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 enlarge | Author: Sonja Lyubomirsky
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
Buy New: $16.27
You Save: $9.68 (37%)
New (39) Used (14) Collectible (1) from $14.25
Rating:  49 reviews
Sales Rank: 18886
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 384
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.5
ISBN: 159420148X
Dewey Decimal Number: 158
EAN: 9781594201486
ASIN: 159420148X
Publication Date: December 27, 2007
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
 Wonderful book October 31, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I stumbled on this book by accident and I am so glad I did. It is very enlightening. Sonia is thorough in her research and has the data to back it up. I felt happy just reading it . . . I have more control over my happiness than I realized. The exercises are very useful and easy to do, nothing complicated. I would recommend this book, whether you "feel" happy or not.
 I am less happy now that I have read this book October 16, 2008
18 out of 25 found this review helpful
I am extremely disappointed with this book. I was hoping for a book that was different, that actually used solid scientific studies to support it's findings. Instead, all I got was another self-help book by someone trying to gleam a buck off someone else's insecurities. Here is my reasoning.
1. The author uses bad examples and anecdotes that don't make logical sense. One example of this is where she gives unhappy and happy people a fill in the blank word puzzle to solve in 15 seconds. Here is the actual puzzle: DU_ _, _ _SER, I_ _ _T, EM_ _ _ _ _ _ _. She said that unhappy people were more likely than happy people to fill in the blanks with "DUMB, LOSER, IDIOT, and EMBARASS," but she doesn't say what the happy people filled them in with!! I defy anyone to quickly come up with another common word to fill in I_ _ _T with!!!
2. She demonizes unhappy people. This quote quite angered me: "A completely different portrait, however, has emerged of a typical unhappy person - namely, as someone who is deflated rather than sympathetic in the face of his peers' failures and undoings." So she's basically saying that if you're unhappy, you root for your friends' failures. I was insulted by this. Yes at times I might not be as happy as I'd like to be, but I do genuinely care about my friends and family and want them to suceed! To suggest that I am an unkind and uncaring person just because I am unhappy is not a very nice thing FOR THE AUTHOR to do! Perhaps she was going through an unhappy time in her life as she was writing that part of the book!
3. She tells you what's wrong with being unhappy, but does not give you a concrete guide to actually becoming a happier person. The entire book talks about all the perks of being happy, how happy people are nicer, smarter, better looking... basically better in every way than unhappy people. It examines 12 different areas in which you could supposedly improve yourself to become happier. Yet, she does not give you a concrete guide to action in any of those chapters. The basic layout of a chapter is this: 80% of the chapter is "scientific" evidence about why you should be happy in this area (which is mostly anecdotal, and a lot is open to interpretation as we saw in point #1), and the rest is a pathetic attempt to help you achieve happiness in this area. Usually this last 20% of "help" consists of really bad advice that doesn't help at all - if you've read self help books before, you know what I mean... "write a letter of forgivness" "don't fight with other people" yadda yadda yadda. Nothing in this book is really going to help you, it will just make you feel worse about yourself that you're not one of the happy people she talks about!
4. Another thing that bothered me about this book is it's blatently unlogical layout! Some chapters have 2 or 3 strategies in them, some have 1, and it makes no sense at all why they are grouped like this. If this is supposed to be a serious scientific study, then why couldn't they take 5 minutes to set up the book in a logical way??
It really upsets me that the author has basically used science as a cover to sell exactly the same ca-ca that everybody else in the self-help field is selling. Another fairy tale, pie in the sky self help book.
The How of Happiness October 10, 2008
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
This is an excellent source for scientifically tested ways to increase one's happiness. I know of no other book of this type so well documented. I highly recommend the book
 The many paths October 8, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
This book doesn't show a way to be happy. It shows many ways to be happy, and leaves it to the reader to decide what will work best for herself. The suggestions are backed up by research, as is the author's thesis that only about half one's natural happiness level, or set point, is determined by one's genes. Life circumstances play only a small role. The rest -- about 40 percent -- is up to you. A great book when you have the blahs. I believe it could be helpful to someone recovering from grief or trauma, too.
It works, and let me add a bit.... October 5, 2008
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
I bought this book not to become happy but because it was written by my colleague Sonja Lyubomirsky; I knew her from work, found her research interesting, and wanted to find out more. The book actually did make me happier. I knew most of the material from the professional journals, but Dr. Lyubomirsky puts it together for you much better than the scattered and hard-to-read research papers do!
The interesting thing here is not so much what works as that science has found SOME classic ways of being happy do work--being grateful, forgiving, having goals, and more. Others do NOT work: notably, making money. No one misses the point that Americans are much richer than they were 60 years ago but are also considerably unhappier. Another notably unsuccessful strategy for happiness is running down other people. Many friends of mine seem to depend on this to keep themselves feeling adequate. It doesn't work. Dr. Lyubomirsky points out that emphasizing the positive is the way to go.
Working in China and with Chinese data, I ran into a delightful Chinese proverb. My favorite form goes like this: "If you would be happy for three hours, get drunk. If you would be happy for three days, roast a pig. If you would be happy for three months, get married. If you would be happy for a lifetime, plant a garden." There are other possibilities in other forms of this proverb, but the idea is clear: we habituate fast to many kinds of happiness, and they don't work for long, but others give true lifetime satisfaction.
A point made by Dr. Lyubomirsky, but maybe a bit buried in the data, is worth bringing out more strongly from my own case: All the real satisfaction and long-term pleasure in my life has come from things that were highly challenging, and thus not always fun or happy at the time. "Climbing higher mountains" is hard work and you often get rained or snowed on. I took freshman chemistry from Dr. Gary Nash, who was a legendary teacher--if you ever had him, you haven't forgotten it. I worked harder than ever before or since, hated the work, and almost flunked, but the class was a Great Experience anyway. Dr. Nash (who died tragically young--said to have literally worked himself to death) was like that. Since then I've worked terribly hard at a lot of things, and some were frustrating, but all were satisfying.
By contrast, getting drunk and eating a pig (and taking easy college courses) are fine in their place, but they provide strictly time-limited happiness.
One other scientific finding mentioned but not highlighted here: People who get along well with people--who are socially skilled and socially sensitive--do better and are much happier than others, on average. (There are many conspicuous exceptions, however.) This is a two-way street: being happy makes you nicer, other things being equal, but being socially skilled most certainly leads to a lot of good times, while being socially inept leads to a lot of major trouble and grief. The reason for not highlighting it is good, though: people can adjust and learn to be happy anyway. It may take more work.
One last matter of interest is optimism. The most robust finding in the happiness literature is that optimistic people are happier than pessimistic ones. Yes, but there is a Tao of optimism. If you are optimistic about YOURSELF, your real goals, your work, and your ability to cope with problems, you are in fine space--it helps a lot. However, if you are optimistic about the world in general, and especially about people, you may be in for a very great deal of major unhappiness. You wind up assuming you can avoid traffic tickets when speeding, or answering those emails from Nigeria, or expecting the best of American politicians, or trusting non-licensed businessmen and medical practitioners. A healthy caution in dealing with people is necessary in this world. Go with demonstrated performance. Good luck.
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