Stumbled on Happiness!

Now, now, this is how fast things can go when you don’t quite plan for it. When I wrote about the book “Stumbling on Happiness”, I did not know a lot of things about the book – including its price. But then, I stumbled on the book yesterday during one of the unplanned visits (where unplanned expenditures warrant you to look beyond the wads of cash you’ve got into your credit cards, but that’s another story) to Landmark in the only true mall that Chennai’s got. And I ended up picking the book.

I first read about the book in the Freakonomics blog. I found later that the book has also won the Science Prize for 2007, and been for about 20 weeks on the New York Tims best seller list. That’s something, and is testimonies enough to make you pick the book. Unlike what you might think, the book is not a sweet shortcut to make you lurch into happy Disneyland. Instead, the author uses a combination of science and psychology to analyze the phenomenon that this whole elusive business called happiness is.

This is how it starts:

“Some people would wag their fingers in your direction and tell you sternly that you should live every minute of your life as though it were your last, which only goes to say that some people would spend their final ten minutes giving dumb advice to other people”.

That’s smart, and you can’t go wrong with a start like that. The author carries on at this pace for the rest of the book and makes you look, scientifically, at minute aspects of human behavior and how it affects happiness.

I wouldn’t say the book is a ‘must read’, but it’s an interesting and entertaining read. If you loved the likes of Freakonomics, Blink etc, you know what I’m talking about. And I’m positive you’ll hear more about it in the coming days. Overall Rating: Just about 4 on 5, or may be a shade less.

Have a great week!