Happiness Trap #

Something similar to CBT(Cognetive Behavioural Therapy) this book introduces us to a psychological model known as ACT(Accecptance and Commitment Therapy). So how is ACT different from CBT?

I like the fact that this book starts with “Life is difficult. And if we live long enough, we’re all going to experience pain, stress and suffering in many different forms” This book start with the rudamentary question of what is happiness and if we are ment to be happy and points to the fact that we all easily get caught in a powerful psychological trap.

For us, happiness is “NOT NORMAL”, our brains have been wired to look out for threat and danger more that it being wired to look for happiness. Our evolution has wired us for survival more than for our happiness. It states “No matter how privileged or disadvanted we may be, we are all naturally predisposed to psychological suffereing” and more often than not we spend a lot of time worrying about things that never happen.

A para that summarises well is - “We are all hardwired to suffer psychologically: to compare, evaluate and critise ourselves; to focus on what we’re lacking; to rapidly become dissatisfied with what we have; and to imagine all sorts of frightening senarios, most of which will never happen. No wonder humans find it hard to be happy!”.

The first chapter brings in two myths: Myth 1- Happiness is our natural state. Happiness is not our natural state, we are designed to experience an everchanging flow of emotion, both pleasant and painful.