Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment Author: | Language: English | ISBN:
B000RNKHKI | Format: EPUB
Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment Description
Can we really learn to be happy? Yes, we can. Each semester, nearly 1,400 students sign up for Harvard professor Tal Ben-Shahar's life-changing class "How to Get Happy". Currently it's the hottest course at Harvard, taken by 20 percent of graduates.
In Happier, Professor Ben-Shahar brings the ideas of the Ivory Tower to Main Street, distilling the lessons and exercises from his course into an audio trove of practical wisdom. Grounded in the Positive Psychology movement, based on years of researching the works of scientists, academics, and philosophers, Happier emphasizes the importance of pursuing a life of both pleasure and meaning. Lessons, exercises, and "Happiness Boosters" cover self-esteem, empathy, friendship, love, achievement, creativity, spirituality, and humor.
Questions will help listeners identify activities that will make them happier immediately, as they apply what they've learned to school, work, and personal relationships. You'll discover that happiness, not money, is the ultimate currency, that we can't be happy unless we first give ourselves permission to be human, and that happiness isn't so elusive after all.
- Audible Audio Edition
- Listening Length: 4 hours and 6 minutes
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Abridged
- Publisher: HighBridge Company
- Audible.com Release Date: May 30, 2007
- Language: English
- ASIN: B000RNKHKI
Happier is based on Tal Ben-Shahar's positive psychology primer - the most popular class at Harvard and attended by about 20% of all Harvard graduates.
Ben-Shahar wisely suggests that a better question than 'Am I happy?' is 'How can I be happier?', since this recognizes happiness to be an ongoing and lifelong process.
He positions his book in contrast to self-help guides which, because they aren't subject to the scientific method, tend to 'over-promise and under-deliver' (page xi). Findings published in academic journals, he says, have greater substance.
Part 1 seeks to define happiness and identify the components of a happy life. Here purpose plays a large role in reconciling immediate and delayed gratification, as well as meaning and pleasure.
Part 2 applies these ideas to:
* Education - suggesting a 'lovemaking model' for more enjoyable learning
* Work - happier work gives meaning and pleasure and also uses a person's strengths
* Relationships - we may need to cultivate rather than find the relationships we want.
Part 3 contains Ben-Shahar's reflections on the nature of happiness and its place in our lives.
Rather than simply surveying the research, Happier seeks to help the reader become happier by incorporating interactive elements:
* Time-ins (as opposed to time-outs), which ask the reader to apply the ideas to their own life - for example, What are the things that you really, really want to do? (page 77).
* Exercises, which include journal-writing, meditations and tasks such as reading a particular book or joining a class.
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