with Miriam Z. Klipper
Lyubomirsky, Sonja. The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want. New York: Penguin, 2007.
