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A review by slichto3
The Little Book of Lykke: The Danish Search for the World's Happiest People by Meik Wiking
2.0
I found this one to be pretty disappointing. The author apparently researches happiness through a think tank in Denmark. According to him, there are six elements to happiness: health, money, togetherness, trust, freedom, and kindness. Each chapter of the book goes over these elements: the meaning behind them, some studies showing some relationships within that element, and then some tips to get happier in that element. That all sounds pretty good, but in practice, I didn't find The Little Book of Lykke to be all that useful.
Firstly, each chapter felt a bit disorganized. They are mostly composed of a bunch of short sub-chapters that kind of relate to the overall super-chapter, but don't really relate to each other. Not all of the sub-chapters were particularly useful, either - often they'd just be about some study showing something too specific and non-actionable. It made for scattered reading, and made it difficult to incorporate the ideas into real life.
Secondly, many of the tips are very tough, if not impossible, to implement. A lot of chapters would just sort of say "well, in Denmark, the government's set up so you can do this really cool thing." Well... what does someone do in some other country with that information? Some of this might really be on me, though. In the Togetherness chapter, the author recommends some ways to get to know your neighbors, but his suggestions are absolutely terrifying to me. So maybe I'm just not committed enough to take good suggestions. Still, I would have appreciated some advice that was more achievable and more relevant to my situation.
Finally, I found the layout of the book to be pretty irritating. The type is really small. There are a ton of pictures that felt really unnecessary to me. And many of the graphs were poorly labeled - in particular, axes and units were not clearly indicated. If you're not going to fully explain the graph, why put it in the book?! I realize a lot of people really like the style of the book, though, so, again, maybe I'm just ornery.
There are some small things that I'm going to try to take from the book. First, I do want to exercise more, and, specifically, bike around more. This is kind of scary to me - I'm worried about getting hit by cars, and I've also had some back pain related to riding my bike - but I think really worthwhile. I think I am going to take some very small steps towards getting to know my neighbors - maybe offering cookies or something to people. I'd also like to try to eat meals more with other people. I plan to create a gratitude journal that I'll enter into once a week with three to five things that I'm grateful for. I'd like to look into joining a walking group and, in general take more walks in nature. One idea I thought was really interesting: a smile file, where you keep a record of all the nice things/compliments that you receive.
There are some nice nuggets in The Little Book of Lykke, but I think it's pretty skim-able. I wouldn't spend too much time on close reading, but use the book as a reference for some quick tips to make your life a little bit more pleasant.
Firstly, each chapter felt a bit disorganized. They are mostly composed of a bunch of short sub-chapters that kind of relate to the overall super-chapter, but don't really relate to each other. Not all of the sub-chapters were particularly useful, either - often they'd just be about some study showing something too specific and non-actionable. It made for scattered reading, and made it difficult to incorporate the ideas into real life.
Secondly, many of the tips are very tough, if not impossible, to implement. A lot of chapters would just sort of say "well, in Denmark, the government's set up so you can do this really cool thing." Well... what does someone do in some other country with that information? Some of this might really be on me, though. In the Togetherness chapter, the author recommends some ways to get to know your neighbors, but his suggestions are absolutely terrifying to me. So maybe I'm just not committed enough to take good suggestions. Still, I would have appreciated some advice that was more achievable and more relevant to my situation.
Finally, I found the layout of the book to be pretty irritating. The type is really small. There are a ton of pictures that felt really unnecessary to me. And many of the graphs were poorly labeled - in particular, axes and units were not clearly indicated. If you're not going to fully explain the graph, why put it in the book?! I realize a lot of people really like the style of the book, though, so, again, maybe I'm just ornery.
There are some small things that I'm going to try to take from the book. First, I do want to exercise more, and, specifically, bike around more. This is kind of scary to me - I'm worried about getting hit by cars, and I've also had some back pain related to riding my bike - but I think really worthwhile. I think I am going to take some very small steps towards getting to know my neighbors - maybe offering cookies or something to people. I'd also like to try to eat meals more with other people. I plan to create a gratitude journal that I'll enter into once a week with three to five things that I'm grateful for. I'd like to look into joining a walking group and, in general take more walks in nature. One idea I thought was really interesting: a smile file, where you keep a record of all the nice things/compliments that you receive.
There are some nice nuggets in The Little Book of Lykke, but I think it's pretty skim-able. I wouldn't spend too much time on close reading, but use the book as a reference for some quick tips to make your life a little bit more pleasant.