The Happy Mind

The Happy Mind shows you what science and experience teach about how to become happier by assuming responsibility for your own well-being.

Even though this book is about happiness, the authors concluded that understanding the origin of unhappiness is vital. The short answer for “why are people unhappy?” is that happiness was not evolutionarily important.

This is akin to each of us having two brains. The “old one,” also called the reptilian brain, is primarily oriented to grant us survival. The famous “fight or flight” mechanisms reside here, as do our unconscious instincts.

The “new brain,” or neocortex, is the location of our intellectual capacity and rational decision-making capabilities. This is evolutionarily the more sophisticated part of the brain. The problem is that in many life situations, this “new brain” is still a servant to the old, instinctual one, and not the other way around.

The consequence is that, even though our physical survival is more certain now, we still act upon our fears and perceptions of lack as if they were life-threatening. For example, we may experience a stressful period at work, which is not a survival threat. However, our reptilian brain doesn’t “know” that and causes us to experience feelings as if we were in real danger.

In short, we are biologically wired to be unhappy. The good news is that we can deliberately train our “new brain” to override the old instincts.

The underlying belief many of us have is that happiness either happens to us or doesn’t and that there’s not much we can do about it. If we want to be happy, we need to change this assumption. Horsley and Fourie try to disrupt this statement throughout the whole book by teaching that happiness is something that you create with applying deliberate effort. You need to stop waiting around until it falls upon you and take your fate in your own hands. You need to assume responsibility for your own happiness, rather than playing the role of a victim of your life circumstances. Sure, some people seem to be more predisposed to happiness than others. It may be due to their genes or the excellent parenting they received as children. But if you were not fortunate enough to have those gifts, that doesn’t mean you cannot work on your own happiness. The critical mindset shift here is to see happiness as a practical, manageable affair that you can take control over. You can work on it one day at a time. Gradually identify and then transform these behaviors, thought patterns, and emotional responses that don’t serve your well-being. In the second part of The Happy Mind, Horsley and Fourie provide you with a bucket of…