Everyone says they want to be happy. But that's much more easily said
than done. What does being happy actually mean? And how do you even know
when you feel it? Across the millennia, philosophers have thought long
and hard about happiness. They have defined it in many different ways
and come up with myriad strategies for living the good life. Drawing on
this vast body of work, in Happy Derren Brown explores changing
concepts of happiness--from the surprisingly modern wisdom of the Stoics
and Epicureans in classical times right up until today, when the
self-help industry has attempted to claim happiness as its own. He shows
how many of self-help's suggested routes to happiness and success--such
as positive thinking, self-belief and setting goals--can be disastrous
to follow and, indeed, actually cause anxiety. This brilliant, candid
and deeply entertaining book exposes the flaws in these ways of
thinking, and in return poses challenging but stimulating questions
about how we choose to live and the way we think about death. Happy
aims to reclaim happiness and to enable us to appreciate the good things
in life, in all their transient glory. By taking control of the stories
we tell ourselves, by remembering that "everything's fine" even when it
might not feel that way, we can allow ourselves to flourish and to live
more happily.
