How to Be Happy, Dammit: A Cynic's Guide to Spiritual Happiness

by Karen Salmansohn, Don Zinzell (Designer)

Guaranteed to perk up even the most cynical spirit, HOW TO BE HAPPY, DAMMIT is the first and only self-help book that merges psychology, biology, eastern and western philosophies, quantum physics, and the Zen of Bazooka Joe. Think love and happiness have passed you by? Think no schmaltzy book can help you capture the life-joy you're looking for? This book is different, promises author Karen Salmansohn. Peek within its colorful, uniquely designed pages, and you really will find pearls of wisdom to help you discover more satisfaction every day. And you'll find no saccharine sweetness here. This book tells it like it is, exploring the ups and downs of life in a straightforward, thought-provoking, and humorous way. HOW TO BE HAPPY, DAMMIT is the self-help book for people who don't buy self-help books. It may not change your life (unless you let it), but it will certainly brighten your day, even if you are a die-hard cynic. • Includes 44 life lessons that will save you years of time, effort, and navel-gazing.• Inspiring, fanciful graphics and illustrations throughout.• Karen Salmansohn's book How to Make Your Man Behave in 21 Days or Less Using the Secrets of Professional Dog Trainers has sold over 450,000 copies.

Genres: Self Help, Nonfiction, Psychology, Humor, Spirituality, Philosophy, Mental Health

236 pages, Paperback

First published July 31, 2001

About the author

Karen Salmansohn is a bestselling author (with 2 million books and courses sold), leading behavioral change expert, and columnist for Oprah and Psychology Today, as well as the founder of the popular personal development site NotSalmon.com, which has a vibrant community of 1.5 million followers. Her most recent book is "Your To-Die-For Life: How to Maximize Joy and Minimize Regret . . . Before Your Time Runs Out." She’s been sparking transformations in individuals and companies for a few decades and is passionate about digging deep and finding fascinating insights, tools, and studies from all areas of life, including psychology, Eastern and Western philosophy, neuroscience, quantum physics, and more.

She began writing “self-help for people who wouldn’t be caught dead doing self help” in 1999 with the bestseller How To Be Happy Dammit—the very first personal development book of its kind to have a feisty title, edgy humor, and stylish interior design, which paved the way for self-help authors to write irreverent personal development books. Since then, she’s written many bestsellers, including The Bounce Back Book and Think Happy. Now she’s excited to pioneer the mortality awareness movement by illuminating life’s most avoided conversation—death—and reminding others to live more bravely.

Reviews

[Heidi · Rating 4 out of 5]

How to Be Happy, Dammit is a succinct, brightly colored treatise on enlightenment. Coming in around 230 pages with only a few words per page, this is a book that can be read over the course of a lunch hour or *ahem* during other short breaks in your life on a porcelain throne.

It doesn't use an abundance of coarse language (see title), but it does utilize a few words to get the point across.

The book is broken down into short life lessons that feed into the next. "Life Lesson 1: Pain exists. Life can hurt. Like a lot. Even when you're good, you can get whacked. Without apology. Without explanation." pgs 14-15.

That's the life lesson about being born. Can't really argue with that.

My child was born wailing before she was even entirely out. I was wailing too, for different reasons of course, but life can hurt. No doubt.

I found meaning in "Life Lesson 6: Never go shopping for kiwis in a shoe store. Some people just don't have what you need. So why waste time, banging on their doors, ringing their bells, demanding service?" pgs 38-39. I think I'm still learning that one.

"Life Lesson 19: This is a world of duality: of good and bad, yin and yang, decaffeinated and caffeinated. So you must always be prepared!" pg 112. Decaffeinated? Poor souls...

In the chapter on self-programming, we get this wisdom: Life Lesson 27: The world is your mirror." pg 174.

I don't think folks realize that either.

Recommended for people who are interested in spirituality, but don't necessarily have a lot of time or patience for more touchy-feely books. How to Be Happy, Dammit delivers on its title. Now let's all go be happy. Dammit. :)

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

There came to a point earlier this year when I would visit my sister's house and our conversations would be like this:

Me: How are you guys?
Joe: All life is travesty.
Judy: I hate everyone. The entire universe is a bunch of f'ing idiots except for me.

If I called on the phone, it was the same. I was getting to the point I couldn't take it any more. I went to Barnes and Noble and out of the blue, How to Be Happy Dammit! called my name.

The book is a quick read full of interesting pictures, funny sayings, and stories. The bright orange cover catches the eye, and the first couple of lessons really grab you and don't let go. But it's not a sugary or saccharine type of self-help book either.

There are 44 lessons in the book and they are all interconnected. It begins with the idea that when you're first born, you're tiny, you don't know what's going on, you've been warm and cozy in your little womb, and then all of a sudden: WHACK! Some idiot on the outside smacks you when you're 3 1/2 seconds old and you've learned your first lessons: Life is not fair, and life occasionally hands out pain for seemingly no good reason. But without it, your little baby self would not grow, and instead you would be dead. I love, love, love this story. And the entire book has these interesting points of view and analogies.

If you're looking for a serene and calming self-help book, this might not be the one for you. BUT! If you want to have some fun learning to have a more positive outlook on life, and you find yourself a little bit cynical of the self help industry, this might just be the one for you.

The book is a very quick read, I read it in about an hour and then Michael and I re-read it outloud together in about an hour's time. Although I was loathe to do so, I did give it to Joe and Judy, and as best I can tell, they've put it in a cupboard and neither one of them has read it. C'est la vie. This book was fun, colorful, and interesting. READ IT!

[Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

Years of suffering from severe depression have led to a slew of suggestions and readings for self-help. The major suggestions have been to find Jesus or to work with Marsha Linehan's dialectical behavioral therapy. For me, these methods are cop-outs and crap. The only thing that has ever been helpful that I've read has been THIS book. I first read it at age 15, borrowed from a therapist. Years later and 4 therapists past, the only good I got out of the 2 years I spent working with that particular therapist, was this book. This book is AMAZING. It uses amazing art and design as well as some of the simplest advice and most self-holding truths. Obviously anyone with depression should be under treatment but as far as books go for irreligious cynics go, this book is an alternative to thinking about things. In fact it is...perfect. Read two or three pages a day, there you go, the agnostic's bible.

[Mandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This reminds me of a coffee table book. There are only a few words on each page, but a lot of pictures. At first, I wasn't very impressed with the little writing and constant page turning. But, the more I read, the more pleasant the book became. It's a little new age-y, a bit scientific, and a lot of the golden rule. It basically tries to inspire you to try and be a nicer person, put yourself out there, and think positively. There's nothing wrong with that.

Will it change your life? Probably not. Does it reveal the secrets to spiritual happiness? Not really. Does it lift the spirit? I think it might.

[Malpal · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read this about three times since I bought it. My first read was right in the store since it's a relatively short book and I figured I could eliminate it from my growing pile. However, I just couldn't leave the store without it and ended up reading it again that night. This book is a masterpiece. Everyone, no matter what mental state they are in, should give it a read. It's brutally honest yet humorous and I feel deeply connected to it. It's bright and colorful pages bring a new surprise to each flip, and the continuity will make you never want to put it down.
Now whenever I'm having negative thoughts I'll flip through and almost instantly feel better.

[Jenava · Rating 5 out of 5]

So true...and entertaining.

[Jodi McMaster · Rating 4 out of 5]

My psychiatrist said that this book helped him more than all the textbooks and medical reviews he'd read. Simple and funny, it gets to the root of most of the issues blocking us from enjoying life.

[AquaMoon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved the style of humor of this book!

This is definitely NOT your stereotypical, how-to-cope with crap, cheese to your whine self-help book. In fact, it isn't even a self-help book (although it would probably be shelved as such by those who don't know better). What "How to Be Happy, Dammit" is, essentially, a tasty litle morsel of inspiration. Over the course of 44 inter-related life lessons, the reader is given some valuable tips on how to live life to the fullest.

Is this book a magical solution to all the world's problems? Uh, no. Do its color-infused pages contain the ultimate answer to life, the Universe, and everything? No to that as well (besides, the answer to that is 42). Will you become rich, famous, smart, etc. just by reading it? Yeah, right--when (real) monkeys sprout wings and fly. As with all similarly-clasified books, you'll only get out of it what you WANT to get out of it and you'll only improve your life if you get off your lazy butt and actually follow the lessons.

One thing is for sure, though: How to Be Happy, dammit is written in a straightforward, humorous voice pretty much any cynic can appreciate whether they need help or not.

[Lili · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked how she introduced life's lesson #1. We're born pure into the world and then whacked in the behind for seemingly no reason and it hurts. Then life's lesson #2 is that the pain in life's lesson #1 is for your benefit and growth. The book is wonderfully designed to catch your eye and the words she's putting together. It was a pick me up!

[Christina · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a gift a bit ago. It's beautifully designed and colorful and has good little snippets of ways to live a mindful life, though that's not the way Salmansohn would word it.

[Darcy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a cute, short read that really left me feeling inspiring once I finished it. The illustrations were fantastic and the advice was easy to relate to.

A nice, self-help read. :)

[Trudy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very insightful little book!

[Jarrod Scarbrough · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kind of a cute read, but very basic and simplistic. I'm sorry to say that overall this book bored me, and neither worked as a self help book nor a funny read.

[Rachael Quinn · Rating 4 out of 5]

You know what? This was a great little book. It reminded me of something that you would buy at a greeting card store to toss in with a gift for someone go through some big life event like divorce or graduation. Small and bright.

I've spent a lot of time reading books and articles on happiness so there wasn't a lot new here for me but I will say this: This book offered a clever combination of philosophy and advice that isn't something I usually come across. I totally get being aimed at cynics. In this one you get everything from philosophy to tough love to little stories and jokes. A quick, pretty cheerful read.

[Erica Napolitano · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not an actual book to me.

[JD Waggy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This felt to me like a grown-up version of The Meaning of Life; lots of pictures and textual tricks to very little actual text. Which was fine; it was visually a neat book.

In terms of context, it was a little less so. The first half of the book is blech; it wasn't until the latter half that I wasn't in despair of slogging through this simply because the first half is so preachy and chirpy that everything is your mood and you can be happy if you just try and pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Heaven help the person who is clinically depressed and handed that shit.

However, the second half was much better and mostly redeemed the first half. Actual concepts were introduced, like harmonic resonance and the Zen ideas on presence. It was a much smarter second half in many ways, and there were some really solid things offered. The ideas were still trapped, though, by the insistent need for the text to sound catchy, so things like "which leads to" at the bottom of nearly every page so that you'd understand the 44 directives are intertwined was really annoying. I'm not overly thrilled about the voice of this, and I won't be keeping it, but it was a cute and curious thing to read through. It was a gift from a friend, and I don't mind having received it.

[Maria McMahon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a little gem of a book! It's unlike your average 'self-help' book in that it's a very fast read, literally racing along so quickly that you barely have time to absorb the wisdom it offers (and most of it is extremely clever and visually appealing)... but then a strange thing happens... you find yourself going back over it, and absorbing it more and more. If you don't like hefty tomes but want something that works with lightening speed, whilst at the same time offering delightful hidden depths on how you can indeed be happy... dammit!... then this is definitely the book for you. I know I am going to be going back to this little treasure again and again!
Maria McMahon
Dip. H.E. NLP/Hyp, BSc. (Psych)

[Elh R' · Rating 2 out of 5]

Do you know how vanilla ice cream taste, right ? It is a sweet taste, a taste that everybody likes (even if you order it in your ice-cream, or not), it is a taste that everybody can get, it doesn't add, neither take from the rest of the flavors. It is just like this book, a nice book, only thing, this books pretends to be "funny", "humorous", and "cynic". Well, it's not. It is more like the vanilla ice-cream flavor of books. It is just that sweet, innocent flavor that can be combined with every other flavor and doesn't taste bad, but neither add nothing to the full product.

Pros : is short, some sentences are a little bit funny, it can be read in less than one hour.

Cons : blahhhh, you'll read it and forget it in less than one week.

2.5/5

[Mala Ashok · Rating 5 out of 5]

They say "when the student is ready, the teacher will appear." I have lately been reading some good books and this little book is the perfect book. To me it has shown up at my doorstep over a decade of publication since I'm ready to appreciate it.It is a light, yet profound guide to a life of happiness for even the ultimate cynic. There are no rules and exercises just pointers and analogies and metaphors. The Jokes in the Boxes are very telling. All in all an impressive book which would make a great gift too.

[Kasia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great things really do come in small packages! Although this book is a fast read, there is so much great advice and wisdom in its pages. And it has my favourite story - of the baby elephant who is taught he can't escape his shackles, so even as he grows he never tries again even though he's bigger and stronger.
Highly recommend this one to anyone needing some support in their battle to be happy.

[Caitlin Harrar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Someone in my family has been telling me for a few years to read this book. I've been going through some rough times, so he said it would help. Well I finally Picked up the book tonight and I haven't been able to put it down. I love it! It has great points/pointers, it makes me laugh, and it really gets me thinking about life and how I can make it more positive. I know that when i finish this book, i will probably pick it up and read it again.

[Myriah · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a good read. A little oversimplified, makes things too easy with blanket statements and all natural healing. But it had a lot of truth in it and an effective and artistic way of teaching it. I loved reading it, and even though there was nothing terribly groundbreaking, it was full of reminders and the writing really sticks the thoughts in your brain. I could see myself picking it up again and just focusing on a lesson or two.

[Lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was super cute. And helpful. Its got 44 Life Lessons that make sense. Its one of those books that is handy to keep around for those days when you are feeling down and hating life and need a little reminder of how to be positive and happy. Its a quick little read and something you should check out.

[Fran · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book many years ago thinking it would be just another fun book. I have kept it throughout the years, because I find that the simple message inside the pages is profound. I re-read it every few years or so when I need to be reminded that there are so many reasons to be happy. Love this book. Love the layout. Love the pictures. Just...Love.

[Tiffany · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book in college when I was taking a psych class and needed to review a self help book. It is a quick and hilarious read, but it is also something that has stuck with me for the last 7 years. It does include some profound truth and suggestions for life that make me think even now. I am so glad I bought it.

[Fishface · Rating 5 out of 5]

All the principles of CBT (cognitive-behavioral therapy) shrunk down into haiku-sized, or smaller, sayings and sound bites. Great visuals combine with between-the-eyes insights to give the reader the potential to change everything they don't like about their lives. Now if only readers would act on it..!

[Becca · Rating 5 out of 5]

LOVED this book and am buying a bunch of copies to send to friends and family! The graphic design is beautiful and stimulating and the thoughts and ideas presented are refreshing and reflective. Great little book on how to change your attitude and better your life. Wonderful idea for a gift!

[Robin · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were parts of this book that didn't resonate with me but for the most part it did. I know that I read about this one within an article on Shelf Awareness although I couldn't tell you who wrote the piece or why they mentioned the book. It's definitely thought-provoking.

[Faythe Swanson]

A very quick read. This book caught my eye at a local thrift store. A light-hearted pick-me-upper. Although I enjoyed this book, I expected more from it, as it seemed to repeat the same-old same-old. I did enjoy the artwork of it, though, & the way it was written!

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very cute book. it's a series of statement/tibias with inspiring messages mostly left for your personal interpretation. While it's tempting to read through quickly, the benefit lies in reading it more carefully.