Hello!
As we're focusing on happiness and looking at what can improve happiness in daily life I've added an extra book to this sprint.
Entitled 'Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill', I can safely say that this book is one of the best I've read in a long time. Recommended to me by a colleague at work, this book acts as a handbook to improve happiness whilst at the same time deconstructing the concept with exercises.
Ricard is a Buddhist monk with a critical but positive outlook on the world. Using data and philosophy Ricard takes the reader through a journey slowly deconstructing concepts and attempting to understand what makes them good or bad.
Ricard has a positive outlook on the human condition and illustrates each point with Buddhist teachings. The stories are engaging and thought provoking, and although some may seem unlikely when you think about the altruistic sacrifices made by some monks, the points come across very well.
Deconstructing Ricard's deconstruction it seems one of the core secrets to happiness is critical discourse analysis on the self. One of the meditation tasks is to imagine that your current stresses and troubles are like an ocean sweeping you away. To beat this feeling of submergence and defeat you lift yourself up and take yourself above the sea, into a plane, watching the mosaic of waves crash below you. Repositioning yourself and distancing yourself to the big picture allows you to think clearly.
Whilst this is not wholly ground breaking, Ricard's writing style is wholly engaging, keeping you positive and putting you in a positive mindset whilst deeply enchanted.
I opted for the audio book read by Humphry Bower. The narration is a suitable choice as it's calming, well spoken and carries a certain weight to it. I highly recommend both the book and the audio. In fairness, anything that mentions Hobbes' state of nature is a win in my estimation!
Cheers for reading!
The zen AT
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