Engineering Happiness
A New Approach for Building a Joyful Life
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $19.99
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
Manel Baucells and Rakesh Sarin have been conducting ground-breaking research on happiness for more than a decade, and in this book they distill their provocative findings into a lively, accessible guide for a wide audience of readers. Integrating their own research with the latest thinking in the behavioral and social sciences—including management science, psychology, and economics—they offer a new approach to the puzzle of happiness. Woven throughout with wisdom from the world’s religions and literatures, Engineering Happiness has something to offer everyone—regardless of background, profession, or aspiration—who wants to better understand, control, and attain a more joyful life.
• Shows how a few major principles can explain how happiness works and why it is so elusive
• Demonstrates how the essence of attaining happiness is choice
• Explores how to avoid happiness traps
• Tells how to recognize happiness triggers in everyday life
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Sarin and Baucells a management professor at UCLA's Anderson School of Management and business and economics professor at Barcelona's Universitat Pompeu Fabra, respectively provide an insightful and systematic approach to achieving happiness. They rely on a fundamental, seemingly simple equation that they tweak throughout the book: HAPPINESS equals REALITY minus EXPECTATIONS. "It is possible to define happiness in mathematical terms," they write, measuring happiness in a unit they define as "happydons." The authors discuss the role of relative comparison, cumulative comparison, expectations, sensitivity, and their effects on happiness. In the final chapter, "Building a Happier Life," Sarin and Baucells offer concrete tips on how to achieve happiness, ranging from enjoying one's meals, to improving the quality of one's commute to work, to practicing frugality as way to tame expectations. This unique and refreshing look at happiness will appeal to anyone searching for a more fulfilling life.
