About Book
For a civilisation so fixated on achieving happiness, we seem remarkably incompetent at the task.
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 lead to happiness. Romance, family life and work often seem to bring stress as much 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? What if it's our constant efforts to feel happy that are making us miserable?
In this fascinating new book, Oliver Burkeman introduces us to an unusual collection of people - experimental psychologists and Buddhists, terrorism experts, spiritual teachers, business consultants, philosophers who share a single, surprising way of thinking about life. 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, 'negative 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, counter-intuitive and ultimately uplifting, The Antidote is a celebration of the power of negative thinking.
About Author
Oliver Burkeman is a feature writer for the Guardian. He is a winner of the Foreign Press Association's Young Journalist of the Year award, and has been shortlisted for the Orwell Prize and the What The Papers Say Feature Writer of the Year award. He writes a popular weekly column on psychology, This Column Will Change Your Life, and has reported from London, Washington and New York. His work has also appeared in Esquire, Elle, GQ, the Observer and the New Republic. He was born in Liverpool in 1975, grew up in York, and holds a degree in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University.