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itsnkbitch's review
5.0
Contents
1. On Trying Too Hard to Be Happy
2. What Would Seneca Do? The Stoic Art of Confronting the Worst-Case Scenario
3. The Storm Before the Calm: A Buddhist Guide to Not Thinking Positively
4. Goal Crazy: When Trying to Control the Future Doesn't Work
5. Who's There? How to Get Over Your Self
6. The Safety Catch: The Hidden Benefits of Insecurity
7. The Museum of Failure: The Case for Embracing Your Errors
8. Memento Mori: Death as a Way of Life
Epilogue: Negative Capability
The message in brief: The answer isn't Optimism or Pessimism. It is Peace with whatever Life handles you. It does not matter if you delude yourself with positive visualization or not. Death and failure will still break through your door. So you might as well answer.
This is a philosophy I already live my life with. But in a retarded ignorant sense. This book is far more intelligent then anything I have every said about the way I perceive the world. It gives a completely rounded deconstruction of everything that's wrong with the self-help industry, positive visualization, optimism (and even pessimism), and even happiness itself. All with a soft casual and funny! tone even when discussing the most grave or philosophical concepts.
I also especially appreciated the Atheism because mystical bullshit is such a normalcy in the self-help industry. Intentionally or not, this adds an extra potency to his deconstruction of the self-help industry.
A well written book that fully discusses an interesting theory? Sounds like a favorite to me.
1. On Trying Too Hard to Be Happy
2. What Would Seneca Do? The Stoic Art of Confronting the Worst-Case Scenario
3. The Storm Before the Calm: A Buddhist Guide to Not Thinking Positively
4. Goal Crazy: When Trying to Control the Future Doesn't Work
5. Who's There? How to Get Over Your Self
6. The Safety Catch: The Hidden Benefits of Insecurity
7. The Museum of Failure: The Case for Embracing Your Errors
8. Memento Mori: Death as a Way of Life
Epilogue: Negative Capability
The message in brief: The answer isn't Optimism or Pessimism. It is Peace with whatever Life handles you. It does not matter if you delude yourself with positive visualization or not. Death and failure will still break through your door. So you might as well answer.
This is a philosophy I already live my life with. But in a retarded ignorant sense. This book is far more intelligent then anything I have every said about the way I perceive the world. It gives a completely rounded deconstruction of everything that's wrong with the self-help industry, positive visualization, optimism (and even pessimism), and even happiness itself. All with a soft casual and funny! tone even when discussing the most grave or philosophical concepts.
I also especially appreciated the Atheism because mystical bullshit is such a normalcy in the self-help industry. Intentionally or not, this adds an extra potency to his deconstruction of the self-help industry.
A well written book that fully discusses an interesting theory? Sounds like a favorite to me.
kaylana's review
5.0
I am one of those who hates positive thinking. This was the perfect book for me. Burkeman takes on 8 ideas of looking into the negative side of things that can ultimately bring us happiness (I quote it extensively because he says it better than I can):
1. Don't try too hard to be happy.
"...enjoy uncertainty, embrace[] insecurity, stop[] trying to think positively, become[] familiar with failure, even learn[] to value death."
2. Worst-case scenarios.
"...regularly reminding yourself that you might lose any of the things you currently enjoy - indeed, that you will definitely lose them all, in the end, when death catches up with you...Thinking about the possibility of losing something you value shifts it from the backdrop of your life back to centre stage."
Spending some time thinking about how bad it could be helps us see that it hardly ever is as bad as we originally thought.
3. Seeking non-attachment and just experiencing whatever happens--the calm before the storm.
"Rather than merely enjoying pleasurable things during the moments in which they occur, and experiencing the unpleasantness of painful things, we develop the habits of clinging and aversion: we grasp at what we like, trying to hold on to it forever, and push away what we don't like, trying to avoid it at all costs."
"Meditation...was a way to stop running. You sat still, and watched your thoughts and emotions and desires and aversions come and go, and you resisted the urge to try to flee from them, to fix them, or to cling to them."
4. Don't be too goal crazy.
You can be lured into destruction by focusing too much on that end goal. Don't let goals become who you are, a part of your identity.
"Uncertainty prompts us to idealise the future." The future always looks better than the present.
"Start with your means. Don't wait for the perfect opportunity. Start taking action, based on what you have readily available: what you are, what you know and who you know."
5. Get rid of our ego, our sense of self.
"Rate your individual acts as good or bad...Seek to perform as many good ones, and as few bad ones, as possible. But leave yourself out of it."
"...helping other people is a far more reliable strategy for happiness than focusing solely on yourself."
6. Insecurity is our happy place.
"...real happiness might be dependent on being willing to face, and to tolerate, insecurity and vulnerability."
Rely on our friends and family, our social relationships.
"Above all, living in a situation of such inherent insecurity, while very far from preferable, was clarifying. Nobody would envy it. But living with fewer illusions meant facing reality head on." Realize change is constant and to embrace it.
"[Life] is a dance, and when you are dancing, you are not intent on getting somewhere. The meaning and purpose of dancing is the dance."
7. Failure is always an option.
"Evolution itself is driven by failure; we think of it as a matter of survival and adaptation, but it makes equal sense to think of it as a matter of not surviving and not adapting."
Look at why we are failing, what went wrong and why.
"The vulnerability revealed by failure can nurture empathy and communality."
"...we too often make our goals into parts of our identities, so that failure becomes an attack on who we are...and elevate it into one we feel we must attain, so that failing at it becomes not just sad but catastrophic."
8. Death
"Death is nothing to us...since when we are, death has not come, and when death has come, we are not."
"...imagine you are eighty years old...and then complete the sentences 'I wish I'd spent more time one...' and 'I wish I'd spent less time on...'This turns out to be a surprisingly effective way to achieve mortality awareness in short order."
All fascinating ideas. I thoroughly enjoyed Burkeman's style and wit and willingness to search far and wide.
1. Don't try too hard to be happy.
"...enjoy uncertainty, embrace[] insecurity, stop[] trying to think positively, become[] familiar with failure, even learn[] to value death."
2. Worst-case scenarios.
"...regularly reminding yourself that you might lose any of the things you currently enjoy - indeed, that you will definitely lose them all, in the end, when death catches up with you...Thinking about the possibility of losing something you value shifts it from the backdrop of your life back to centre stage."
Spending some time thinking about how bad it could be helps us see that it hardly ever is as bad as we originally thought.
3. Seeking non-attachment and just experiencing whatever happens--the calm before the storm.
"Rather than merely enjoying pleasurable things during the moments in which they occur, and experiencing the unpleasantness of painful things, we develop the habits of clinging and aversion: we grasp at what we like, trying to hold on to it forever, and push away what we don't like, trying to avoid it at all costs."
"Meditation...was a way to stop running. You sat still, and watched your thoughts and emotions and desires and aversions come and go, and you resisted the urge to try to flee from them, to fix them, or to cling to them."
4. Don't be too goal crazy.
You can be lured into destruction by focusing too much on that end goal. Don't let goals become who you are, a part of your identity.
"Uncertainty prompts us to idealise the future." The future always looks better than the present.
"Start with your means. Don't wait for the perfect opportunity. Start taking action, based on what you have readily available: what you are, what you know and who you know."
5. Get rid of our ego, our sense of self.
"Rate your individual acts as good or bad...Seek to perform as many good ones, and as few bad ones, as possible. But leave yourself out of it."
"...helping other people is a far more reliable strategy for happiness than focusing solely on yourself."
6. Insecurity is our happy place.
"...real happiness might be dependent on being willing to face, and to tolerate, insecurity and vulnerability."
Rely on our friends and family, our social relationships.
"Above all, living in a situation of such inherent insecurity, while very far from preferable, was clarifying. Nobody would envy it. But living with fewer illusions meant facing reality head on." Realize change is constant and to embrace it.
"[Life] is a dance, and when you are dancing, you are not intent on getting somewhere. The meaning and purpose of dancing is the dance."
7. Failure is always an option.
"Evolution itself is driven by failure; we think of it as a matter of survival and adaptation, but it makes equal sense to think of it as a matter of not surviving and not adapting."
Look at why we are failing, what went wrong and why.
"The vulnerability revealed by failure can nurture empathy and communality."
"...we too often make our goals into parts of our identities, so that failure becomes an attack on who we are...and elevate it into one we feel we must attain, so that failing at it becomes not just sad but catastrophic."
8. Death
"Death is nothing to us...since when we are, death has not come, and when death has come, we are not."
"...imagine you are eighty years old...and then complete the sentences 'I wish I'd spent more time one...' and 'I wish I'd spent less time on...'This turns out to be a surprisingly effective way to achieve mortality awareness in short order."
All fascinating ideas. I thoroughly enjoyed Burkeman's style and wit and willingness to search far and wide.
joreads7's review against another edition
4.0
Well written and interesting, the individual chapters were great but the final summation was weak and didn't tie the separate thoughts of the book together for me.
qiaosilin's review against another edition
3.0
I read an ARC given away through Goodreads First Reads.
I want to point out that The Antidote is definitively not a self-help book. While it is true that you can take certain messages away from it to use in your own life, that is not the purpose of this book. It's more like a travelogue/pop culture science book.
Burkeman starts off at a motivational seminar designed to inspire people and get them thinking positive thoughts. Except Burkeman is skeptical about all the "Get motivated!" and "Be positive!" being yelled at the crowd, and I am the same way. I think I connected with this book in that the more I hear people tell me to think positively, the more I want to tell them where to shove it.
Burkeman wonders if positive thoughts really leads to a happier and more positive life, and so he goes off in search of evidence. What he finds demonstrates that negative thoughts are more conducive to happier living. Each chapter is dedicated to one way negative thoughts have the ability to make you feel better about your current situation/problem or the way that not thinking about negative things like failures isn't helpful.
Overall, there is a general wittiness to the book that was enjoyable. I don't know if all Burkeman's articles are like this, but he made me chuckle a fair bit. The writing itself was pretty good, but I think it needed to be streamlined a little more. Some parts felt a little draggy or a little jumpy.
I do have one problem, however, and that's with what Burkeman writes about scientists and ignoring their failures. He writes that research suggests scientists follow a predictable pattern when addressing a failed experiment, which makes sense. Once the scientists figure out that they can't tinker until the experiment proves their hypothesis, Burkeman writes that they just give up and don't address the failure. My problem is this unanswered question: If scientists are meant to be dis-/proving hypotheses, why should they spend any more time on a failed experiment than they already have? Their focus is on one hypothesis, one thing they're trying to figure out. If mixing this together, or adding these five elements together doesn't do it, then what's the point of spending more time on it? I'm not sure I understand where he was going with that, but the entire scientist bit is only about two pages long anyway. Sometimes you're left with more questions than answers.
I want to point out that The Antidote is definitively not a self-help book. While it is true that you can take certain messages away from it to use in your own life, that is not the purpose of this book. It's more like a travelogue/pop culture science book.
Burkeman starts off at a motivational seminar designed to inspire people and get them thinking positive thoughts. Except Burkeman is skeptical about all the "Get motivated!" and "Be positive!" being yelled at the crowd, and I am the same way. I think I connected with this book in that the more I hear people tell me to think positively, the more I want to tell them where to shove it.
Burkeman wonders if positive thoughts really leads to a happier and more positive life, and so he goes off in search of evidence. What he finds demonstrates that negative thoughts are more conducive to happier living. Each chapter is dedicated to one way negative thoughts have the ability to make you feel better about your current situation/problem or the way that not thinking about negative things like failures isn't helpful.
Overall, there is a general wittiness to the book that was enjoyable. I don't know if all Burkeman's articles are like this, but he made me chuckle a fair bit. The writing itself was pretty good, but I think it needed to be streamlined a little more. Some parts felt a little draggy or a little jumpy.
I do have one problem, however, and that's with what Burkeman writes about scientists and ignoring their failures. He writes that research suggests scientists follow a predictable pattern when addressing a failed experiment, which makes sense. Once the scientists figure out that they can't tinker until the experiment proves their hypothesis, Burkeman writes that they just give up and don't address the failure. My problem is this unanswered question: If scientists are meant to be dis-/proving hypotheses, why should they spend any more time on a failed experiment than they already have? Their focus is on one hypothesis, one thing they're trying to figure out. If mixing this together, or adding these five elements together doesn't do it, then what's the point of spending more time on it? I'm not sure I understand where he was going with that, but the entire scientist bit is only about two pages long anyway. Sometimes you're left with more questions than answers.
garyboland's review against another edition
5.0
Absolutely brilliant. I only picked it up as I saw an update from another reader I follow on goodreads (h/t Maciej) had recommended it. Also because of this, I have picked up another recommendation, 'the power of now'.
andthanksforallthefish's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
5.0
aperson's review
4.0
This was a fascinating book. Oliver takes you through a journey where he turns many of the common self-help concepts on their head. He discusses the following subjects:
1 - Trying too hard to be happy
2 - The Stoic art of confronting the worst-case scenario
3 - A Buddhist guide to not thinking positively
4 - Not trying to control the future
5 - Getting over your sense of self
6 - Benefits of insecurity
7 - Embracing your failures
8 - Embracing the fact of death
These were really interesting ideas that we are not often confronted with. How many times have you been told to stop trying so hard to be happy? Or to delve as deeply as you can into what the worst-case scenario will be. These ideas, oddly enough, have helped me to let go of my anxieties about trying to be a happy person and I've become more able to accept my natural state of mood.
This is not a book that will solve all your problems - as that book does not exist. This is a book that might help you reconsider the idea of "constant happiness" that is thrust upon us by society. I would definitely recommend it and enjoyed the different perspective it offered.
1 - Trying too hard to be happy
2 - The Stoic art of confronting the worst-case scenario
3 - A Buddhist guide to not thinking positively
4 - Not trying to control the future
5 - Getting over your sense of self
6 - Benefits of insecurity
7 - Embracing your failures
8 - Embracing the fact of death
These were really interesting ideas that we are not often confronted with. How many times have you been told to stop trying so hard to be happy? Or to delve as deeply as you can into what the worst-case scenario will be. These ideas, oddly enough, have helped me to let go of my anxieties about trying to be a happy person and I've become more able to accept my natural state of mood.
This is not a book that will solve all your problems - as that book does not exist. This is a book that might help you reconsider the idea of "constant happiness" that is thrust upon us by society. I would definitely recommend it and enjoyed the different perspective it offered.
valedeoro's review against another edition
4.0
Trying to be happy sometimes is the very thing that stands in your way to happiness. So stop forcing yourself and start living.
nharkins's review against another edition
5.0
Wish this had a different title, as "The Antidote" sounds like the ego/hubris of the self-help/motivational Ponzi schemes he dissects. The subtitle is much more representational of the content, and even then, this isn't preaching, it's just journalism (with a touch of British sarcasm) contrasting various philosophies, and referencing scientific studies to point out when they're actually achieving the opposite of stated goals or when they're actually onto something which could be beneficial. This is more of what I wanted from Huxley's The Perennial Philosophy and The World's Religions when I read them way back in the day.