Happiness Is Overrated begins with an historical overview of the development of the concept of 'happiness' from Plato to contemporary writers, highlighting the best scholarship emerging from philosophy, psychology, and sociology. Belliotti includes practical advice on how to attain happiness and addresses issues centered on the meaning of life. Happiness, he argues, is not the greatest personal good, or even a great good in itself. In fact, sometimes happiness isn't a good at all. If we pursue worthwhile, exemplary lives and find happiness along the way, then we are lucky. If we don't, then we can take pride and derive satisfaction from a life well lived. Ultimately, the greatest personal good is realized in leading a robustly meaningful, valuable life.
Americans are addicted to happiness. When we're not popping pills, we leaf through scientific studies that take for granted our quest for happiness, or read self-help books by everyone from armchair philosophers and clinical psychologists to the Dalai Lama on how to achieve a trouble-free life: Stumbling on Happiness; Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment; The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living. The titles themselves draw a stark portrait of the war on melancholy. More than any other generation, Americans of today believe in the transformative power of positive thinking. But who says we're supposed to be happy? Where does it say that in the Bible, or in the Constitution? In Against Happiness, the scholar Eric G. Wilson argues that melancholia is necessary to any thriving culture, that it is the muse of great literature, painting, music, and innovation—and that it is the force underlying original insights. Francisco Goya, Emily Dickinson, Marcel Proust, and Abraham Lincoln were all confirmed melancholics. So enough Prozac-ing of our brains. Let's embrace our depressive sides as the wellspring of creativity. What most people take for contentment, Wilson argues, is living death, and what the majority takes for depression is a vital force. In Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy, Wilson suggests it would be better to relish the blues that make humans people.
Utilizing sophisticated methodology and three decades of research by the world's leading expert on happiness, Happiness challenges the present thinking of the causes and consequences of happiness and redefines our modern notions of happiness. shares the results of three decades of research on our notions of happiness covers the most important advances in our understanding of happiness offers readers unparalleled access to the world's leading experts on happiness provides "real world" examples that will resonate with general readers as well as scholars Winner of the 2008 PSP Prose Award for Excellence in Psychology, Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division of the Association of American Publishers
How Thinking is Overrated Find the happiness of emptiness. Few things scare us more than inner emptiness. The presumed emptiness of dementia or a coma scares us so much that we even sign living wills to avoid these states. Yet as Zen masters have long known, inner emptiness can also be productive and useful. We can reach this state through meditation, concentration, music, or even during sex. In fact, our brain loves emptiness—it makes us happy. Leading brain researcher Niels Birbaumer investigates the pleasure in emptiness and how we can take advantage of it. He explains how to overcome the evolutionary attentiveness of your brain and take a break from thinking—a skill that’s more important than ever in an increasingly frantic world. NIELS BIRBAUMER is a psychologist and neurobiologist. He is a leading figure in the development of brain–computer interfaces, a field he has researched for 40 years, with a focus on treating brain disturbances. He has been awarded numerous international honours and prizes, including the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize and the Albert Einstein World Award of Science. JÖRG ZITTLAU is a freelance journalist and writes about science, psychology and philosophy, among other topics. He is also the author of several bestsellers.
An Introduction to Modern CBT provides an easily accessible introduction to modern theoretical cognitive behavioral therapy models. The text outlines the different techniques, their success in improving specific psychiatric disorders, and important new developments in the field. • Provides an easy-to-read introduction into modern Cognitive Behavioral Therapy approaches with specific case examples and hands-on treatment techniques • Discusses the theoretical models of CBT, outlines the different techniques that have been shown to be successful in improving specific psychiatric disorders, and describes important new developments in the field • Offers useful guidance for therapists in training and is an invaluable reference tool for experienced clinicians
This stunning collection of stories demonstrates once again why Alice Munro is celebrated as a pre-eminent master of the short story. While some of the stories are traditional, set in “Alice Munro Country” in Ontario or in B.C., dealing with ordinary women’s lives, others have a new, sharper edge. They involve child murders, strange sex, and a terrifying home invasion. By way of astonishing variety, the title story, set in Victorian Europe, follows the last journey from France to Sweden of a famous Russian mathematician. This daring, superb collection proves that Alice Munro will always surprise you.
Don’t worry, be happy....find out how! What is happiness? And how can we achieve it? The Rough Guide to Happiness is the ultimate ‘how to be happy’ handbook. Discover how to effectively improve your work/life balance, increase self-esteem, and nourish your mind and body while nurturing relationships with the ones you love. The Rough Guide to Happiness will help you navigate your way through all parts of modern day life, offering a practical and effective range of happiness-building techniques. Rely on realistic suggestions from Dr Nick Baylis, a practising therapist and former Dr Feelgood for The Times Saturday Magazine, who has worked with everyone from young offenders to stressed airline pilots! Are some people genetically predisposed to be happier than others? Can money or technology make us happy? The Rough Guide to Happiness explores all these questions and more, going beyond facile tips to offer a deeper understanding of what happiness is with easy solutions for you to implement in your daily life. Drawing on the best ideas from every field, from Hypnosis and Energy Therapy to Positive Psychology and Buddhism, The Rough Guide to Happiness provides a wealth of inspiring insights on how to relieve stress and achieve lasting contentment. Make the Most of Your Time on Earth with The Rough Guide to Happiness.
Fortune magazine editor Geoff Colvin offers new evidence that top performers in any field are not determined by their inborn talents. Greatness, he argues, does not come from DNA but from practice and perseverance honed over decades. The key to this is how successful people practice, how the results of practice are analysed and how they learn from their mistakes. This new mindset will change the way reader's think about their jobs and careers, and will inspire them to achieve more in all they do.
"It can be fashionable to talk about the poor but not as fashionable to talk to the poor. It may be popular to talk about justice and still not know any victims of injustice. But we will never make poverty history until we make poverty personal. Eugene Cho shatters all our hipster coffee-shop talk of justice and dares you to dive into the trenches and do something real with your life." Shane Claiborne, author, activist, and friend of Eugene Cho "A gutsy and gritty exposé on the motives of a generation in love with the idea of saving the world, Overrated by Eugene Cho is a necessary exercise for all who desire to truly be a part of the change God wants to bring to humanity. This book is real, personal, necessary, and a must-read, so we can all continue on the path toward justice for all." Louie Giglio, Passion City Church/Passion Conferences "When you're done talking about the gospel and are ready for your walking to be the gospel: Start here. I needed this book." Ann Voskamp, author of the New York Times bestseller One Thousand Gifts Many people today talk about justice, but are they living justly? They want to change the world, but are they being changed themselves? Eugene Cho has a confession: "I like to talk about changing the world but I don't really like to do what it takes." If this is true of the man who founded the One Day's Wages global antipoverty movement, then what must it take to act on one's ideals? Cho does not doubt the sincerity of those who want to change the world. But he fears that today's wealth of resources and opportunities could be creating "the most overrated generation in history. We have access to so much but end up doing so little." He came to see that he, too, was overrated. As Christians, Cho writes, "our calling is not simply to change the world but to be changed ourselves." In Overrated, Cho shows that it is possible to move from talk to action.
