Tal Ben-Shahar

Book extracts: Blinkist: Happiness
Just to get this right up front. The following review is based on the Blinkist summary of the book and the review should be considered in that light. Obviously, one is going to miss a lot when it’s summarised in a few pages. But in some situations I’ve previously read the full book and have been able to compare it with the Blinkist summary and admit to being surprised at how well the Blinkist team have been able to summarise the book. Here are a few show more snippets from the summary of this book that particularly caught my attention:
most people consider happiness a valid life goal.........someone asks you why you’re doing something, and you answer that it makes you happy, your answer is valid in and of itself and can’t be challenged. All other responses, whether they’re related to fame, money, power, respect or any number of other things, are secondary to happiness, which is the ultimate goal. If you were to say that you were doing something for money, someone might ask, “Why do you need money?”.....These aims are merely steps on the path to happiness.
David Hume, the eighteenth-century British philosopher, said that all human pursuits from the arts to science to law exist solely to enable people to achieve happiness. Not just that, but happiness and success are also deeply intertwined. Research on well-being conducted by psychologists Sonja Lyubomirsky, Ed Diener and Laura King has even found that happy people do better in different areas of life and work like relationships, health and finance.
So, happiness is essential, but what exactly is it?.....It stems from two factors: letting in positive emotions and seeing life as purposeful. Or to put it differently, pleasure and meaning. Pleasure is the emotion that underlies motivation and therefore the pursuit of happiness...The word “emotion” is a combination of the prefix e-, meaning “away,” and the Latin movere, meaning “to move.”....Just consider jealousy, a powerful emotion that pushes people to do better than those around them. Or exhilaration, which makes us try things that provide a rush......Branden singles out pleasure as the most necessary aspect of a satisfactory life.....But pleasure isn’t all that’s necessary. A fulfilling life depends on integrating pleasure with meaning to find true happiness. Taking ecstasy might be an extremely pleasurable experience, but it can’t produce happiness without meaning to make it fulfilling...So to be truly happy, we must pursue experiences that not only trigger pleasurable emotions but are also meaningful and personal. No matter how pure our goals, only when they meet these criteria will they actually produce happiness....Interestingly enough, people weigh the importance of the present and the future differently, and these variations break down into four types:
1. The first group contains hedonistic people whose sole focus is on maximizing pleasure in the current moment without any regard for the future.
2. Then there are people with no interest in life whatsoever–either now or in the future. These people are nihilists.
3. The third group is composed of people who live for the future. They compete in the rat race of life, working hard and suffering in the hope of better days to come.
4. And finally, there are people who enjoy the present, understanding that their current activity will also benefit them in the future. This last group of people is the happiest, but each person is actually a mix of all four. The goal is to endeavour to be more like the fourth type.
Society tends to reward those who try to achieve happiness down the line by enduring suffering today. [That is, group 2, above].......Just take school children. They’re encouraged to struggle and work hard, no matter how miserable it makes them because earning good grades will make them happier later in life.
Instead of putting off happiness in the present to be happy in the future, set appropriate goals to make sure you can have both......To make sure that you’re advancing your purpose while making yourself happy, it’s important to set future goals that are in line with the principles of meaning and pleasure......To　find such a path it’s essential to focus on self-concordant goals. These are targets that you choose personally for yourself, not ones that are imposed by others......Try to identify both long-and short-term goals that will guide you along your path.....Say you’re set on helping animals. It’s a great calling and a long-term ambition. Once you’ve decided on this purpose, you can divide it into short-term, specific actions, like volunteering at the local animal shelter and participating in animal rights protests......Add deadlines to your short-term goals.......It might help to divide them up into three months, one year and five years, giving yourself plenty of room to build toward your long-term goal......
When learning new things, finding pleasure and meaning is the best way to feel fulfilled. For students, that means first reflecting on how happy your chosen field makes you.....Another tool to increase your overall learning success is striving for a state of flow. This concept was most famously employed by the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Flow occurs when you become so engrossed in something you love that you’re entirely immersed in the process.....But to achieve such a state you need to avoid pushing yourself to too high a level before you’re ready. By remaining at a level you can enjoy, you can let flow happen naturally.
The psychologist Amy Wrzesniewski, who discovered that people who view their jobs as their vocation see work as a reward in itself. These people care about money, but it’s not why they show up every morning. They do their jobs because they love them......Education systems and professional placement tests often fail by encouraging people to do what they’re good at, not what moves them......To overcome these societal pressures and identify your calling, try using the Meaning, Pleasure and Strength Test or MPS. Begin by writing three lists:
1. First, answer the question, what do I find meaningful? You might answer: writing, music, working with kids, solving problems.
2. Second: where do I find pleasure? It could be horseback riding, reading, music and time with children.
3. And finally, ask yourself, where are my strengths? You might say empathy, problem solving and getting along with kids.
The next step is to notice the overlaps.....Then consider other areas of your life. Having added this new information to the lists, you might decide to become a music teacher.
Dedicating time to deep social relationships will boost your long-term happiness....Ed Diener and Martin Seligman,... looked at the differences between “very happy people” and those who were less satisfied. The only significant difference between the groups was that those who saw their lives as happier had strong circles of family, friends and/or romantic partners. Friends are great for that, but stable and fulfilling romantic relationships also have a profound impact on happiness levels. While researching human well-being, the psychology professor David Myers found that a deep, caring and intimate lifelong relationship is one of the best predictors of happiness.
The key message in this book: Happiness is the greatest human goal, and anyone can find it by identifying what really matters in their life. Such clarity can be used to create a life that’s full of pleasure and purpose, leading you to accomplish your ultimate wishes.
My take on the book? Despite having written a Master’s thesis on desires and values, I hadn’t really considered what is happiness before. And, I think, the author teases this out quite well: that happiness combines pleasure with meaning. That is, not only do you need to feel pleasure but it needs to have some form of longer term meaning (or satisfaction) to you.
In the terms of my thesis a value would be “the besire to desire” Happiness. So the value is a second order desire that is combined with a belief about happiness. I also found the suggestions for finding your true vocation very practical and doable. Though, in modern life, to leave out economic welfare (ie money/earnings) is problematic. All very well being a fulfilled artist pursuing your vocation but if the wife and kids are living in poverty and their fulfillment is curtailed ....then I think you have an issue. And, in practice, I think many people compromise by following a career that brings in the money and pursuing their love of art etc., in their spare time as a hobby. I recall seeing some statistics that showed there were something like 2,000 professional potters in Australia but there were something like 20,000 who practiced it as a hobby and who would have liked to be full-time. And this second group supressed prices because of the volume being produced. Anyway, I liked the book and learned some new things. Five stars from me. show less

I use a benchmark for gauging the “helpfulness quotient” of self-help books. If I scribble lots of notes on the sheet that serves as my bookmark, I know that it was worth my time. After finishing Ben-Shahar’s work, I had nearly 50 annotations. By comparison, I typically make a couple dozen notes. Suffice it to say that “Choose the Life You Want” was an excellent investment of time. I absolutely loved the author’s format. Each life-choice highlighted starts with a user-friendly show more nugget that starts with a thought-provoking quote and is typically summed up in a half-page. Ben-Shahar then offers a case study, anecdote or personal experience that illustrates the principle. He skillfully weaves in fables, idioms and psychological studies. This is the perfect book to have on a coffee table or nightstand for mini reading sessions that span 10 or 15 minutes. The book isn’t flawless. Three-quarters of the way through it, I had the nagging feeling that the author was struggling to get to the magical “101: number (I’ve never quite figured out why the number is magical). There’s definitely evidence of repetition as the book revisits themes like failure/mistakes multiple times. If I had been the editor, I would have likely urged the author to settle on the subtitle: “80 Small Choices That Will Change Your Life Forever.” But I’m nit-picking, because this book is jammed with news-you-can-use insights and reminders. In fact, this review will be among my longest, because I want to put in writing for myself some of the life-lessons. In reviewing my chicken-scratch here are 17 life-lessons that I’m going to try to remember:
-- A recipe for slaying procrastination: Practice the “five-minute takeoff.” Simply put, start doing the task you’ve been putting off, no matter how little you feel like doing it. I’ve put this tip to use three times within the past week. This one principle alone has made reading the book worthwhile!
-- Make wise use of short “happiness-boosters.” These are bite-sized activities that elevate our moods. If you’re feeling “depleted” or depressed, take that 10-minute walk or listen to your favorite music – even if it seems at the time like you should be putting your nose to the proverbial grindstone.
-- No matter how busy you are, make play part of your daily life. Play makes us more resilient, creative and healthy.
-- When you’re worrying about something, ask yourself if it’s serving a useful purpose. If it does, then take action! If not, move on. As Leo Buscaglia said, “Worry never rubs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy.
-- Savor the present. As Emily Dickinson once wrote, “Forever is composed of nows.” Also, try to find the exciting and fascinating in day-to-day routines – just as a young child might view things. “Find the novel and exciting in our routines.” And Ralph Waldo Emerson put it this way: “The invaluable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.”
-- Being obsessed with finding happiness can contribute to unhappiness.
-- Make others feel good (a theme hit upon a few times). The desire or flaunt or intelligence or ability to boost our self-esteem can come at the expense of others who might feel inferior or hurt.
-- It’s the journey that really matters in the end. Instead of obsessing about the outcome, focus as much as possible on the process of arriving at the outcome.
-- Appreciate the good in our lives, and the good grows. Keep a Gratitude Journal as a reminder of those things – sometimes even small, simple things – that contribute to a higher level of well-being.
-- Perceive hardships as fleeting/temporary. “This, too, shall pass.”
-- “Lucky” people create luck by changing their usual routines. These changes boost the likelihood that they’ll encounter meaningful opportunities.
-- 95% of our emotions are determined by how we interpret events. Be a “benefit-finder.”
-- Have a sense of humor. Business leader Jack Welch once said: “A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs. It’s jolted by every pebble in the road.” Laughter can even alleviate pain and strengthen our immune systems!
-- Don’t be afraid of failure. Embrace it and learn from it. The author reminds us that Thomas Edison held nearly 1,100 patents. He once proclaimed: “I failed my way to success.” Liberate yourself from the “tyranny of the fear of failure.”
-- We don’t grow unless we take risks. Nudge yourself beyond your comfort zones.
-- When you experience intense negative emotions (anger, jealousy, etc.), give yourself time to cool down.
-- Appreciate friends. As Francis Bacon once said, “Friendship doubles joy and cuts grief in half.” show less

Ben-Shahar's approach to perfectionism and achievement is a healthy one, supported by research, that drives home how pernicious perfectionism can be. The book takes the solid approach of contrasting perfectionism and "optimalism" (the practice of doing the best one can with what one has), and underlining how optimalism beats perfectionism on pretty much every count, *including* achievement. I'm listening to the audio version, and the reader has a good voice and is easy to listen to. The only show more problem with going audio for this book is that it's full of many useful exercises - the sort I'm used to being able to set the book down for so that I can complete them. A bit harder to do when I have to rush across the room and pause the CD! show less

I was expecting this book to be a rather bland take on a typical self-help theme, something along the lines of being providing excuses for those who are willing to put in the necessary hard work needed for excellence.

Wow. That was incorrect. Ben-Shahar starts by debunking the perfection as a goal (and perfectionism as a attitude), replacing it with the concept of "optimalism", optimizing outcomes against the constraints of reality. He does this fully and from many angles. And thus finding show more happiness outside of perfection

And then he takes the concept further linking it to deeper philosophical, emotional, and psychological concepts.

I had thought that the notion of abandoning the drive for perfection would be contradictory to my overall approach to life. Instead, I learned that the converse is true. And that has made this the most eye-opening book I've read in years.

(I should elaborate by adding that I found the audio book a little tough to digest, so I bought the 'real' book... that worked much better.) show less