Happy: Why More or Less Everything Is Absolutely Fine

Excellent book. Highly recommend. So much of it rang true and so different from some motivational self help book that only sets one up for disappointment. Loved the references to stoicism. It has made me want to read up more on stoic philosophy.

This book is based on Ancient Greek and Roman philosophies, specifically Stoicism and Epicureanism. It also combines that philosophy with modern psychotherapy techniques to give us how to change our thought process to make ourselves a little bit happier. The ideas in the book are remarkably similar to how my therapy progressed over two years. It also simply states that happiness is not a magic pill, but requires conscious effort. But, I am speaking from experience, it is well worth the effort though. It is not about ecstasy-like happiness, but more content-like happiness and which requires some effort from individual's part too.

'Happy' discuss a wide range of topics from religion, virtue , death and most importantly but obviously our quest of happiness and what it means to be really 'happy'? The beauty is how it weaves together all its ends from the author's experiences, ancient stoic wisdom, medical science references and studies.

Beautiful and so much of wisdom and insights!

Best book for reseting your mind and to always feel happy great work

This is a terrrrific book. I haven't quite finished it yet, but I've already been boring friends with recommendations to buy and read it. Essentially it is a reworking of the Stoic philosophy as contained in, for example, the letters and dialogues of Seneca and the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, but it is much, much more than a re-hash of other people's work or a string of quotations. Derren Brown has really thought about the topics on which he writes, and really got a grip on the concepts and ideas. He is therefore able to start you on a personal journey of discovery and guide you on the way. He manages never to be superior or condescending about his understanding, but clarifies and makes relevant to today a system of philosophy which not only underpins Christian theology, as he clearly shows despite his own avowed atheism, but has influenced the development of thinking about life in general for more than two thousand years.When (long ago!) I studied philosophy as part of my degree course, I enjoyed Logic, which was something I could apply in my daily life, but I found Ethics, or Moral Philosophy, quite pointless. It did not at all refer to The Good Life, or teach us lessons on how to live and die well, but focused on dreadfully dry and, as I saw it, entirely irrelevant nit-picking discussions on precisely what was meant by individual words or phrases. I could never see what it had to do with ethics! Derren takes us back to the original purpose of philosophy, and the latter half of the book is precisely on the things which occupied the attention of the ancient philosophers but were subsequently ignored in favour of academic definitions and in-fighting. He shows us how to cope with failure (and success), how to handle adversity, how to deal with the everyday slights and difficulties of social relationships, how to live well, how to view death - both our own inevitable ends and those of our friends and relatives - with equanimity, how to cope with bereavement, how to, well, deal with everything really. That is what philosophy used to be about, and that is what it ought to be about still, except for the scholars in their ivory towers.And I haven't yet even touched upon some important elements he deals with - the pernicious teaching, for example, of the self-help gurus, the clowns who claim that anyone can get anything (and everything) by wishing for it strongly enough, as though the universe were a sort of all-encompassing Amazon stocked with stuff you think you want, only free of any cost. Sure, only idiots believe that anyway, and they won't read this book because it doesn't pander to their hopes and aspirations, though they really ought and need to. Derren is rightly scathing about those who take money from the vulnerable by peddling such nonsense. This is good knock-about entertaining stuff, with plenty of examples to make the points, and the folly, crystal clear.Despite this last comment, don't expect an easy read. Some of the concepts and arguments are hard to grasp, and some sentences need to be read several times to be understood. And yet, the book is so well-balanced, and so reasonable, that I for one never flagged, and never contemplated not reading on. Most of us will find significant benefit from doing so, and I venture to say that nobody will be the worse, or fail to find something in it from which they can learn a lesson or an approach to life that will not be of genuine value.

I bought this based on it's reviews but I think I must have bought the wrong book. Waay to long and certainly not written for the layman. Extremely repetitive and often contradictory. Philosophy by it's very nature requires deep thought and this book is DEEP. In his book Derren Brown attempts to discover what happiness is and how to obtain it. We are introduced to some of the greatest thinkers on the subject. Descartes, Kant, Socrates, Plato. etc. They all had their own thoughts, beliefs and opinions on the subject and are more than happy to share them with us poor miserable folk. But at the end of the day that's all they really are. Opinions. None of them, no matter how intelligent, have the monopoly on the truth regarding how to find happiness, as if happiness is something we had and managed to lose at some point in time. They all seem to smug and pleased with themselves for my liking. "ooh look at me aren't I clever". No you're not. Happiness or for that matter, any other human emotion cannot be located using some long winded ego based formula. There is no formula. It also concerns me that he has obviously never fully studied the many peer reviewed studies regarding NDE's and the like. If he had he would not so readily dismiss them. It is lazy an unscientific to simply ignore the evidence, and there is plenty of evidence for the existence of an afterlife. Do your research. Read the many papers and studies that document the near death experiences and the conclusions that arise from them. Many highly regarded scientists and academics now say the evidence is overwhelming. Derren discusses mortality and how we should deal with our impending deaths. This is where he truly struggles by trying to put an almost positive spin on it. Apparently, because we have no recollection of a time before we were born and by virtue would, at that time, have nothing to worry about, we should approach death in the same way. We're not going to be here so why worry? Oh, OK that's all sorted then? And the analogies he uses are laughable. I do agree with Derren when he talks about how outside influences that begin from the moment we are born impact on our emotional development. Negativity seeks to control us and our ability to think freely where as positivity helps to free us from these controls and allows us to think for ourselves. We have all met or worked alongside moodhoovers. Colleagues who's negativity sucks the positivity and cheerfulness out of us. Hopefully we have also had the good fortune to know many more who radiate an altogether different persona. Positivity rubs off on others. It's not rocket science. It's not some magic formula we need to search for. This and other books professing to have the answers for obtaining a happy life are unnecessary. Surround yourself with happy, positive, compassionate people and you to will eventually be happy, positive and compassionate. You do not need to read this book. It will NOT have the answers and will most certainly not make you happy

This book is a lesson, no a series of lessons, no an overarching lesson in the foolishness of assumptions covering a superb (series of lessons) oversight of a few thousand years of Western Philosophy with an emphasis on the areas concerning our place, as individuals, in the world but without any insistence on a single "way" such as Stoicism which is a core theme that does not mean what you think it means.I might be telling you what you already knew: we should always be philosophical about the meanings of philosophies and this book is not rigid about those meanings but rather offers easy interpretations with a modern slant to address the changes in reality since the Greeks and Romans put chalk to slate.This came as a surprise to me because I made an assumption about the author and his TV life as an illusionist. Derren Brown is a complicated human, he has an education, he has a life beyond the public persona with which he earns his living and I should know better than to assume otherwise. However it was quite useful that I started the text with that sneering expectation (no, I don't know why I was interested) I was hooked rapidly by some obvious truths (obvious in hindsight) and soon realised I was reading a serious thesis proposed by an intellectual mind and not a magician's trick of positive thinking: quite the opposite in fact.I have already recommended this to several others and even gifted a copy to one who might need the insights it offers. It contains several life lessons and plenty of aid for the troubled mind. It should be read by the curious and the troubled for support, for help, for understanding and for fun.

A Stoic guide to self-helpHappy takes a look at the ancient world’s most zen philosophers – the Stoics – and asks what thinkers like Epicurus, Seneca and Marcus Aurelius can teach us about happiness. The answer according to Derren Brown? A great deal. Packed with insights into the robust and rational outlooks of these Greek and Roman sages, these blinks illuminate a vital chapter in the history of Western philosophy while showing us how we can lead better, more fulfilling lives today.Derren Brown is a writer and television presenter best known for his 2000 series Mind Control, a fascinating and occasionally unnerving exploration of psychological manipulation. Brown is also the author of Tricks of the Mind and Confessions of a Conjurer.This was one of the best books I've read in a long time. I’d award it 6* if I could.Some of my notes:The happiest among us are those who have learned to stop worrying about the things they can’t control.You can’t buy your way to happiness; you can keep a lid on your temper; Twitter and Facebook make us miserable.Stoicism builds on the insights of Epicureanism, and it can help us live more happily in a consumerist age.Stoics, as the creed’s followers are known, believe that the key to happiness is accepting life as it is rather than pursuing new pleasures or trying to avoid inevitable hardships.Happiness isn’t dependent on material goods – what really matters is how we feel about possessing or lacking certain things. Put differently, unrealistic ideas about what we need and deserve make us miserable. True happiness comes from accepting what we already have or can reasonably expect to acquire over the course of our lives.Stoics argue that you can’t change the world around you, but you can change how you react to it.The cornerstone of Aurelius’ Stoicism was a theory of human emotions. According to the philosophical emperor, emotions are anything but permanent and are constantly changing in reaction to external events.The cause of those sudden turnarounds aren’t objective facts “out there” in the world but the subjective stories we tell ourselves about our experiences.External events and other people don’t control our emotional reactions – we do.You can’t change the past, and dwelling on it makes you miserable. But it doesn’t have to be this way.Learning to let go of the things you can’t control is a liberating experience.Life is unpredictable. Like a ship on the high seas, we’re rocked by the winds and waves of fortune. Accepting that is hard, and plenty of folks can’t. They become obsessed with the idea of exercising control over every last detail of their lives as well as those around them. Stoics might sympathize with that urge but they ultimately reject it.There are only two things we can control – our thoughts and our actions. Everything else is out of our hands. We can’t change our fate or influence what other people say and do.Next time you find yourself confronted with a problem, ask yourself into which category it falls. If it concerns your thoughts and actions, you can try to change it; if it concerns anything else, accept that it’s beyond your control and move on.Focusing on your performance is a better use of time than obsessing over outcomes.In most situations, we only have limited control over outcomes.Take a leaf out of American actor Bryan Cranston’s book. As he put it in his speech at the 2012 Academy Awards, the only part of an audition actors can control is their performance. If you give it your all, create a strong character and deliver your lines as convincingly as you can, you can be rightly proud of your work even if you fail to land the part. And that pretty much hits the Stoical nail on the head: the only outcome in your hands is how well you play your part.

Didn’t make me ‘happy’ but I bet raking in the money made him feel overjoyed!Not the enjoyable read I was expecting from someone I’ve admired for being so ‘down to earth’I’m feeling quite depressed now because I could have got a takeaway with the money spent on this book.Cheers Derren!