Summary of Derren Brown's Happy

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

Sample Book Insights:

#1 We are constantly editing events in the world around us to form a story, and we are constantly communicating that story to others and ourselves. We are constantly changing the details and selectively remembering what fits into our preferred narrative.

#2 We are all the products of the stories we tell ourselves. Some of our stories are brief and inconsequential, while others define who we are. We tell ourselves tales about the future: I’ll never have a fulfilling relationship. We tell the story we want to tell, and we live out those stories every day.

#3 The Stoics believed that it is not events out there that cause our problems, but rather our reactions to them. We do not need to react unhappily to events in the way to which we are accustomed, and we can begin to question our relationship with those aspects of the outer world.

#4 We are trapped inside our own heads. Our beliefs and understandings about the world are limited by that perspective. We mistake that story we’ve constructed of our lives as the truth. We are prey to an analogous error every waking moment of our lives.