The Happiness Makeover: How to Teach Yourself to Be Happy and Enjoy Every Day, M.J. Ryan

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, The Seated Clown (Mademoiselle Cha-U-Kao), 1896

(July 6) This was recommended by the Utne Reader... the excerpt suggested that it might be like Law of Attraction stuff… and that’s why I read it… I am always testing LoA against other theories… it’s never been completely contradicted by any other point of view I’ve read, but different people piece it together blindly, not seeing the freedom and agency of LoA, just the “truth” that being positive results in positivity… here in a similar vein the recommendations for happiness are consistent with LoA, but lack understanding of it… and I’m so happy to “get" LoA, because, otherwise, I would have to conclude that this is a book for really sad people, and it’s sad to think there are people who are this sad and who are glad for the morsels of comfort offered by this vague an approximation of LoA…

I’m giving it 2.5 stars because it’s a bit formulaic in construction… 1, 2, 3, a, b, c, anecdote from real life; analysis; solution… all these books are like this but you shouldn’t feel it happening with each chapter… in this book there were quite a few “anecdotes from life” that really didn’t suit the problem they were meant to illustrate, so those passages made you conscious of the formula grinding along, and then once or twice Ryan used her own situation of having to work on her books while others are lounging as an example of a happiness problem ...and so you think -- ugh, sorry you had to do this unhappy work for us

So that was odd

I think Ryan’s advice for gaining happiness is very good… I just feel it would help everyone more if she had the whole picture... there’s a reason gloom brings more gloom

[Added a year later (August 11, 2017): I was reading the Utne newsletter today and saw this title… and wondered, “Have I read this? It seems like the kind of thing I would enjoy.” So I didn’t remember I had read it at all and I had to come here to check. I see why I didn’t remember it.]