Stumbling on Happiness

by: Daniel Gilbert

Published by: Vintage

Reviewed by Carrie Spellman

Contrary to what the title may have you thinking, this book is not going to tell you how to be happy. It’s not going to tell you where to find happiness. It’s not even going to tell you what happiness is. What it will tell you is how your brain perceives what we call happiness. It will attempt to explain why we all try so hard to achieve happiness. It will help you understand why what we think will make us happy is almost always completely wrong. And it will make you laugh hysterically while proving that you don’t even know your own mind!

Written by a Harvard psychologist, this is Kant and Jung, realism and humanism, and all sorts of everything, neatly packaged and bound for someone who has never taken a psychology class. The references to real experiments prove their points clearly, while making you marvel at the tests people actually come up with!

Who knew that there were people in a room trying to decide if they would be happier being insulted by an expert or watching someone else receive the insults? Just when you start to get irritated and say to yourself, “I wouldn’t think that way,” the author makes you laugh and proves to you that you would think exactly that way.

There are times when it feels like the question gets lost in the explanation, but it all gets wrapped back up together before moving on to the next point. Even when the tangent gets a little longer than usual, it’s so entertaining you can’t help but follow along to where it leads you.

A personal psychology class in a readily accessible, and highly amusing, book. That seems pretty happy to me.

This is a book I want everyone I know to read, as long as they don’t take my copy!

Armchair Interviews says: Check out “happiness” as it is explained.