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A review by nelsta
Surprise: Embrace the Unpredictable and Engineer the Unexpected by Leeann Renninger
4.0
Could surprise—a powerful emotional enhancement—be one of the major contributing factors to the rise of anxiety? I’ve long wondered what causes anxiety and why some are more susceptible to it than others. How did I avoid crippling anxiety while many of my family and friends have not? Surprise may hold the answer.
Surprise is unlike most books I have ever read. It combines scientific discovery, personal anecdotes, and professional conjecture to arrive at its central thesis: we are actively removing surprise from our lives and its removal is harming us.
We have made our lives more predictable with each subsequent innovation. A prime example used in the book is meteorology. Whereas humans used to just accept that the weather was more or less fickle, now we get upset if predictions are wrong. When rain falls on a day that was supposed to be sunny, we are surprised. Anxiety is the anticipation of the possibility of that surprise and the negative emotions that might accompany it.
Basically, the more predictable our lives become, the less resilient we are to surprises and the more anxious we become. I was sufficiently convinced by the authors’ argument that I have adopted this pattern of thinking into my life. Surprises—both good and bad ones—are essential. They condition us and make us more resilient. Emotional resiliency is, in my opinion, one of the most important things a human can have in today’s world.
Surprise is unlike most books I have ever read. It combines scientific discovery, personal anecdotes, and professional conjecture to arrive at its central thesis: we are actively removing surprise from our lives and its removal is harming us.
We have made our lives more predictable with each subsequent innovation. A prime example used in the book is meteorology. Whereas humans used to just accept that the weather was more or less fickle, now we get upset if predictions are wrong. When rain falls on a day that was supposed to be sunny, we are surprised. Anxiety is the anticipation of the possibility of that surprise and the negative emotions that might accompany it.
Basically, the more predictable our lives become, the less resilient we are to surprises and the more anxious we become. I was sufficiently convinced by the authors’ argument that I have adopted this pattern of thinking into my life. Surprises—both good and bad ones—are essential. They condition us and make us more resilient. Emotional resiliency is, in my opinion, one of the most important things a human can have in today’s world.