The Happiness Delusion

Download or read book The Happiness Delusion written by Gustavo Bueno and published by Pentalfa. This book was released on 2019-11-26 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Challenging the received wisdom surrounding the term “happiness”, the Spanish philosopher Gustavo Bueno (1924-2016) sets his critical eye on the mass of literature bought and sold on highly dubious assumptions. With his trademark erudition and precision, Bueno breaks down the ignorance feeding into these assumptions, laying out a classification of the incompatible and often unconscious models in play. In doing so, he deploys his system of philosophy - philosophical materialism - to comprehensively shred the Western canon, history and science to lay the foundations for a much better informed understanding of “happiness”. This translation brings to an English-language audience the first book-length translation of the work of one of Spain’s leading philosophers over the last 50 years, one whose system of philosophy has influenced countless thinkers in Spain and abroad.

Download or read book Useful Delusions: The Power and Paradox of the Self-Deceiving Brain written by Shankar Vedantam and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2021-03-02 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Behavioral Scientist Notable Book of 2021 A Next Big Idea Club Best Nonfiction of 2021 From the New York Times best-selling author and host of Hidden Brain comes a thought-provoking look at the role of self-deception in human flourishing. Self-deception does terrible harm to us, to our communities, and to the planet. But if it is so bad for us, why is it ubiquitous? In Useful Delusions, Shankar Vedantam and Bill Mesler argue that, paradoxically, self-deception can also play a vital role in our success and well-being. The lies we tell ourselves sustain our daily interactions with friends, lovers, and coworkers. They can explain why some people live longer than others, why some couples remain in love and others don’t, why some nations hold together while others splinter. Filled with powerful personal stories and drawing on new insights in psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy, Useful Delusions offers a fascinating tour of what it really means to be human.

Download or read book Happy Ever After written by Paul Dolan and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2019-01-17 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'A passionate, provocative book. It isn't just a self-help book. It is a manifesto for a better society' Sunday Times 'One of the most rigorous articulations of the new mood of acceptance...a persuasive demolition of many of our cultural stories about how we ought to live' Oliver Burkeman, Guardian Paul Dolan, the bestselling author of Happiness by Design, shows us how to escape the myth of perfection and find our own route to happiness. Be ambitious; find everlasting love; look after your health ... There are countless stories about how we ought to live our lives. These narratives can make our lives easier, and they might sometimes make us happier too. But they can also trap us and those around us. In Happy Ever After, bestselling happiness expert Professor Paul Dolan draws on a variety of studies ranging over wellbeing, inequality and discrimination to bust the common myths about our sources of happiness. He shows that there can be many unexpected paths to lasting fulfilment. Some of these might involve not going into higher education, choosing not to marry, rewarding acts rooted in self-interest and caring a little less about living forever. By freeing ourselves from the myth of the perfect life, we might each find a life worth living.

Download or read book The Growth Delusion written by David Pilling and published by Crown. This book was released on 2018-01-30 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A provocative critique of the pieties and fallacies of our obsession with economic growth We live in a society in which a priesthood of economists, wielding impenetrable mathematical formulas, set the framework for public debate. Ultimately, it is the perceived health of the economy which determines how much we can spend on our schools, highways, and defense; economists decide how much unemployment is acceptable and whether it is right to print money or bail out profligate banks. The backlash we are currently witnessing suggests that people are turning against the experts and their faulty understanding of our lives. Despite decades of steady economic growth, many citizens feel more pessimistic than ever, and are voting for candidates who voice undisguised contempt for the technocratic elite. For too long, economics has relied on a language which fails to resonate with people's actual experience, and we are now living with the consequences. In this powerful, incisive book, David Pilling reveals the hidden biases of economic orthodoxy and explores the alternatives to GDP, from measures of wealth, equality, and sustainability to measures of subjective wellbeing. Authoritative, provocative, and eye-opening, The Growth Delusion offers witty and unexpected insights into how our society can respond to the needs of real people instead of pursuing growth at any cost.

Download or read book The Fine Art of Delusional Thinking written by Bonnie Trachtenberg and published by . This book was released on 2013-10-01 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Have you always wished you had a glamorous career? A spouse who worships you? An awesome set of wheels? A fantabulous social life? With The Fine Art of Delusional Thinking, all these goals can be within your grasp. You'll never again fret about your weight, your monthly bills, your love life, or your bank account. This witty and concise how-to book from best-selling author Bonnie Trachtenberg teaches you everything you'll need to know to turn your humdrum existence into a lifestyle others will envy. So delude your way to a happy life-with help from an expert.

Download or read book The Ten Worlds written by Ash ElDifrawi and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-10-02 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What exactly is happiness that we spend our lives pursuing it more fiercely than anything else? The answer, Drs. Lickerman and ElDifrawi argue, is that happiness isn't just a good feeling but a special good feeling—in fact, the best good feeling we're capable of having. Enduring happiness is something we all want yet many of us fail to achieve. Look around you. How many people do you know who would say they feel a constant and powerful sense of satisfaction with their lives? How many people do you imagine wouldn't find their ability to be happy impaired by a significant loss, like the death of a parent, a spouse, or a child? How is it possible to be happy in the long-term when so many terrible things are destined to happen to us? In this highly engaging and eminently practical book—told in the form of a Platonic dialogue recounting real-life patient experiences—Drs. Lickerman and ElDifrawi assert that the reason genuine, long-lasting happiness is so difficult to achieve and maintain is that we're profoundly confused not only about how to go about it but also about what happiness is. In identifying nine basic erroneous views we all have about what we need to be happy—views they term the core delusions—Lickerman and ElDifrawi show us that our happiness depends not on our external possessions or even on our experiences but rather on the beliefs we have that shape our most fundamental thinking. These beliefs, they argue, create ten internal life-conditions, or worlds, through which we continuously cycle and that determine how happy we're able to be. Drawing on the latest scientific research as well as Buddhist philosophy, Lickerman and ElDifrawi argue that once we learn to embrace a correct understanding of happiness, we can free ourselves from the suffering the core delusions cause us and enjoy the kind of happiness we all want, the kind found in the highest of the Ten Worlds, the world of Enlightenment. The Ten Worlds: Hell Hunger Animality Anger Tranquility Rapture Learning Realization Compassion Enlightenment

Download or read book The Delusions of Crowds written by William J. Bernstein and published by Grove Press. This book was released on 2021-02-23 with total page 491 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This “disturbing yet fascinating” exploration of mass mania through the ages explains the biological and psychological roots of irrationality (Kirkus Reviews). From time immemorial, contagious narratives have spread through susceptible groups—with enormous, often disastrous, consequences. Inspired by Charles Mackay’s nineteenth-century classic Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, neurologist and author William Bernstein examines mass delusion through the lens of current scientific research in The Delusions of Crowds. Bernstein tells the stories of dramatic religious and financial mania in western society over the last five hundred years—from the Anabaptist Madness of the 1530s to the dangerous End-Times beliefs that pervade today’s polarized America; and from the South Sea Bubble to the Enron scandal and dot com bubbles. Through Bernstein’s supple prose, the participants are as colorful as their “desire to improve one’s well-being in this life or the next.” Bernstein’s chronicles reveal the huge cost and alarming implications of mass mania. He observes that if we can absorb the history and biology of this all-too-human phenomenon, we can recognize it more readily in our own time, and avoid its frequently dire impact.