Trevor’s review of Stumbling on Happiness > Likes and Comments

Just yesterday I added his TEDtalks video to Gilbert's author page. Take a pleasant 15 minute break to see and hear your author: goodreads video.

One of my favorite TEDtalks vids, although the book hasn't made it to the top of my to-read list quite yet. (Pinker's book is next, 'cause of an real-world reading group).

I loved this book as well - great review!

Thanks Lena, I have been finding I review books too soon after I've read them and a week or so later other bits strike me as more important than the bits I mentioned in the review. I'm sure that will be the case with this one too. But with this one there is so much that is so interesting I would never have written anything if I had waited for it all to settle.

I think this is the best of your reviews I've ever read! Great job.

Two great reviews of this book in one day! Really does sound interesting...

Sounds really interesting. Isn't it interesting how much focus there is on happiness these days? Is this because we are all so un-happy?

But if it made you laugh, that is worth SO much. Adding it to my list....

Sounds a bit like psychology 101. I remember reading years ago about studies showing that people who won the lottery were no happier a year after than they were before. Likewise, those who experienced disabling accidents were no more depressed a year or two later than they ever were. Surprising? First hand experience with hearing loss and deafness tells me it's all too true. I'm much happier than I ever expected at this stage of life. I plan to put this book on my list.

Choupette, Manny and Nell - I didn't thank you for your comments, so will do so now belatedly.

Hi Kim, yes, that is precisely the sort of thing he talks about here. I've been becoming increasingly interested in psychology and find all this stuff fascinating. I'm also increasingly coming to the opinion that happiness isn't a state of mine or a disposition or whatever, it is a choice. And not one that is all that affected by the stuff that is happening around you. A few years ago a dear friend of mine died and one of the last times I saw him in hospital we joked and laughed with each other. Clearly there was some 'front' involved on his part in all this, as I guess that is how he would have liked to have been remembered - but the more I think about it the more I believe that he was just being himself.

I added Gilbert's Blog RSS feed to his author's page. You can get regular updates to his blog posts by selecting follow author and this will dump them into your home page (see author tab)

Great review.

Thanks Carmen, this review is from 2009, god...

Wow. How time flies, huh?

It is terrifying - seems like yesterday

Thank you for such a great review, I was happy to read it, because it resonates very well with my opinion on the author :)

I really liked this book and still think about it - I think the central message here - that we basically have no idea what really makes us happy - is an important one for us to hear. - Thanks Renata

I had to laugh when I got to your paragraph about blindness. I found that point of choosing to be happy just before I went blind last year. lol In one eye, only, but enough to change my lifestyle significantly. I'm just as happy now as I was before, if not more so.
That said, I'm not sitting around waiting to lose my sight in the other eye. I'm having surgery!
I've also started being Jane, the Blind Sit-down comic, because why should I stand while you're sitting watching me do all the work? I'm old, blind, and smarter than the average old lady. I sit.

I like the idea of a sit-down comic - so much of comedy is now so cliched, doing even the smallest thing different should be highly praised. It is so long since I read this book, but I still think about it sometimes. It was one of those books that told me to pause before thinking I've any idea of why I'm doing something. Our sense of being free, in control and able to make choices is our greatest illusion, one we fall for every time.

JZ wrote: "I've also started being Jane, the Blind Sit-down comic, because why should I stand while you're sitting watching me do all the work? I'm old, blind, and smarter than the average old lady. I sit."

Wow! That’s wonderful.

Thank you, Richard. I truly appreciate it.

I bombed my first time, because I got heckled by a fat, rich old fart. I've been speaking for years, and I'd never been heckled. (well, by strangers, anyway.)

But, that doesn't stop me. My second attempt is on 12/13. I'm ready for him!

JZ wrote: "…heckled by a fat, rich old fart...."

I hope you prepare some juicy anti-heckler material. Guys are pretty ripe targets these days, especially if they're rich and white.

Trevor, just the idea of standing in front of a crowd seemed silly. And, I've never heard of a sit-down comic. So...

I live in the moment now. I do think more about what I choose to do. Age ain't all bad.

Free will, I've decided, is an illusion.

non sequitur

I mostly forget I'm 55 - I got married as a child, so I've felt old forever. I basically went from childhood to late middle age - bloody stupid. All the same, getting old is a hell of a lot better than the alternative, of course. I think I'm enjoying this part of my life the most of any so far.

Have you only done one sit-up performance? (I like that, sit-up and pay attention or I'll give you something to laugh about...) Do you tell jokes or do wee stories? Personally, I tell people that I like comedy that is stories, but if truth be told I really find I mostly like people like Steven Wright - and you couldn't really call what he does 'stories' and even Milton Jones from the UK. I like how they make my head spin.

We went to Western Australia recently, and there was a guy there who took us on a tour of a national park (well, a lake really). Anyway, I was really struck by how enthusiastic he was and how contagious his excitement was. People were laughing their heads off, and really, it had almost nothing to do with his 'material'. It was just that you couldn't help getting involved.

It's never too late to have a second childhood.
This sounds like a trite phrase, but it's absolutely true. When my brain healed last year, somehow, the memories I had not realized were gone have come flooding back, most with a sense of wonder as I had as a child, but with no pain, no judgement, no regrets. Life is new. I turned off the news, returned to my studies that I had to give up in 1972, and rediscovered the joy I felt then, but now, with a deeper understanding of the interconnectedness of us all.

I'm still healing, and every day is a new one in a way different from my feeling 'as old as dirt.'
I've decided that what I want to be when I grow up is someone who makes the road lighter for everyone I meet. If I can tell funny stories about my journey through brain damage and beyond, to being blind, and then not, well, that's great for me, and I hope, for everyone else, too. "If I can have fun, what the hell's the matter with you?" is my battle cry.

So, now, I'm doing the White Knuckles: Escape from the Death Seat tour. My 89 year old mother is my driver, and when I scream, "What did you hit?" she tells me to get in the back seat and put a sock in it and a bag over my head. My doctors are concerned about my blood pressure when I walk in the door. I tell them to take a ride with Doris. Then they'll know. I need to see!

I love Steven Wright. There's a man who I cannot emulate, though. I laugh all the time. I am actually famous for my laugh. (Isn't that just the best? My favorite characteristic is that I'm easily amused. I notice everything, and my mind links it up with other stuff, and I laugh.) Deadpan is not me, at all. I read Sara's review of "Reading the OED" and learned that I am a hypergelast - one who will not stop laughing. I'm not sure if that means one has control and refuses, or just can't help themselves, but I fall into the latter.
Life is endlessly amusing to me, and always has been, but now, it's even funnier. Pain plus lots of time. I was talking to my mom recently, and said, "Life's funny, Ma." Without missing a beat, she replied, "If you say so, Jane." Dry as a martini.

i love George Carlin more. His intricate weaving of stories that ridicule what we do that's stupid keep drawing me back. I saw him live once, and it changed my life. It was right around when a friend of mine told me that doing stand-up was on his bucket list. All of that has been in the back of my mind since then, in 1988. I'm a slow starter.

JZ wrote: "Free will, I've decided, is an illusion."

Amusing: I just happened to be reading an essay from thirty years ago on “A taxonomy of thinking” and it had a small portion that argued for the existence of free will. Coincidence?

JZ wrote: "I love Steven Wright."

My favorite Steven Wright quote:

“Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time.”

It works! (If you can wait a few millennia, perhaps.)

Synchronicity. Did you look at the dates that you and I both liked that quote? Check it out. lol

Best review I've ever read. It was as enjoyable as the book.