The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking

Starting with the subtitle, "The Antidote" positions itself against "positive thinking" - the sort of mind-over-matter faith in the future that pretty much every other self-help book espouses, a doctrine that author Burkeman neatly and thoroughly dismantles with copious endnotes. But there's no lazy cynicism here, in a search for happiness via unconventional and counterintuitive ways, and a surprising amount of, well, positivity. From Seneca and the Stoics to memento mori's and a shrine to Saint Death, Burkeman guides the reader on a whistle-stop tour of philosophies that reorient our ideas about happiness, success or even the self. I absolutely devoured it - it's also, in parts, very funny! - and think it might become an annual read, or at least a great starting point on further reading.

A must read in this ocean of positive thinking and impossible goal settings society. This book teaches you a lot about how the whole positive thinking movement can do you more damages than good, while thinking about possible failures and the possibility of death can, inversely, lead you toward a better understanding of life and its challenges.

I've had high hopes for this book, as I do in fact hate positive thinking and the cult of optimism.

However, I think this book is lacking deep research and evidence, except anecdotal, about whether the negative capacity techniques the author suggests instead actually lead to a better life. More often than not, an example of one extraordinary person is taken as the main evidence.

Plus this book seems to lack a unified central thread. Here is this person with this interesting idea, and another with that, and next chapter is yet another with that, and it is not immediately clear how does it come together.

The author's understanding of positive psychology also seems a bit haphazard and lacking - he pretty much lumps everything characteristic of the contemporary American corporate self-help under that label.

That being said, I've still enjoyed the book, and I have learned some new things