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A review by regalalgorithm
The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking by Oliver Burkeman
3.0
(via audio book)
A wannabe anti self-help book about the 'negative path to happiness', this has some good ideas but unfortunately commits all the same sins of the self help literature it bellitles. Those being completely unnecessary repetition, dubious use of anecdotes to support ideas, broad claims that are easy to take apart (goals are bad?), tiresome 'I went and saw this myself' sections, and overall bad argumentation and writing. It starts off fun enough with the mocking of a positive thinking conference, and a good introduction to stoicism, but very soon it's ' look how radical this is' posturing gets old. The last few chapters are a downright chore, since those focus on the less useful notions of learning from your failures (old news), goals maybe being bad (if you overdo them, duh), and thinking about death being good for you (really?).
For someone who does not know much about meditation, mindfulness, or broadly likes self help writing and want something different this might be good. For those, like me, who wanted to get an intro to stoicism and it's ideas, look elsewhere.
A wannabe anti self-help book about the 'negative path to happiness', this has some good ideas but unfortunately commits all the same sins of the self help literature it bellitles. Those being completely unnecessary repetition, dubious use of anecdotes to support ideas, broad claims that are easy to take apart (goals are bad?), tiresome 'I went and saw this myself' sections, and overall bad argumentation and writing. It starts off fun enough with the mocking of a positive thinking conference, and a good introduction to stoicism, but very soon it's ' look how radical this is' posturing gets old. The last few chapters are a downright chore, since those focus on the less useful notions of learning from your failures (old news), goals maybe being bad (if you overdo them, duh), and thinking about death being good for you (really?).
For someone who does not know much about meditation, mindfulness, or broadly likes self help writing and want something different this might be good. For those, like me, who wanted to get an intro to stoicism and it's ideas, look elsewhere.