Oliver Burkeman

Self-help books don't seem to work. Few of the many advantages of modern life seem capable of lifting our collective mood. Wealth—even if you can get it—doesn't necessarily lead to happiness. Romance, family life, and work often bring as much stress as joy. We can't even agree on what "happiness" means. So are we engaged in a futile pursuit? Or are we just going about it the wrong way? Looking both east and west, in bulletins from the past and from far afield, Oliver Burkeman introduces us to an unusual group of people who share a single, surprising way of thinking about life. Whether experimental psychologists, terrorism experts, Buddhists, hardheaded business consultants, Greek philosophers, or modern-day gurus, they argue that in our personal lives, and in society at large, it's our constant effort to be happy that is making us miserable. And that there is an alternative path to happiness and success that involves embracing failure, pessimism, insecurity, and uncertainty—the very things we spend our lives trying to avoid. Thought-provoking, counterintuitive, and ultimately uplifting, The Antidote is the intelligent person's guide to understanding the much-misunderstood idea of happiness.

Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking

The Antidote

Truly the anti-self help book. Really more of a philosophy and psychology book rather than a self-help book with prescriptive actions (usually not sufficiently based in research). This book was incredibly insightful and life-changing, although I felt the author could have gotten a bit more in-depth with the philosophies and ideas he was upholding. 

Gabriel H

brendan sudol

‘True security lies in the unrestrained embrace of insecurity - in the recognition that we never really stand on solid ground, and never can.’

‘The effort to feel happy is often precisely the thing that makes us miserable. And that it is out constant efforts to eliminate the negative - insecurity, uncertainty, failure, or sadness - that is what causes us to feel so insecure, anxious, uncertain, or unhappy.’

‘“Inspiration is for amateurs,” the artist Chuck Close once memorably observed. ‘The rest of us just show up and get to work.’

‘Sometimes the most valuable of all talents is to be able not to seek resolution; to notice the craving for completeness or certainty or comfort, and not to feel compelled to follow where it leads.’

‘For the Stoics, the realisation that we can often choose not to be distressed by events, even if we can’t choose events themselves, is the foundation of tranquility. For the Buddhists, a willingness to observe the ‘inner weather’ of your thoughts and emotions is the key to understanding that they need not dictate your actions. Each of these is a different way of resisting the ‘irritable reaching’ after better circumstances or better thoughts and feelings.’

‘There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so’

Nadine 

Confirms all my previous biases against positive thinking! Ebook read by the author in just the right comforting way

Sameer Vasta

I had a friend, once, who would spend her idle hours in bookstores, browsing the titles in the self-help section. Her interest was not necessarily in the content of the books—there was no rush for growth and betterment in her browsing—but instead in the delivery, in how self-help books, ostensibly, actually provide the help they claim.

The Antidote is exactly the kind of self-help book she'd enjoy. It bills itself as a guide for "happiness for people who can't stand positive thinking;" as such, it positions itself as a self-help book for people who don't necessarily believe they need help.

The message of The Antidote is simple enough: positive thinking can be a hindrance to achieving happiness. Instead, Oliver Burkeman focuses on seven other strategies, none of them groundbreaking, all of them self-evident but illuminating when put together.

I've been told that I come across as permanently-happy, and overly-positive. The truth is that my happiness and positivity aren't results of positive thinking, but instead of the same strategies Mr. Burkeman elucidates but that I had never named or thought of in a regimented fashion: stoicism (don't get bothered), Buddhism (feel and experience deeply), goal eradication (embrace uncertainty), self-release (you are not your mind), failure (don't hide your errors), and memento mori (contemplate mortality—something I do often, it seems).

The strategy of insecurity, that we should be comfortable with impermanence, is the one I struggle with most. Insecurity (particularly in the form of financial worrying) brings me anxiety; instead of embracing that insecurity, I fight that sentiment, much to my detriment. This is where I wish Mr. Burkeman's book was more than just a lit review. While The Antidote is excellent at positing theory and providing anecdotal and academic reference for those ideas, the information sits mostly at the surface level. There is a paucity of depth, and it is this reluctance to dive deeper that makes this self-help book feel like all the others, no matter what its claims.

Mr. Burkeman's "literature review" on happiness strategies pitches itself as just the kind of self-help book that would intrigue my friend, but fails to deliver on that pitch. There are some nuggets of goodness, but that is all they are: tasty morsels, but inherently not-filling. It's a book to pick off the shelf and peruse, but then return, fairly quickly, and continue browsing down the aisle.


  (originally published on inthemargins.ca)

In an approach that turns decades of self-help advice on its head, Oliver Burkeman explains why positive thinking serves only to make us more miserable, and why 'getting motivated' can exacerbate procrastination. Comparing the personal philosophies of dozens of 'happy' people - among them philosophers and experimental psychologists, Buddhists and terrorism experts, New Age dreamers and hard-headed business consultants - Burkeman uncovers some common ground. They all believe that there is an alternative 'negative path' to happiness and success that involves coming face-to-face with, even embracing, precisely the things we spend our lives trying to avoid. Burkeman concedes that in our personal lives and the world at large, it's our constant efforts to eliminate the negative - uncertainty, unhappiness, failure - that cause us to feel so anxious, insecure and unhappy. Hilarious and compulsively readable, The Antidote will have you on the road to happiness in no time.

Happiness for People who Can't Stand Positive Thinking

Halsted Mencotti Bernard

Overall, this is a solidly constructed, journalist's take on the negative path to happiness. I wouldn't say I enjoyed it -- I don't think I was supposed to -- but parts were informative.

Relates the journeys and philosophies of people who share a single, surprising way of thinking about life that involves embracing failure, pessimism, and uncertainity in the pursuit of happiness.

Michael Hessling

Some main points:

* Momento mori
* Don't focus on the successes
* Few things are inherently good or bad; our reaction to them can be

Martine Ellis

What if 'positive thinking' and relentless optimism aren't the solution to the happiness dilemma, but part of the problem? Oliver Burkeman turns decades of self-help advice on its head and paradoxically forces us to rethink our attitudes towards failure, uncertainty and death. It's our constant efforts to avoid negative thinking that cause us to feel anxious, insecure and unhappy. What if happiness can be found embracing the things we spend our lives trying to escape? Wise, practical and funny, The Antidote is a thought-provoking, counter-intuitive and ultimately uplifting read, celebrating the power of negative thinking. 'Burkeman has written some of the most truthful and useful words on happiness to be published in recent years' Guardian

The Antidote Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking

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