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The last book I read, Al Gore’s “Assault on Reason,” made me very, very sad.
I needed a pick-me-up, a chaser. A book to make me happy – no, not just happy. Happier.
Tal Ben-Shahar’s “Happier” is hard to ignore. There it is on the new-releases table. There it is on “The Daily Show,” NPR, Fox News. It’s a talker.
But is it any good?
The premise is enticing: Ben-Shahar offered a positive psychology course at Harvard in 2002. Eight students enrolled and two dropped out. But word quickly spread through campus that this class was life-changing. Today he regularly lectures to classes of 1,400 students, relying largely on the principles found in “Happier.”
If you’ve ever wanted to take a class at Harvard, but found yourself stymied by pesky logistics (money, geography, that whole admissions thing), here’s your chance.
Follow along on my five-day journey toward The Ultimate Currency (that’s Harvard-speak for happiness), as guided by the principles in Ben-Shahar’s book “Happier.”
TAKING 5 DAYS TO WORK TOWARD THE GOAL OF HAPPINESS
Day 1: Chapters 1-4
Turns out there’s going to be homework. Ben-Shahar warns us early on that he doesn’t believe in “shortcuts to meaningful change.”
“If this book is to have a real impact on your life, you have to treat it as a workbook,” he writes in the preface. That means taking time to reflect on the numerous “Time-Ins” peppered throughout the text and completing the exercises at the end of each chapter.
My first reaction, of course, is to wonder how many assignments I actually have to do. (Possible glimpse into why I never made it to Harvard.) Then I remember that I’m not doing this for a grade. I’m doing it for my own psychological enrichment. Fine, I’ll do the homework.
I learn the following:
— Happiness eludes three archetypes: hedonists, who enjoy the present without considering the future; rat racers, who suffer now in the hopes of future happiness; and nihilists, who have lost all joy for the present or future. “Happiness archetypes,” of course, find a way to strive for happiness now and in the future. Once you figure out which archetype you are (using the Time-Ins), you can learn to stop acting so much like yourself and embark on your journey to enlightenment.
— To be truly happy, you need to have both pleasure and meaning in your life. “Identifying the right activity, and then the right quantity for each activity, leads to the highest quality of life.” In other words, find a job you like, but don’t ignore your family once you land it. Or jump feet-first into stay-at-home-parenting, but don’t ignore your friends and hobbies in the process. And so on.
— Money, duh, can’t buy happiness. Hardly a new theme, and the book devotes a little too much time to it, in my opinion. Then again, maybe it’s a message that Harvard students need to be reminded of, with their jam-packed resumes and lucrative internships and mounting student loans.
Helpful exercises: Write down at least five things for which you’re grateful each day. Come up with six or more endings to some of the following sentence stems: “If I bring 5 percent more awareness to my life …” “If I take more responsibility for fulfilling my wants …” “If I were willing to say yes when I want to say yes and no when I want to say no …”
Day 2: Chapters 5-7
I’m frankly a bit sick of myself and my search for happiness today. I feel ashamed and pointless as I read about psychologist Philip Brickman and his study that found lottery winners return to their original happiness levels within a month of striking it rich.
Still, I forge through the next three chapters and find plenty that I have either never thought about or need to be reminded of frequently. One section talks about the importance of setting and meeting your own goals. A person should choose goals that “stem from a desire to express part of herself rather than from the need to impress others. We pursue these goals not because others think we should or because we feel obligated to but because we really want to – because we find them significant and enjoyable.”
Eye opener: In writing about the courage it takes to abandon a comfort zone, especially at work, Ben-Shahar writes the following: “Had we found ourselves in a job that did not afford us our basic material needs, we would do everything in our power to change our predicament. So why do we set lower standards for ourselves when the ultimate currency – when our own happiness – is at stake?”
Day 3: Chapter 8
I’m starting to see why this is such a hit in college. “If, then, there are actual reasons for loving someone, if there are certain conditions under which we fall in love,” Ben-Shahar writes, “can there be such a thing as unconditional love? Or is the idea of unconditional love fundamentally unreasonable?”
I loved that stuff in college. Sitting around a smoke-filled room at 3 a.m. with a lot of alcohol – but little life experience – clouding my righteous brain. Now it comes off a tad indulgent but raises some interesting points. And what would a happiness book be if it didn’t address relationships?
How to improve yours: Write a gratitude letter to a loved one – a romantic partner, a close friend, a family member. More sentence completion: “To be a better partner …” “If I take more responsibility for fulfilling my desires …” “Being in love means …”
Day 4: Chapters 9-15
The remaining seven chapters are “Meditations on Happiness.” They’re also the strongest in the book. Highlights:
— This quote from Chapter 9: “Contributing to other people’s happiness provides us with meaning and pleasure, which is why helping others is one of the essential components of a happy life.”
— This exercise from Chapter 13: Imagine yourself at 110 years old, offering advice to your current self. Would you tell yourself to spend more time with your family? Find a more fulfilling career? Think of this 110-year-old as your inner sage.
— This reminder from Chapter 15: “We must first accept that ’this is it’ – that all there is to life is the day-to-day, the ordinary, the details of the mosaic. We are living a happy life when we derive pleasure and meaning while spending time with our loved ones, or learning something new, or engaging in a project at work. … This is all there is to it.”
Day 5: Reflecting
I don’t know how long I’ll keep up the exercises. I doubt I’ll make time to meditate daily, as Chapter 2 recommends. But I think I’ll carry with me a lot of what I read in the book, and I get the feeling that’s all Ben-Shahar is hoping for.
“There is very little that any philosophy, psychology or self-help book can teach us that is new about attaining the ultimate currency,” he writes. “The most a book or teacher can do is to help raise our awareness, to help us become more fully in touch with what we already know.”
Besides, it’s not like I’m getting graded.