Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment

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happinessresearch, February 23, 2009 (view all comments by happinessresearch)
Authentic Happiness

Written by the former president of the American Psychological Association, and author of over a dozen books including the popular "Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life", this title is one of the better selling happiness books out there.

First off, this book was a little harder read for me than most happiness books- I have the paperback book which has small print, perhaps that was a factor. I'm also partial to shorter, just-give-me-the-facts happiness books, such as "Finding Happiness in a Frustrating World"- so that might also explain why I plodded my way through pages at times. But having said that, there's IS lot of gems in here for happiness searchers like myself.

While this is the kind of book I could write a really long review about, I think I'll just discuss what I consider to be the best bits for those looking for ways to become happier- which I think is why most people would buy this book. Soooo.....

1) the book provides the reader with a "happiness formula", which is H = S + C + V. This works out to happiness = your genetic Set point + intervening Circumstances + factors under you Voluntary control. So, since your can't do much about changing your genetics, when it comes to becoming happier, that leaves room for improvement in the areas of circumstances and voluntary activities.

2) the book suggests that if you want to lastingly raise your level of happiness by changing the external circumstances of your life, you should: live in a wealthy democracy, get married, avoid negative events and negative emotion, acquire a rich social network, and get religion. Conversely, you needn't bother to do the following: make more money, stay healthy, get as much education as possible, or try to change your race or move to a sunnier climate. However even if you could alter all of these things, it would not do much for you as this stuff accounts for only a small part of your happiness. On to Voluntary efforts...

3) This is where most of the book spends a substantial part of its efforts showing you how to be happier, and there's a lot of "meat" to sink your teeth into, with sections on how to obtain more satisfaction with your past, what consitutes happiness about the future, and happiness in the present. Also, the book spend much time talking about how happiness can be cultivated by identifying and nurturing our traits, such as humor, optimism, generosity or kindness.

Readers who have read other happiness books, such as those by Jim Johnson or Sonja Lyubomirsky, will already be well familiar with the idea that the best way to increase your happiness is through intentional or voluntary activities. It makes a lot of sense, as you can't change your genetics, and circumstances are either out of your control, or make very little contributions to your happiness. Like this book, I agree that using intentional activities is the route to go when it comes to raising lasting happiness levels- and this book will help you out with that a lot. Happy trails!

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stoodentz83, December 26, 2006 (view all comments by stoodentz83)
almost all of common peoples think that key word "emotion" and "stress" is defined as "bad" conditon, "bad" mood, and other negative feelings. so, when peoples hear about those key words, the will think it's not happy. the condition which full of tears and depressed individu.

so they think that psychology only talk about "sadness", "tears", and others negative emotion.how can we happy is we just read about sad and sad and sad...?so psychology is not ideal for happy people?

this book helps us to open our eyes, and make our narrow minded being wider.

psychology is NOT all about sad, tears,..etc. but psychology also talk about happiness, smiling, laughing, excitement, etc...

emotion is not only negative feeling, but also positive emotion. stress is not always bad. there's distress and eustress.cool !!

so let's learn about positive psychology with Martin Seligman. and be optimist in this life ..!

by: A.Zahra
Faculty Of Psychology
Gadjah Mada University
DIY - Indonesia

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Product Details

ISBN:

9780743222983

Author:

Seligman, Martin

Publisher:

Free Press

Author:

Seligman, Martin E. P.

Subject:

Emotions

Subject:

Cognitive Psychology

Subject:

Personal Growth - Happiness

Subject:

General Psychology & Psychiatry

Subject:

Self-Help : General

Copyright:

2004

Edition Description:

B102

Publication Date:

January 2002

Binding:

TRADE PAPER

Grade Level:

General/trade

Language:

English

Pages:

336

Dimensions:

8.44 x 5.5 in 10.325 oz