Happy: Why More or Less Everything is Absolutely Fine by Derren Brown (PDF)

Description

The Sunday Times Bestseller’Really brilliant and just crammed with wisdom and insight. It will genuinely make a difference to me and the way I think about myself.’ Stephen Fry___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?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.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.___What readers are saying: ***** ‘Immensely positive and life-affirming’***** ‘This is the blue print to a good life’***** ‘Thought provoking and potentially life-changing.’

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐It’s an amazing book. Many times after finishing a reading session, I had something new about to think. The book does an amazing job exploring ideas of happiness, anger, death, and various stoic philosophies.I gave it four stars as the book had some passages that came off as self-aggrandizing.

⭐This is a life-changing book, especially the first part. The author so eloquently presents to you in such an empathetic way how you can consider living your life by applying a few Stoic principles such that you experience more peace with yourself and other people. I could immediately apply his words into a stressful situation in my life and felt a great relief. He wrote really well. This could be a PhD – the amount of thought he put into integrating old thoughts from modern thoughts, covering both breadth and depth. I was so happy to have found this book. Thank you, Derren Brown, for sharing your insights and wisdom with us.I got to know about him through someone mentioning him when I was trying to learn about hypnosis and then I watched “Miracle” on Netflix. In this magician and performer, is such an extraordinary, clear-minded thinker and writer.I would say the book can be divided into three parts. The first part is an introduction to Stoic philosophy and how it can be implemented into your life, the second part about fame and the third part about death. They feel quite distinct from each other, as he draws less from philosophy for the second and third parts, and I definitely feel the first part is the best.The ending was a bit abrupt and I thought could be written a bit better so as not to undermine all the hard work he did in the first part to help someone be in control of their emotions. It felt like at the end, it was all let loose, it doesn’t quite matter, it was also important to listen to how you feel, and follow those stories where they lead… when in the first part, he put such a strong case for watching out for those stories and then later on choosing your own story.Nevertheless, this is an extraordinary and life-changing book. Really enjoyed it so much!

⭐American readers can be forgiven for never having heard of Derren Brown at all. To most Brits, he’s best known as a master illusionist, one whose shows continue to delight and confound (apart from the rare few who persist in the belief that he employs stooges, a fact that he steadfastly denies). I heartily enjoyed Derren’s earlier book, Tricks of the Mind, but Confessions of a Conjuror left me a little cold.All of which brings us to this: Happy. Not to mince words, I believe that Derren’s latest book will be truly life-changing for the right type of reader. It is that rarest of books: one that I felt had been written for me personally. There’s very little about magic or illusion in here. This is essentially a 400+ page discourse on the ancient Greek philosophy of Stoicism, and how one might usefully and practically apply it to their own life in order to help bring about that most elusive of goals: Happiness.Stoicism wasn’t anything new to me. I had fallen in love with the Mediatations of Marcus Aurelius when I was a teenager, and it’s still a book that I pull regularly from the shelf to this day. Derren Brown’s success is in taking the teachings of Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and the other Stoics, and making them both accessible and understandable to a 21st century audience. His method for doing this (the “trick,” if you will) entails the reader coming to understand that his or her entire life is a story; a narrative; one that we tell ourselves about ourselves, and one which ultimately shapes our self-perceptions and worldview.Many of the principles which can be found at the core of the Stoic philosophy are utterly simple; the devil lies in the execution. Brown explains in great detail how supposedly negative events themselves rarely hurt us; it is usually our beliefs, feelings, or judgments concerning those events which do.Much space is devoted to the fact that material goods, money, and other ephemeral pleasures rarely serve to bring true lasting happiness. Brown talks about the reasons why this is, citing a great deal of scientific research in addition to quoting other learned authors on the subject of happiness. He also discusses helpful, practical ways in which we can deal with anger, hurt, aggression, addiction, and the ever-present fear of death (the book ends on a tour de force note, with a section on how we can die well).The book can also be seen as an assault on the multi-billion dollar industry of self-help and positive thinking. Derren reserves much of his ire for fads such as The Secret, and details extensively how “the power of positive thinking” can actually be harmful to us. Take the example of the U.S. airman captured by enemy forces during the Vietnam War. It is both saddening and enlightening to hear that many of those men who did not survive their brutal captivity were optimists by nature, and insisted on thinking positively: “We’ll be out by Christmas…OK, we’ll be out by the 4th of July…OK, we’ll be out by Thanksgiving…” When holiday after holiday rolled around and they found themselves to be still incarcerated, many of these POWs began to literally curl up and die…whereas the officer who fell back upon the principals of Seneca and the Stoics made it through eight years of hell, ultimately surviving to regain his freedom.I am going to make a concerted attempt to incorporate some of these concepts into my own way of thinking and living, and I heartily commend Derren’s book to everybody. Everybody. We can all learn something from this well thought-out piece of philosophical writing, and I would go so far as to say that it is currently my favorite book of 2016.Pick up a copy and read it carefully. I doubt that you’ll be disappointed.

⭐It’s evident from Derren Brown’s professional character that this fellow can make a very compelling argument, thus why I bought this book.Indeed, he does make a very compelling argument in the course of it. Here, I am going to spoil it for you: Ultimately a person has control over two things in life, thoughts and actions, and nothing else. It is actually kind of a brilliant observation, not that it is original, as explained by the author as he takes us on a journey up through the West’s history of philosophies.Actually, it is this historical journey that causes the book to be as long as it is and, it is a pretty long read. Mr. Brown has a really really good mind and he is also extremely well-read. Unfortunately, Mr. Brown is not as gifted a writer as he is a thinker. As such, the book does wind on a bit and one suspects that most readers are unlikely to finish the entire book. I didn’t; although, this is down to his rather inelegant turn of phrase, or use of the English language and not because I disagreed with or was not persuaded by his argument (mostly).Once I understood his major premise: That a person has power over only his own thoughts and his own actions (is this actually true, though….think of obsessive compulsive disorder, or mental illness?). I felt that I understood his argument perfectly, or as perfectly as one can understand another person’s written argument. It explains why buying and owning things doesn’t lead to happiness, traveling to exotic places, likewise, and so on.I believe this book is definitely a worthwhile read; although, as I said, I doubt many people will read it to its finish. I think Mr. Brown would have done well to thought about how his writings come across and sought the help of a better, more effective editor. Had he done so I think this book could have been much more effective and interesting.

⭐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.

⭐Derren Brown’s books are always a worthwhile read. In Happy he delves into what makes us truly happy. Much more philosophical than I was expecting, he starts by travelling back in time to ancient Greece and exploring the ideas of the Stoics and the Epicureans. He entreats us to live a more considered life; rather than try to change things that are out of our control he advocates changing our own attitudes to remove sources of frustration. Less irritated and angry = more happy.It definitely isn’t a self-help book – don’t come to it expecting quick fixes – but for all that, I did find it extremely helpful. My world view chimes with the concepts in this book though, whether someone with a different outlook would find it as interesting and exciting as I did, I don’t know.Derren is erudite and entertaining, very insightful and well worth paying attention to. Highly recommended.

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