Antidote

Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking

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Oliver Burkeman: Antidote (2012, Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

256 pages

English language

Published 2012 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

ISBN:
978-1-4299-4760-2
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5 stars (1 review)

Exploring the dark side of the theories put forth by such icons as Norman Vincent Peale and Eckhart Tolle by looking to both ancient philosophy and current business theory, Burkeman--a feature writer for British newspaper The Guardian--offers up the counterintuitive idea that only by embracing and examining failure and loss and unhappiness will we become free of it.

15 editions

Review of 'The antidote' on 'Storygraph'

5 stars

God bless the author and his bemused introduction to a motivation seminar. He is consistently open to different viewpoints without being dogmatic or cynical, yet even he has a breaking point, and this is it. The rest of the book is a reflection of sorts on the wisdom of the ancients -- stoics and Buddhists gets a look in, as does Tolle, but he tries his best to range as far a field as possible, even going to a notoriously dangerous part of Africa to find out why the people there are just as happy with nothing as fat, privileged westerners.

I like this book unreservedly, which is unusual. I wish he had written a bit more about some of the contradictions involved (certainly Watts and the Xen a enter have some skeletons in their closets) but overall this is a solid piece of work.

Subjects

  • Happiness
  • Self-actualization (psychology)