happiness

Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill
$14.99
Even just reading this book is enough to make you want to live your life in a more positive way for it's own sake. I'm only 16 years of age, but the sense of benevolence I am already wanting to develop is very encouraging. This book is 1337

The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want
$15.00
I found this to be a very well written and thorough book.

If you're looking for a lightweight self-help book this is probably not for you. That said, it is not an academic work either. It has found a perfect ground somewhere in between the two, and as such should appeal to any intelligent reader who is interested in the subject.

The book is split into two major parts. The first is a broader look at the topic and some of the key concepts. The second major part is about specific techniques that can be utilized.

Both parts are well structured and highly informative and it is highly unlikely that you will get to the end of the book and not had one or two light-bulb moments of inspiration.

Highly recommended.

Deepak Chopra: The Happiness Prescription
$24.98
Deepak Chopra believes that if you are happy you will naturally be healthier and more successful. He explains how we have the happiness formula backwards. Wealth does not bring happiness but being happy might bring wealth. This is probably just because you will have a more positive outlook on life.

In this DVD, Deepak Chopra explores meditation, cognitive therapy, pleasure, existential suffering, peace, harmony, good relationships, money, choices we make daily, helping humanity, dreams for the world, death, love and compassion. He explains how we should live in the present, get rid of toxic emotions and replace fear with love.

The audience is very responsive and there are quite a few times Deepak Chopra has everyone laughing. They do become really quiet when he starts discussing death.

While most of this DVD is about Buddhist teachings there is one mention of Jesus Christ. I found that this DVD could be enjoyed by anyone of any religion. The only thing I found myself questioning was Deepak's advice to a young boy to tell people he was "universal" when describing how he felt about religion. While you can take something good from most religions and personally apply it to your life I think it would be very difficult to say believe in a religion that worships idols and worship the one true God. It would seem that you would always be in conflict in such a case.

Deepak appears in this video wearing his trademark red sparkly glasses. He is very nicely dressed with a matching red shirt and red shoes. At first the glasses were a bit distracting but he is an excellent storyteller and soon I was enjoying his tales from India. I felt that watching this DVD confirmed some of my beliefs like that happiness comes from making other people happy and that you are happier when you have a sense of accomplishment.

~The Rebecca Review

The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom
$16.95
This is the ONLY book I have read twice (and will definitely read again). Why? Because everything in it is so interesting, practical and useful. Not only that, the writing is top-notch. (I mean look at the reviews - as of my writing this - there is not one single 0 star review. I haven't seen any book on Amazon with that kind of record.)

Haidt begins with this excellent metaphor, "Modern theories about rational choice and information processing don't adequately explain weakness of the will. The older metaphors about controlling animals work beautifully. The image that I came up with for myself, as I marveled at my weakness, was that I was a rider on the back of an elephant. I'm holding the reins in my hands, and by pulling one way or the other I can tell the elephant to turn, to stop, or to go. I can direct things, but only when the elephant doesn't have desires of his own. When the elephant really wants to do something, I'm no match for him." From here Haidt goes on to talk about the Divided Self: Mind vs. Body, Left vs. Right, New vs. Old and Controlled vs. Automatic. This is as good an introduction to psychology as I have ever come upon. Haidt concludes with this, "If you listen closely to moral arguments, you can sometimes hear something surprising: that it is really the elephant holding the reins, guiding the rider. It is the elephant who decides what is good or bad, beautiful or ugly. Gut feelings, intuitions, and snap judgments happen constantly and automatically...but only the rider can string sentences together and create arguments to give to other people." Just further along in the book Haidt discusses some very interesting concepts: naive realism, problem of evil, dualism, monism, Manichaeanism, and the myth of pure evil amongst others. All of this sets up the discussions on Happiness that comes starting in about Chapter 5.

The remainder of the book includes a lot of information that comes from the research of Marting Seligman (author of Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment, Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life & The Optimistic Child: A Proven Program to Safeguard Children Against Depression and BuildLifelong Resilience). It's a great fusion of wisdom, research and ideas. I can't recommend this book enough; it's invariably the first book I recommend to people. "To understand ourselves fully we must study all three levels - physical, psychological, and sociocultural...Here is one of most profound ideas to come from the ongoing synthesis: People gain a sense of meaning when their lives cohere across the three levels of their existence."

I am recommending the following books because they are similar to The Happiness Hypothesis in many ways and you may like them if you liked this: Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions, The Mind of the Market: How Biology and Psychology Shape Our Economic Lives (or any book by Micheal Shermer), Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (or any book by Malcolm Gladwell), Why We Make Mistakes: How We Look Without Seeing, Forget Things in Seconds, and Are All Pretty Sure We Are Way Above Average, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (P.S.), Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious or How We Decide.