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Beyond Happy: How to Rethink Happiness and Find Fulfilment
'A brilliant read... a gamechanger' Paul Ross, Talk Sport
'Essential reading... Written with clarity, vivacity and depth' Manda Scott
A comprehensive guide to cultivating wellbeing, combining cutting edge science and primordial folk wisdom.
Beyond Happy explores how evolution has wired us to keep happiness just out of reach, leaving us perpetually stuck on a happiness treadmill. Instead of striving to escape it, the book argues, we should focus on making the treadmill a place we want to be. Finding this wellbeing begins with listening to our emotions, discovering intrinsic motivation and pursuing our authentic values. Fabian coaches you through this process of self-actualisation. Wellbeing, however, is not solely an individual pursuit – it is something we cultivate together.
Most profoundly, Beyond Happy shows the way out of nihilism – the pervasive sense that life on the treadmill is purposeless and incoherent. To escape this despair, we must develop a moral compass. To heal the toxicity of our acrimonious politics, we need to rediscover the joy of sharing and celebrating what we love.
Delivered with an entertaining mix of academic precision, a podcaster's knack for storytelling, and the down-to-earth panache Australians are known for, Beyond Happy is a one-stop shop to everything you need to know about the good life.
'Essential reading... Written with clarity, vivacity and depth' Manda Scott
A comprehensive guide to cultivating wellbeing, combining cutting edge science and primordial folk wisdom.
Beyond Happy explores how evolution has wired us to keep happiness just out of reach, leaving us perpetually stuck on a happiness treadmill. Instead of striving to escape it, the book argues, we should focus on making the treadmill a place we want to be. Finding this wellbeing begins with listening to our emotions, discovering intrinsic motivation and pursuing our authentic values. Fabian coaches you through this process of self-actualisation. Wellbeing, however, is not solely an individual pursuit – it is something we cultivate together.
Most profoundly, Beyond Happy shows the way out of nihilism – the pervasive sense that life on the treadmill is purposeless and incoherent. To escape this despair, we must develop a moral compass. To heal the toxicity of our acrimonious politics, we need to rediscover the joy of sharing and celebrating what we love.
Delivered with an entertaining mix of academic precision, a podcaster's knack for storytelling, and the down-to-earth panache Australians are known for, Beyond Happy is a one-stop shop to everything you need to know about the good life.
- GenresPhilosophy
349 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 10, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 11, 2025
Reading this book will make your life better
August 25, 2025
This book is different to mainstream self-improvement literature. Rather than focusing on markers of external success, Fabian recommends understanding your unending stream of desires and learning to enjoy being on the hedonic threadmill. He shys away away from proving bullet-pointed lists of improvements you should take and instead conceptualises happiness as an individual journey where one should look inward to one's values and use them to base actions of.
My only negatives were the latter chapters, which concerned broader cultural trends in 'meta-modernism'. As someone who's not online and doesn't watch TV/movies, these essays did not resonate with me.
My only negatives were the latter chapters, which concerned broader cultural trends in 'meta-modernism'. As someone who's not online and doesn't watch TV/movies, these essays did not resonate with me.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews