The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking by Oliver Burkeman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Self help books rarely get to the crux of the matter. Anyone with an intellect, an inquiring mind, or a shred of awareness will realize that modern “self help” is based on the supposition that one can trick their mind into being positive, being happy, or being motivated all the time. Burkeman offers no such tricks in this quick and extremely interesting retaliation to positive thinking. This is not a cure all or a twelve step program. There are no prescriptions for success. Just pure investigations into the concepts of negative capability- embracing fears, failures, and worse case scenarios while steering us away from the many fallacies that modern motivational speakers make. There are numerous jumping off points for greater inquiry-from Alan Watts and Ekhart Tolle to studies from the annals of recent and not so recent psychology.
But Burkeman doesn’t just stop with embracing negativity. He delves further into our conceptions of self, the ego, death, and the nature of reality. Each of these topics is difficult to grasp in their entirety, but through personal interviews, travels to meditation centers, treks through Mexican graveyards during the Day of the Dead celebrations, and a self-effacing experiment in the London Undergound, we come to better terms with these heady concepts. Burkeman keeps it fresh with wit, skepticism, and the projection of himself as merely a questioner of the cult of optimism- not some self styled guru.
You’ll think twice about most “Happiness” based self help books on your next trip to the bookstore- and possibly might use those you already own as kindling for your next BBQ!