The Pursuit of Happiness: Why are we driving ourselves crazy and how can we stop?

by Howard M Jones

'Essential reading. So funny, so relevant, so fascinating ... I loved it' Marian Keyes

'A whip-sharp British Bill Bryson' Sunday Times

When British journalist Ruth Whippman moved to America it seemed that everyone she met was obsessed with one thing: finding happiness. Americans spend more money and energy on becoming happier than anyone on earth, but yet they are some of the least happy people in the developed world. So Ruth sets off on a journey to work out what’s going wrong, and most importantly what lessons we can all learn about what truly makes for a happy life.

From nearly falling apart during a controversial self-help course promising total transformation, to investigating a 'happiness city' in the Nevada desert, spending time with the Mormons in Utah to exploring the darker truths behind the positive psychology movement, Ruth tries it all. Along the way she stumbles upon a more effective, less anxiety inducing path to contentment.

Genres: Nonfiction, Psychology, Sociology, Self Help, Mental Health, Personal Development, Audiobook

288 pages, Paperback

First published March 10, 2016

Reviews

[Carmen · Rating 1 out of 5]

But the more conversations I have about happiness, the more I absorb the idea that there's a glittering happy-ever-after out there for the taking, the more I start to overthink the whole thing, compulsively monitoring how I am feeling and hyper-parenting my emotions. Am I happy? Right at this moment? What about now? And now? Am I happy enough? As happy as everyone else? What about Meghan? Is she happier than me?

This book was disappointing. There were A LOT of problems with it.

1.) First and foremost: America the Anxious. This is NOT about anxiety. How Our Pursuit of Happiness is Creating A Nation of Nervous Wrecks. No, this isn't what the book is about either.

Basically, this book is about the capitalization of the concept of 'happiness.' How Americans, wanting to be happier, throw money away on stupid shit.

That's the book.

If you want to read a much better book on this exact same topic, please try Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America. It is smarter, funnier, and more coherent than this book while still covering a lot of the same topics. And for the record, I didn't think Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America was so great. I only gave it three stars. But it is leaps and bounds ahead of this book.


2.) The book presents almost no new information and almost no interesting analyses.

Chapter 1: She rips into mindfulness.

I find mindfulness a hard theory to embrace. Surely one of the most magnificent things about the human brain is its ability to hold past, present, future, and their imagined alternatives in parallel, to offset the tedium of washing dishes in Pinole with the chance to be simultaneously mentally in Bangkok or Don Draper's boxer shorts...

Chapter 2: She rips into yoga.

It occurs to me that all these happiness pursuits often don't seem to be making people particularly happy. When a new American friend persuades me to try out a yoga class, you can almost smell the tension and misery in the room. Although it's a little hard to determine cause and effect, as anyone who was already feeling happy would be unlikely to waste the sensation in a fetid room at the YMCA, contorting their body into uncomfortable positions. The happy person would be more likely to be off doing something fun, like sitting in the park, drinking.

I'm not hugely into either of these things, but regardless, this is just some woman's random musings, not any kind of research or studies. I don't really care if she, personally, doesn't enjoy yoga.

She tries to tell us her friend Allison doesn't have time for her anymore - no time for a friendship -because she is 'too busy blogging.' Ummmmm, maybe she just doesn't like you. Also, this is NOT research. It's anecdotes about your life, as is so much of this book.

She thinks meditation is boring and isolationist.

3.) She thinks she's funny, but she's not. This is often painful.

Like an attractive man, it seems the more actively happiness is pursued, the more it refuses to call and starts avoiding you at parties.

This often ruins perfectly good points she is trying to make.

The upside of first world problems is obviously that they are first-world problems, rather than, say, Ebola or starvation. The downside is that they condemn you to a life lived to the strains of a looping mental sound track of your own subconscious jeering "first world problems!" on endless repeat and thereby invalidating your every emotion.

a.) True, but

b.) People ARE starving in the U.S.A. So...."

There's something about the fluorescent sterility of the place that screams "human experimentation!" making me paranoid that I might unwittingly be part of a study of elevator behavior that will somehow expose me as a person capable of unspeakable cruelty, or a racist.

What.

Chapter 3: She rips into self-help. She correctly identifies self-help programs as abusive, bullying, money-grubbing, and bullshit. However, she is not the first nor fiftieth person to do this.

Also, she makes like Ehrenreich and signs up for some bullshit self-help seminars.

It's at this point where she starts the weird habit - continued throughout the book - of pretending she is dumb. It's bizarre. She knows self-help is bullshit. She is attending the self-help seminars for the sake of the book. She is too smart to fall for this shit. However, she pretends as if she is dumb enough to do that. And she acts as if she is sucked in by the marketing.

Maybe it's Dave's powers of persuasion (Dave is a recruiter). Maybe it's emotional greed. Or maybe it's all that stuff Claire (an abusive recruiter) is saying about pointing the finger away from everyone else and back at myself, and that, as a Jewish mother, the prospect of an entire weekend devoted to self-flagellation is just too enticing to pass up; but somehow, not long afterward, I find myself dialing Landmark's head office and booking myself on a three-day course ($585) starting the following weekend.

Of course none of this bullshit is true. But for whatever reason, she can't just say, "I was curious and wanted to put this in my book, so I went." Ehrenreich has no problem admitting this. But Whippman insists on playing dumb like this over and over in the book. You will see more examples later.

Look at this, it's Valentine's Day and her tiny son has just presented her with a box of chocolates.

"Don't go to Happy School today, Mummy," he pleads. "I missed you yesterday. Stay here with me instead."

I ignore him. After all, "missing" is just an interpretation (as opposed to a reality). Instead, I choose to "restore my integrity" with the Landmark Forum. I am rewarded. When I pick up my name badge on the way into the room, underneath is a little preprinted Valentine card from Valerie. She has even personalized it by filling out my name in red marker. My husband sends me a frosty text saying he has canceled our dinner reservations.

WTF is going on here? Is this a joke? This playing dumb, is it a joke? Because obviously she is not leaving her loving family - and amazing V-Day fun - just to attend a bullshit seminar run by abusive assholes who want your money because she's BUYING INTO IT. Why doesn't she just say, "I needed to go for research." And why pretend her husband frostily is cancelling dinner plans? She obviously told him that she was doing this weekend at a seminar and that it was research for her upcoming book! I doubt it was A SURPRISE TO HIM. I just don't get it. Does she think this is cute?

Then, THEN, she willingly and knowingly goes to a middle school seminar given by this bullying, public-humiliation company which is full of bullshit and manipulation. SHE VOLUNTEERS. To witness and perhaps even encourage the public humiliation of middle schoolers whom are made to stand and confess their darkest secrets in front of the whole class. I mean, the company is obviously evil incarnate. Fine. But her going there, and WORSE, pretending like she's caught up in all the bullshit being slung here is just insulting her readers' intelligence. I am disappointed in her taking part in this, but if she wants to be a ruthless journalist, so be it. But I take umbrage with this innocent "I didn't know what I was doing!" act.

Chapter 4: Whippman shockingly reveals that Corporate does NOT have your best interests at heart, and that they are willing to pay good money to 'happiness sellers' who promise to make workers happy with working 90 hour weeks. This is sarcasm, that isn't shocking at all.

Chapter 5: Parents do not discipline their kid in some weird attempt for their kid to never be unhappy. Oh, wait, I don't mean 'parents,' I mean 'American parents.' Americans. >.< This is resulting in AMERICAN kids growing up to be entitled little shits who think everything will be easy always. Also, it is leading to an increase in anxiety disorders, panic attacks, and depression. Fine, but all of this is very old news and will be shocking to no one. Of course you have to discipline your children. Of course Johnny is going to grow up to be a fuckboy if you never teach him basic human compassion. There's nothing new here.

This chapter is also about the capitalization of the 'happiness' concept because it deals with paying extra money for extra-special schools where your child will be coddled and experience no unpleasantness ever. Or you can pay $329.05 for a parenting course about building self-esteem in your toddler. etc.

She also, once again, tries to play dumb with me and pretend she thinks this horrendous parenting style is something she tried and believed in at one point. Which I don't buy for one second.

Chapter 6: Whippman correctly figures out that It isn't the inner journey of private religious beliefs that is making religious people so happy but the community and social connectedness that comes with a religious lifestyle.

But then, inexplicably, she spends this whole chapter ripping into Mormons. For some reason. This really grated my cheese. She even stays with a Mormon family for a few weeks, but disrespects her Mormon hostess by saying stuff in her book like, Laura has clearly not only got on top of domestic chaos but has whipped it into meek obedience, like a Mormon dominatrix leading an investment banker around on a dog leash. Rude. Disrespectful.

She also plays dumb MORE, saying stupid shit like, Are all Mormon babies like this? I wonder. No wonder they're so happy.... I instantly decide to convert.

Yes. Why on Earth is she trying to convince us that she is so stupid that she a.) saw a well-behaved Mormon baby then b.) determines ALL Mormon babies are like this and c.) this is why ALL MORMONS are so happy and d.) decides to convert right there. BULLSHIT, all of this is bullshit. I can't tell if she's joking or she actually thinks we'll believe she's this dumb?!!?!?

She also insists on telling us all about her own son's circumcision, for some reason that I couldn't quite grasp.

Chapter 7: Social media is full of people presenting a fake face to the world and creates false expectations of what happiness looks like in an average life. No duh.

She actually has some good lines in here:

This is social media's basic Faustian pact: you believe my Facebook fiction (and allow it to make you slightly envious and insecure), and I'll do the same for yours.
...
Somehow, without ever discussing it, we have almost universally decreed social media to be a kind of personal PR agency, a forum for us to assemble a set of glittering promotional materials for our own lives, all with the aim of making ourselves appear as improbably blissfully happy as possible.

Although there is plenty of stupid shit sprinkled in:

Although when I started to edge toward the fortysomething demographic most often described as fabulous, I started to realize that fabulous is almost certainly just social media for "female human aging reluctantly"

Wow. Go jump in a lake.

Facebook has made Mormons out of us all.

Is she STILL dissing the Mormons? What the fuck?

She does make some good points, though:

It's an odd cycle of buy-in and amnesia. We all post our carefully edited best moments and, although at a rational level we know that other people are doing the same, we somehow believe that everyone else's life is Really Like That. We are all complicit in creating the fiction, yet we still have faith in its veracity,...
...
But this shared archive of perfection has been assimilated into the background hum of our expectations, and increasingly, we are taking our cues for how happy we are "supposed" to be from the curated perfection of social media. In turn, our expectations of what contentment should look like are constantly inflating, creating a whole new level of happiness anxiety.
...
If at a real-life party, a guest starts carpet bombing the conversation with observations about how wonderful, hot, and expensive his last vacation was; the dazzling accomplishments of his children; and the unblemished happiness of his marriage, all right-thinking people will, quite appropriately, hate him. If he pulls the same stunt online, apparently instead we hate ourselves.

Chapter 8: Positive Psychology is bullshit.

Negativity may be a bummer, but genuine critical thinking and analysis can't happen without it. But in a system in which 'like' is the main driver of success, the schmaltzy and uplifting naturally rise to the top, and the complex, challenging, or uncomfortable grind to a halt.

Again, she's talking less about ACTUAL HAPPINESS and more about money in this chapter - how positive psychology is very profitable so people ignore the actual numbers, statistics, and percentages and just publish whatever they want. She actually does a little research and investigative work in this chapter, which is refreshing.


4.) I can't help seeing a bit of "Americans are stupider than the British" in this book.


Tl;dr: This book was completely different from what I had expected, and perhaps that is part of the problem. Please skip this and read Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America instead. Ehrenreich isn't perfect, but her book is much better than this and covers much of the same material.

None of the material in here is new, it's a rehash of many different books I've already read. Therefore it was a complete waste of my time. Although I suppose all of this could be new information to somebody... somebody who doesn't follow the news at all.

The ripping on everything, and the playing stupid all the time (when I know Whippman is a very intelligent woman) was frustrating. If her playing dumb was a joke, it was a poor one and one I didn't 'get.' She also puts a lot of personal anecdotes in here - often completely unrelated to any conceivable topic that the book deals with. o.O

There was just so much wrong with this book. Avoid.

P.S. She does strongly acknowledge that life is horrible for the poor, and it is insulting and horrible to insinuate they should 'smile and think positive' and tell them shit like 'money doesn't make anyone any happier.' So extra points for this. What she really did was make me desperate to read Hand to Mouth: Living in Bootstrap America, because she conducts an excellent interview with Linda Tirado in this book.

[Cheri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I wouldn’t personally consider this book to be considered a light, the subject matter, this takes a light approach to the American “pursuit of happiness.”

Moving from London to the San Francisco Bay Area was more than a climate change for Ruth Whippman. She was completely unprepared for the American belief in the need for life to include, at the bare minimum, Happiness. Blame it on the Founding Fathers, they forgot that disclosure needed that pursuit of does not always equal achieving happiness – but then again, it was never intended to be read as your right by virtue of your citizenship.

From “The Landmark Forum” on are an abundance of institutions who will gladly show you the error of your way of thinking for just a few $$$. Some companies have their own philosophies which amount to if you want to work for them, you must be happy, or be willing to increasingly strive for being your very happiest self. Problem people create unhappy situations and problems. The section on happiness at work, and the companies who strive for this ideology was interesting. How well does it work? Well…

My favorite part was when she talked about parenting. My children are all grown, so I’m not the one responsible for making decisions on which pre-school to take the little ones to, but I worry about all of the “politically correct” talk aimed at or about children. They aren’t klutzes; they prefer to call it “self-directing toward the lower levels.” When children are whacked on the head with a wooden mallet and a teacher responds to the whack-er with the question “Oh dear. Are you having trouble using your body safely?” It’s a very idealistic viewpoint that one can will their child to be perfectly happy, and we all want that for our children, your children. If your children are happy, one would hope that would make parents happy.

“But really, if our own children don’t make us happy, then rather than rethinking our children, perhaps we should be rethinking our very understanding of happiness.”

Surprisingly to some, not so surprising to others may be where the happiest place in the USA is: Provo, Utah.

“…according to Gallup polls, Provo, Utah, where close to 90 percent of the population identifies as religious Mormon, is officially the happiest town in America.”

While this statistic is somewhat based on the additional strength, and thus potentially happiness, some may get from the religion, a significant part is based on the strength of the communities there, as well as the alternative welfare system, a very impressive system.

“A child born poor in Salt Lake City is more likely than any poor child in America to make it to a position of economic security in adulthood, with the city’s social mobility levels on a par with Denmark’s – the best in the developed world.”

There’s something to be said for getting the basics right. Making sure that people are fed and not looked down upon for not growing up as one of the “haves.”

This was a very interesting, informative and more than occasionally amusing - in a cheeky British way.

Pub Date: 04 October 2016

Many thanks for the ARC provided by St. Martin’s Press, NetGalley and author Ruth Whippman

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

I call this niche genre anti-self-help. (Two other great examples are Smile or Die by Barbara Ehrenreich (also known as Bright-Sided) and Promise Land by Jessica Lamb-Shapiro; for more on the positive psychology movement see One Simple Idea.) Whippman has a particularly interesting perspective as a British Jew who moved to California for her husband’s work. With sharp humor and natural British cynicism, she investigates various manifestations of the American obsession with happiness, including the cult-like Landmark Forum, Zappos shoes HQ, Mormonism, Facebook’s encouragement of shallow social interaction, and the positive psychology movement.

I especially liked her visit to a Mormon family in Salt Lake City (the nation’s happiest group, it seems, but also the most highly medicated against depression), but the funniest chapter is about happiness-focused parenting. “Giving birth, for me, was like emerging from a car crash to find myself inexplicably, madly in love with Vladimir Putin. … I instantly contracted every pathology in the Diagnostic Manual of Middle-Class Parenting. I adopted the signature new-parent blend of sanctimony and guilt, misplaced self-righteousness and crippling self-doubt.” Here she describes her older son’s preschool: “The curriculum is incredible. They grow passion fruit, and do shadow puppet shows. The play ukuleles and make collages using visionary combinations of dried pinto beans and old doorknobs.”

Whippman’s basic message is that the happiness movement went wrong by making it a matter of personal responsibility, of mental and spiritual triumph over circumstances. “Our narrative of happiness has become individualistic and punitive, totally divorced from social justice or wider responsibility.” The things that will really make us truly happy are a sense of community and genuine social interaction, so it’s no surprise that the happiest groups are religious ones (with tight-knit relationships and an inbuilt sense of purpose) and the happiest countries are ones with strong welfare systems in place to ensure a baseline standard of living.

It gives no easy answers, but it’s a very enjoyable book. You’ll especially enjoy it if, like me, you have one foot in America and one in another country.

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book will be a comfort to anyone who has ever felt guilty about not feeling happy enough.

Ruth Whippman is a British journalist who moved to California when her husband got a job there. She became fascinated by America's obsession with the pursuit of happiness, even though it doesn't seem to be making us any happier. In fact, chasing happiness seems to be causing more anxiety.

Paradoxically, the more people valued and were encouraged to value happiness as a separate life goal, the less happy they were.

Whippman decides to investigate, and she has chapters on different aspects of happiness research, including religion (she visits a Mormon community); work (she checks out the "fungineering" at different companies); children (she volunteers at a school event); and seminars (she attends a Landmark Forum). My favorite section was about social media and how demoralizing it can be, partly due to the pressure to post positive and uplifting things.

This is social media's basic Faustian pact: you believe my Facebook fiction (and allow it to make you slightly envious and insecure), and I'll do the same for yours.

Happiness is the currency of social media and the loophole in the generally accepted no-bragging rule. In its short lifetime, Facebook has developed its own unique internal language and set of social norms, totally distinct from what is generally considered acceptable in real life. Somehow, without ever discussing it, we have almost universally decreed social media to be a kind of personal PR agency, a forum for us to assemble a set of glittering promotional materials for our own lives, all with the aim of making ourselves appear as improbably blissfully happy as possible ...

In a culture that both insists that we have complete control over our happiness and too often equates unhappiness with inadequacy, social media gives us an unprecedented ability to craft and present a happy front. This shifts the business of bliss away from how happy we feel, to the perhaps more culturally urgent matter of how happy we look.

I was interested in this book not just because I like pop psychology, but also because as a Brit, the author has the benefit of an outsider's perspective on life in America. There are a few times where she compares American situations to Europe, and the differences are striking.

Throughout the book Whippman shares a lot of research on happiness, from both academic journals and reports in the popular press, which made for a nice overview of the subject. She also shares stories from her life and family, some of which didn't seem that relevant, and at times her humor was a bit jarring. But overall this was a thought-provoking read, and I appreciated her insights into the "happiness industrial complex."

I would recommend America the Anxious to anyone interested in happiness research.

Favorite Quotes
"It seems as though happiness in America has become the overachiever's ultimate trophy. A modern trump card, it outranks professional achievement and social success, family, friendship, and even love."

"The self-help industry is wholly unregulated, with no requirement to demonstrate the effectiveness of any of its techniques before marketing them. A growing body of research is emerging that contends that many of its key interventions — such as positive thinking, affirmations, and the attempt to exert control over our own emotions — are, at best, unproven and in some cases can actually end up making people more unhappy rather than less."

"It's easy to see how, in a culture that prizes happiness as the ultimate goal and mark of success, it might be hard for anyone struggling with mental health issues to feel able to admit to them or discuss them."

"For a company to come in and say, 'We're going to make everybody happy,' it can be very harmful. It can be dangerous ... Thinking that you have complete control over your emotions and if you don't feel happy it's your fault, that can make people feel shame. It's anxiety inducing."

"The irony is, with this obsessive focus on our happiness, and rush to lay claim to our emotions and free time, our employers are actually providing the biggest hurdle to our genuine well-being, demanding so much of our time and emotional energy that we have little left for our relationship, families, and communities outside of work."

"The idea that a parent can somehow, through their own grinding effort, turn out a flawlessly happy child speaks to deep-seated Calvinist beliefs about hard work and meritocracy."

"It is now difficult to experience a happy moment without at least a fleeting thought about how the happy moment will play on social media."

"Negativity may be a bummer, but genuine critical thinking and analysis can't happen without it."

"Any generalizations about happiness, or universal recommendations about how to increase it, do little to describe the complexities of human experience ... Happiness is so individualized and complex, so dependent on a myriad of factors — of circumstances and life events, upbringing, culture, relationships, preferences, and personality quirks — that anything averaged out over a group is unlikely to do much to describe the lived experience of any one person. And when it comes to happiness, perhaps individual experience is really all that matters."

"So much of whether you make it in life is dependent on circumstance, or just on luck. The message that it's all about attitude is ridiculous. It neglects all complexities." — Dr. James Coyne

"Consistently, the countries that do the best in international happiness surveys — the Scandinavian countries, Australia, and New Zealand — are those that buy into a wider social contract that everyone is responsible for another's well-being via a robust welfare state. People are generally happier when everyone is well cared for."

"Happiness is at the very heart of the American project, the emotional ambition to mirror the economic. The idea that an entire nation can be founded on the principle that each person has the explicit right to a shot at personal fulfillment is endlessly compelling. But when he wrote about the pursuit of happiness, Jefferson wasn't talking about self-discovery or the inner journey. The Founding Fathers' definition of happiness was intimately bound up with community and civic responsibility, with acknowledging that individual freedom and well-being depend on being part of the whole."

[Taryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Is it possible to hunt down a happy life, or is the Great American Search for Happiness creating a nation of nervous wrecks?

A lighthearted investigation into the American obsession with happiness. When Ruth Whippman moved from London to San Francisco, it was a big culture shock. The American "deep cultural aversion to negativity" was at odds with the more cynical attitudes she grew up with. The pervasiveness of conversations about happiness inspired her to investigate the American search for happiness and the industries that capitalize on it. She explores the topic via several different angles:

• Self-help and the commercialization of happiness: In this chapter, Whippman attends The Landmark Forum personal development course. Their philosophy is that happiness can only come from within and your bad interpretations of situations are to blame for your unhappiness. It appears as if they try to make a person feel so awful that they become a lifelong customer! She also addresses the disturbing way these programs have wormed their ways into public schools, with the enlistment of untrained volunteers.

• Work: Whippman visits the corporate headquarters of Zappos and Facebook. She explores the dark side of enforced positivity and how work-life integration creates an environment ripe for exploitation. One of the creepiest parts of the book is the inquiry into the Zappos's founder's attempt to create a start-up utopia in Downtown Las Vegas.

• Parenting: Discusses trends in parenting--parents dedicating their time to making sure their children only have positive experiences and the expectation that children will bring neverending happiness. These good intentions may actually have the opposite effect on both parent and child. Now that the first generation raised with intense parenting has made it to college, how are they holding up psychologically? She also discusses how the division between social classes can have a negative effect on culture: "In this intense and rarefied environment of privilege, stewing in social similarity, middle-class child-rearing ideas that may have started off as mildly useful tips become distilled and boiled further and further down to an overpowering strength and potency, like a balsamic reduction, while parents whip each other up into a frenzy of anxiety and guilt." (A thought that applies to any echo chamber.)

• Religion: Why polls show Mormons are happier than the rest of America and why those statistics may be misleading. One of the most interesting parts of this chapter was the part about the Mormon welfare system. I was not surprised by their generosity, but by the sheer scale and efficiency of the operation.

• Social Media: How the goal posts for contentment keep getting harder to reach and how social media encourages comparison. Social networking has also changed the way news is spread, as she shows when she explains the science behind Upworthy and their vague, click-bait titles.

• Positive Psychology, the academic wing of self-help:  This part discusses the academic wing of the happiness industry and how they may be distorting data and spreading damaging ideas. Like the self-help industry, the positive psychology community focuses on how we control our own happiness while dismissing the damaging effects that circumstances can have:  “primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it,”  The author also shows how a larger political agenda may have influenced their conclusions. "If circumstance is of little consequence to happiness, why worry if people are struggling?" The number of popular nonfiction books about happiness has skyrocketed in the last 15 years, so their theories definitely has an effect on our culture.  

Happiness is so individualized and complex, so dependent on a myriad of factors—of circumstances and life events, upbringing, culture, relationships, preferences, and personality quirks—that anything averaged out over a group is unlikely to do much to describe the lived experience of any one person. And when it comes to happiness, perhaps individual experience is really all that matters. 

One aspect that may turn some readers off is the frequent mention of the author's political leanings. She repeatedly mentions the positive effects of a wider social safety net has on a nation's overall happiness score, which is a controversial subject in the USA. Politics aren't the central point and it's not done in an overly intense way*, but it is a part of the book. If a negative comment about Ayn Rand, Donald Trump, or Fox News will ruin your day, this book probably won't be one of your favorites. Also: while some might take issue with an "outsider" analyzing American attitudes, the author's fondness for America shines through. I got a little teary-eyed during the last chapter!

When he wrote about the pursuit of happiness, Jefferson wasn’t talking about self-discovery or the inner journey. The Founding Fathers’ definition of happiness was intimately bound up with community and civic responsibility, with acknowledging that individual freedom and well-being depend on being part of the whole. ... But all too often freedom and happiness, the two guiding tropes of the American experiment, have come to work against each other. Happiness has turned inward and become entangled with the idea of a personal journey and forging ahead alone.

One thing that is reiterated throughout all the chapters is how overwhelming the feeling of isolation can be when you're struggling and everyone else appears to be happy. The statistics regarding how many Americans feel that they have no one they can talk to are alarming.  Two of the central conclusions are that strong relationships are the biggest contributor to personal happiness and that happiness is the side effect of a life well-lived rather than something that can be found.  

It had just the right mix of personal and journalism, which is not an easy balance. I wish there was a chapter on how the search for total happiness affects modern romantic relationships, though Aziz Ansari's Modern Romance might fill that gap to some extent! America the Anxious is a humorous and insightful look into the pursuit of happiness. I read it in one sitting! If you would like to get a sense of the author's style, she wrote a New York Times opinion piece in 2012: America the Anxious.

_______________________
I received this book for free from St. Martin's Press & NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I also had brief contact with the author, but I had already received the book at that point. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. This title will be released on October 4, 2016.

*Might be my own biases showing! I think the last reference is the most likely to ruffle some feathers.

[Malena Watrous · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book. It's really not a "self-help" book so much as an examination of our current self-help culture, in which we're constantly told to keep gratitude journals and pay for meditation classes and improve ourselves in a perpetual quest for happiness--yet, as Whippman points out humorously and astutely--we aren't getting any happier. She came here from Britain and can see with clarity and wit the ways that we are nutty, even as some part of her is (or was) attracted to the culture of optimism here in the US. She's super funny about the tyranny of progressive Berkeley parenting culture, and I loved her chapter in which she goes undercover at EST. Happiness is big business in the US. People shell out a ton of money to try and buy bliss. But Whippman consistently shows that the things that would actually make us happier, like time with our friends, time off social media, are usually free and don't require a cultivated "practice," just taking the time to do them. Even if you already agree with these points (or disagree) her writing style is a treat: super sharp, observant, funny. I felt better about the fact that the things that are supposed to make me feel better often don't.

[Benoit Lelièvre · Rating 5 out of 5]

Welp. That was concerning. Excellent, too. I was already very much aware that happiness had become a commodity for my generation and began this audiobook with the firm intention to catch Ruth Whippman's bias and put her thesis in perspective and guess what? Whippman does a good job at doing that herself and then some. She managed to teach me a thing or two on how widespread and hollow this obsession with happiness is. Whippman researched her subject dilligently and policed her own bias as well as anybody can and managed to offer piercing insight on the commodification of happiness. Highly recommended.

[India M. Clamp · Rating 4 out of 5]

Got happy onboard? Sighing more than smiling? Yoga pants give you happiness?

Fluid and nakedly honest with its almost scientific analysis of the ADD---most commonly termed as “The American Condition”---running barefoot on a mine field and is happiness found in a foreign taco south of the border then trashed like a cheap churro in Tijuana, Mexico?

On this journey Whippman goes undercover via self-help course for conversion to happiness on tap. Hanging out in one of the “most-sad cities” then goes native with Mormons (America’s happiest people) to find an answer. This is a clever trip into dogma of “now, now, now.”

Whippman (her initial book) slings it passionately. Award winning read with repartee in-line with superb English authors delineating specific examples. The book is the NY Post selection for "Best Book of the Year." Definite read for lifelong students, academics and social scientists, buy it.

[Martha Conway · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was one of the best books I've read all year. It's hard-hitting journalism about the various ways in which Americans try to find (and hold onto) happiness, with a personal story behind it that makes the ride all the more engaging. What is happiness? How do we get it? Do studies show that we're actually happier if we do X, Y, or Z? The book tackles these questions and more, and is both interesting and informative. Plus, I literally laughed aloud while I was reading it. If Joan Didion and David Sedaris could exist in the same universe (and I'm not sure that they can or do), they might together produce this book.

Some of my favorite lines: "The other monk is clearly Buddhism 2.0, midtwenties and American, wearing a digital watch."
"[Meditation is] relaxing, but not as relaxing as a pedicure."
"If someone suggests that a given activity is going to be 'empowering,' I know that is almost certainly going to be undignified, mildly humiliating, or involve heights."

But although there are some very funny lines, it's a serious book that touches on such topics/pursuits as EST, meditation, social media, Mormons, parenting, and work culture, and how all of those fail or succeed in keeping people happy. I can't believe how many emotions I felt as I was reading it—humor and cynicism and disgust and wonder and incredulity, with some feelings of superiority and inferiority mixed in, too. Best of all, it really made me think about happiness: what it means to me / what I think it is / do I have it. But mostly what I think it is.

I highly recommend this book!

[Laura Bloom · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Anxiety of Happiness is highly enjoyable. Ruth Whippman's descriptions of family life, texting, and drinking wine in the park - to pick a random three examples - made me laugh out loud with pleasure and recognition.

What makes this a particularly satisfying read, though, and lifts this book above the others in its ‘stranger in a strange land’ genre, is that it’s also an acutely analysed polemic against the ‘happiness industry', giving words to something that before now I had been aware of, but had not fully comprehended. And this is where my admiration and enjoyment of The Anxiety of Happiness kicked into overdrive. Whippman finds connections between phenomena that I had not thought of before, but once she joined the dots helped me suddenly see, and it's a picture that goes from the personal to the society-wide with profound political, social and economic implications.

The author goes to a yoga class in her new home town, for example, hoping to make friends, but instead finds everyone wrapped in a holy air of detachment that makes her think wistfully of previous spiritual rituals, such as church socials, where people would have shared sandwiches and plastic cups of cordial before disappearing into their separate lives. Why is the search for happiness such a Thing right now? She asks. Why is it particularly such a feminine Thing? And why is it such a lonely thing? The part of the book I found most disturbing is near the beginning, and this is the only point where I actually wondered if I could read on. In this section Whippman describes a self improvement workshop for students held at a school near where she lives in California, where adult volunteers weren’t tested or trained in any way for working with the young people, let alone assisting dismantle them psychologically, and where young people were encouraged to be vulnerable in a way that is clearly dangerous – both socially and psychologically – and then to simply resume normal life again the next day. It didn’t surprise me to read that incidents of bullying at the schools which held these workshops went up after this, rather than down as it was intended to. The perpetrators of this seem naïve at best, and possibly much worse. Behind the happiness industry are commercial interests and political ones, intertwining to catch us around our ankles and pull us over.

Whippman great achievement with this book is to offer all the pleasures and intimacy of a very well written memoir, combined with an astute investigation into a relatively new phenomenon – the drive to 'achieve happiness' – that pervades our culture and needs to be questioned and, in the case of that school, for example, but in our personal, work and social lives also – thoughtfully resisted.

[Leigh Carroll · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was so looking forward to reading this book, because I've really enjoyed Ruth Whippman's essays in the Guardian, NY Times, Time Magazine etc. I took it with me on a solo weekend trip to Portland and devoured it in a couple of days, staying up way too late to finish chapter after chapter. I literally laughed out loud (LLOLd) numerous times. Ruth somehow manages to completely capture distinctly American neuroses without it being at all derogatory. She chronicles her experiences with a total soul-baring honesty, it's refreshing and very human (and very often hilarious) and I so related to her discomfort through cringeworthy experiences like corporate team building exercises and Northern California hippie mom shenanigans (as a Northern Californian mom myself, this part hit especially close to home -- I'm dying for my friends to read it). I even found myself tearing up at a beautifully written passage about her son's bris. This is a great read -- highly, highly recommend!

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

At the end of one of the chapters, she talks about a program in Britain that weighs people's happiness, reminded me of an episode of Black Mirror. If you haven't seen it, Black Mirror is a brilliant show in the tradition of The Twilight Zone. In this episode, everyone wears devices that allows them to rate their interactions with other people. Through this, each person has a rating which everyone else can see. Thus, you need to be happy and kind all the time because any bad interaction can plunge you into second-class citizenry (or worse).

Whippman's book is an exploration of our American obsession with happiness. She begins by noting that when she first moved to America from Britain, she was shocked by how obsessed Americans are with happiness. From this, she explores everything from self-help books to seminars to parenting and religion. She is funny as she writes, even though some of this is incredibly disturbing. I wonder how much living in California colors her view of America. This is especially apparent in the parenting chapter. Much of what she writes about rings true throughout the country; when we had kids we read and stressed over attachment parenting. Yet much of what she describes in her experience seems a whole different level. She does give lip service to her locale in California by noting ONE conversation with a friend in Wisconsin. Maybe Californians are a tad bit crazier than the rest of us?

That said, much of what she observes rings true. We are obsessed with happiness. I stumbled on her book when doing research for a sermon in which I was going to talk about selfishness and similar things. Thus, I found it interesting when she discussed religion. It was the longest chapter and was totally focused on Mormonism. Mormons, statistically, are the most happy people in our country. She did find some problems in Mormonism, poking a few holes in what appears as outward happiness masking inward sadness. I'm not going to comment on the positives or negatives of Mormonism. What I did find interesting was that she did not look at religion as a whole. What if some of the things that truly make us happy - community, helping others - are rooted in religious faith. In other words, why do community and helping others make us happy? What is it about religion, not just the particulars of Mormonism in Utah, that contributes to happiness?

But of course, I am a religion person biased with an interest in religious questions. I might wish she had done more there, but she is not religious nor writing a book about religion. The most challenging aspect of the book may be where she touches on societal differences. Throughout the book, most of the people obsessed with happiness are people with privilege. She points out how odd (or unjust) it is for a company to not pay their employees a living wage but to make them watch videos about how if they smile more they'll be happy. Its easy to preach that happiness is not about your circumstances if you're wealthy. Whippman talk about how basic health care in England made the birth of her first son much less stressful then her second, who was born in the states. Rather than sinking billions into self-help that tells you its all about your attitude, we'd be happier as a country if we invested in social program to help people. While Whippman's book is not intentionally political, you can't help but see the politics here. Of course, she's right. I imagine the whole "your circumstances don't matter, your happiness is all inside you" would ring hollow in a hole host of places (Jim Crow south for one).

Overall, this was a fun book. One of the best part is when she refutes self-help's academic cousin, positive psychology. She points out some of the studies the popular book cites either do not reveal what the books say they do, or the studies do not exist at all. In the end, don't sink tons and tons of money into programs and books that promise quick-paths to happiness. Humans, and happiness, do not work that way. This is a book to cleanse our pallet of things that promise happiness and do not deliver.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5*

Ruth Whippman is a Brit living in America. She finds herself engaged in frequent conversations about happiness, which for her was not a topic of conversation she was used to having. What is it about Americans and their preoccupation with being happy? America the Anxious: How Our Pursuit of Happiness Is Creating a Nation of Nervous Wrecks takes a look at this very question.

Americans spend billions of dollars a year to find happiness. We look within ourselves, making the search for happiness a solitary endeavor, yet we are some of the least happy people on the planet. Why is that? Is our preoccupation with being happy actually making us less happy?

Ruth takes a look at corporations, science, parenting, social media, and religion to explore the question of happiness in America. What she discovers is eye opening and at times frightening. I enjoyed this book and Ruth’s witty and hilarious observations.

[Biblio Files (takingadayoff) · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the footsteps of Barbara Ehrenreich's Bright Sided and Oliver Burkeman's The Antidote, Ruth Whippman serves up a sarcastic and funny look at the American pursuit of happiness. It's actually written in our Declaration of Independence and we seem to have a patriotic duty to pursue, if not find, happiness. What Whippman finds is that this pursuit itself seems to cause us (and her) great anxiety. We are constantly comparing our own happiness to that of others and failing to measure up. We need to appear to be happy and it makes us crazy. I enjoyed Whippman's searches of the various studies and institutes devoted to happiness "science" although I tended to read more quickly through the parts about her experiences as a parent.

[Lorraine Elgar · Rating 5 out of 5]

So, I received a copy of this book in the post in exchange for an honest review but I admit straight away the title appealed to me .

Being depressed,  happiness is the ultimate thing for me and trying to achieve in nigh on impossible. So of course I wanted to know more about Ruth Whippman s quest and if she managed to achieve it.

What I actually found was a hilarious expose of the "Happiness" business - a multi million pound one at that.

In  between snorting, sniggering,  literally laughing out loud and in near hysterics at her anecdotes of just how far people will go and what exactly they will put themselves through in order to achieve the holy grail of life I found myself not only informed but questioning my own pursuit .

I recoiled in horror (and yes laughed my head off) at the description of the emotional and psychical torture the Landmark training programme offered.

I identified with her inner struggle of being cynical yet finding herself inexplicably drawn in to the whole cult like promises of eternal fulfillment.

I'm literally open mouthed at the whole range of finding inner happiness is to admit ITS ALL YOUR FAULT so the willing subjects become literal sobbing gibbering wrecks in order to "transform"

By chapter five,  I am seriously beginning  to wonder if Ruth will make it through this experience without mysteriously dissapearing.

An uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach , a foreboding of sinister undertone to the fabled "Happiness" promises. ... is she going to be found swimming with the fishes ?

Thankfully not, I can breathe a sigh of relief.

But as she wades into the world of corporate happiness ,  I'm thinking the world has gone crazy and I'm probably a lot more sane than I ever realised.
Seriously,  an utopia in the Las Vegas desert designed to encorporate work and play into a 24 hrs party theme atmosphere ,  like a real life sims game with a (quite possibly evil crazy) "eccentric" billionaire basically calling the shots .... life is so happy there it has the highest rates of suicides in America!

Apparently, even McDonald's are in on this you have to be happy to work malarkey and don't get me started on the whole Facebook office which is so well equipped it's workers need NEVER go home.

I actually feel like I've fallen into the pages of 1984 - but where 1984 was a scary fictional novel of the future,  this book is showing a scary reality.

Her chapters move from various areas in which the happiness business thrives - and it covers all aspects a person can think of.

My personal favourite chapters being "As long as he's happy " - an insight into parenting and "I'm not a happy person" - a look at social media.

All is observed with a wry sense of humour and compare s the American pursuit of happiness as opposed to a very British way of thinking and the results are hilarious.

But also informative,  jam packed with statistics ,  Ruth does indeed discover that the general pursuit for happiness does indeed make a person unhappy.

By the end of the book, she had in fact found the "secret" to happiness but I have to say I personally didn't agree wholeheartedly with what she felt was necessary to ensure happiness nor that happiness is not a personal journey  (chapter one is dedicated to that).

However, I did find this an informative, intriguing , thought provoking book as well as extremely funny - I haven't actually laughed so much in a long time and really would recommend this as a top read .

[Helena Echlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whippman is what you'd get if you crossed Jon Ronson with American happiness expert Gretchen Rubin - and gave them both a couple of glasses of wine. While Gretchen Rubin’s idea of being crazy is to buy padded hangers for her V-necked sweaters, Whippman is always up for a hilarious gonzo adventure, be it three-days in the Landmark Forum (the cult of self-transformation that half the people in Northern California seem to swear by), spending a weekend with some unexpectedly inspiring Mormons or visiting the Zappo’s headquarters for a look at how the cult of happiness is seriously messing with employees’ heads. And whileJon Ronson is basically a pessimist, Whippman isn’t content with easy satire—she’s on a genuine quest to figure out what makes us happy.

Her conclusion? It’s time to throw your gratitude journal out the window and stop feeling guilty because you can’t meditate for even five minutes a day. According to Whippman, all of these practices aren’t going to make you feel better and in some cases, could actually make you feel worse. The gadfly on the flanks of the positive psychology movement, she dismisses the notion that we have a happiness set point and if we aren’t happy it’s our own responsibility. She shows how bogus the research underpinning these commonly accepted ideas is, and also says something I’ve always thought—that this myth that happiness is a personal responsibility ignores the reality of class difference. It’s one thing to tell a middle-class yummy mummy in her Wednesday morning yoga class that all she needs to do is be happy in this moment, but try telling that to a single mom of three working her tenth hour operating the guacamole gun at Taco Bell.

Even though she has some serious and smart criticism of contemporary culture (Facebook is like the anti-Prozac, in case you hadn’t already figured that out), Whippman does it all with such a light touch, with so much wit and fizz, that she’s like a sexier Bill Bryson—and this book is a truly delightful, absorbing read.

[April · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every American should read this!!! Wish I could rate this 6 stars!

[N · Rating 4 out of 5]

A mix between British humour and substance to make you think and chuckle. Highlight of the book was her adventures with the Mormons and how quickly the "likes" on Facebook have inflated.

[Maher Razouk · Rating 3 out of 5]

الفيسبوك (سعادة مزيفة)
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بعد فترة وجيزة من عودتي من مدينة سولت ليك ، قابلت صديقتي أليس ، التي عادت مؤخرًا من عطلة نهاية أسبوع قصيرة رومانسية مع زوجها.
يبدو أن أليس وزوجها قد أمضيا عطلة نهاية الأسبوع بأكملها يتجادلان ، وبلغت ذروة الأمر في الوصول إلى طريق مسدود ، حيث جلس كل منهما على أبعد مسافة ممكنة من السرير ، وهو غاضب ويتساءل بصمت عما إذا كان يمكن الشعور بالوحدة الحقيقية في سياق علاقة فاشلة.
ولكن عندما أصل إلى المنزل ، أقوم بتسجيل الدخول إلى فيسبوك وتظهر لي نسخة الوسائط الاجتماعية لنفس الرحلة. بدون أي تلميح عن المشاكل ، توجد عشرة صور منشورة بشكل غريب الأطوار لزوجين رائعين يرتديان قبعات الشمس ، وهما يرفرفان أمام سلسلة من المواقع التراثية. مكتوب فوق الصور كلمة واحدة "أحبّه" .

هذا هو الميثاق الأساسي لوسائل التواصل الاجتماعي: أنت تصدّق أشياء خيالية على فيسبوك (وتسمح لهم بجعلك حسودًا وغير آمن إلى حد ما) .

السعادة هي عملة وسائل التواصل الاجتماعي والثغرة في قاعدة عدم التفاخر المقبولة عمومًا. طور فيسبوك ، في حياته القصيرة ، لغته الداخلية الفريدة ومجموعة من المعايير الاجتماعية ، تختلف تمامًا عما يعتبر مقبولًا بشكل عام في الحياة الواقعية. بطريقة ما ، دون مناقشته على الإطلاق ، أصدرنا مرسومًا عالميًا تقريبًا لوسائل التواصل الاجتماعي لتكون نوعًا من وكالة العلاقات العامة الشخصية ، ومنتدى لنا لتجميع مجموعة من المواد الترويجية البراقة لحياتنا ، كل ذلك بهدف جعل أنفسنا نظهر بشكل غير محتمل سعداء قدر الإمكان.

فيسبوك هو عالم موازٍ يكون فيه كل فرد إما ناجحًا في حياته المهنية ، أو متزوجًا من "أفضل رجل على الإطلاق" ، أو "يتمتع بكل لحظة من الأمومة" .

في الثقافة التي تصر على أن لدينا س��طرة كاملة على سعادتنا وغالبًا ما تساوي التعاسة مع عدم الملاءمة ، تمنحنا وسائل التواصل الاجتماعي قدرة غير مسبوقة على صياغة وتقديم صورة سعيدة. هذا ينقل الأمر من «مدى شعورنا بالسعادة حقاً» ، إلى مسألة ربما تكون أكثر إلحاحًا ثقافيًا وهي «مدى ظهورنا كأفراد سعداء». لقد جعلنا فيسبوك منافقين إلى حد كبير ...
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Ruth Whippman
America The Anxious
Translated By #Maher_Razouk

[The Stoic · Rating 3 out of 5]

America the Anxious by Ruth Whippman is a well-written and witty book.

Whippman is an excellent writer: her observations are sharp, her lines laugh-out-loud funny, and her research extensive. She dissects the American quest for happiness and concludes that all this search for happiness is causing a lot of anxiety among the seekers. She paints a picture of shallowness (and greed?) that pervades positive psychology and the teachings of self-help gurus. Happiness vending is a multi-billion dollar business and positive psychologists are right there with their dodgy research to cash in on the boom with TED Talks and book contracts. Other positive psychologists, to protect their lucrative territory, act as cheerleaders for poorly conceived studies with limited scientific validity.

Whipmann’s description of the Landmark Education materials is hilarious: “It gets to the point that whenever I start reading one of the sentences in their course material, I feel like I need to pack a lunch and a water bottle to make it to the end.” Ironically, though, her sentence that precedes this comment runs over five lines with 53 words! She walks us through America’s search for happiness through workaholism, religion, parenting, and social media. It is an amusing, and occasionally depressing, journey.

Excellent so far. If the book just dealt with the exploration of how the quest for happiness is leading Americans to anxiety, I would have given it a five-star rating. But it doesn’t. It takes a less critically examined alternative point of view to happiness and, in doing so, it distorts the author’s less favored ideas. Neither does the book distinguish between the validity of an idea and the way it is practiced and promoted.
For example, many self-help gurus teach that you don’t have to depend on someone else to give you happiness. You can be free with who you are and what you have. This is what the Stoics and Buddhists also taught. So did the Holocaust survivor, Viktor Frankl. You may agree with this or not; it is up to you. But Whipmann casually extrapolates it to imply that people who think this way do so to avoid improving the human condition and blame unhappy people for their misery. No Stoic or Buddhist I know (or even Tony Robbins or Dr. Phil or Viktor Frankl) would say or mean this. It is more likely that they would act to improve the human condition than worry exclusively about their happiness.

When considering the effectiveness of meditation, she gives a low weight to the hundreds of studies that show a positive effect because many studies may be suspect. This is perfectly valid. But then she concludes meditation has no real effect because a single meta-analysis said so as if meta-analysis is a faultless and conclusive method. Similarly, when considering mindfulness, she seems to believe that people who practice it are inward looking and constantly “policing their thoughts” and ignores the more widely understood interpretation that mindfulness is about being aware of what is going on now rather than being constantly disturbed by thoughts of the future or the past.
Her observations on these things may hold for people who live in the area where she lives; I don’t know. It certainly does not describe anyone I know who seriously practices meditation or mindfulness. The purpose of mindfulness is to expand your awareness to what is happening right now, like the person who is talking to you right now, like the person who needs your help now.

That brings me to the second point. Is Whipmann talking about meditation and mindfulness as concepts or is she talking about the way they are packaged and practiced? While she doesn’t clarify, I suspect it is the latter, combined with her ideological bias that these concepts are somehow “blaming the victims” and “keeping people in their places.” It is one thing to disagree with the effectiveness of meditation or mindfulness. It is quite another to extrapolate it to mean avoiding social contacts and unwillingness to work toward social changes. While the happiness industry gets a thorough critical examination, her favored ideas are based on studies that receive almost no such examination.

Although I have used meditation and mindfulness as examples, there are other things like this in the book that provide a less critically examined ideological backdrop. When she wants to establish that we are working longer hours, she does so by reinterpreting the statistics that indicate otherwise. As a matter of fact, she doesn’t review many studies at all. Maybe her observations on many things hold for people who live in the area where she lives, but I am not sure if they apply to the entire US.

So, for what I see as a flawed understanding of some basic concepts by viewing them through an ideological lens, I would give this book a single star.

Averaging my five (for the book’s insights) and one (for the book’s lack of insights) stars, I give the book a rating of three.

[Chuck Chakrapani · Rating 3 out of 5]

America the Anxious by Ruth Whippman is a well-written and witty book.

Whippman is an excellent writer: her observations are sharp, her lines laugh-out-loud funny, and her research extensive. She dissects the American quest for happiness and concludes that all this search for happiness is causing a lot of anxiety among the seekers. She paints a picture of shallowness (and greed?) that pervades positive psychology and the teachings of self-help gurus. Happiness vending is a multi-billion dollar business and positive psychologists are right there with their dodgy research to cash in on the boom with TED Talks and book contracts. Other positive psychologists, to protect their lucrative territory, act as cheerleaders for poorly conceived studies with limited scientific validity.

Whippman’s description of the Landmark Education materials is hilarious: “It gets to the point that whenever I start reading one of the sentences in their course material, I feel like I need to pack a lunch and a water bottle to make it to the end.” Ironically, though, her sentence that precedes this comment runs over five lines with 53 words! She walks us through America’s search for happiness through workaholism, religion, parenting, and social media. It is an amusing, and occasionally depressing, journey.

Excellent so far. If the book just dealt with the exploration of how the quest for happiness is leading Americans to anxiety, I would have given it a five-star rating. But it doesn’t. It takes a less critically examined alternative point of view to happiness and, in doing so, it distorts the author’s less favored ideas. Neither does the book distinguish between the validity of an idea and the way it is practiced and promoted.

For example, many self-help gurus teach that you don’t have to depend on someone else to give you happiness. You can be free with who you are and what you have. This is what the Stoics and Buddhists also taught. So did the Holocaust survivor, Viktor Frankl. You may agree with this or not; it is up to you. But Whippman casually extrapolates it to imply that people who think this way do so to avoid improving the human condition and blame unhappy people for their misery. No Stoic or Buddhist I know (or even Tony Robbins or Dr. Phil or Viktor Frankl) would say or mean this. It is more likely that they would act to improve the human condition than worry exclusively about their happiness.

When considering the effectiveness of meditation, she gives a low weight to the hundreds of studies that show a positive effect because many studies may be suspect. This is perfectly valid. But then she concludes meditation has no real effect because a single meta-analysis said so as if meta-analysis is a faultless and conclusive method. Similarly, when considering mindfulness, she seems to believe that people who practice it are inward looking and constantly “policing their thoughts” and ignores the more widely understood interpretation that mindfulness is about being aware of what is going on now rather than being constantly disturbed by thoughts of the future or the past.

Her observations on these things may hold for people who live in the area where she lives; I don’t know. It certainly does not describe anyone I know who seriously practices meditation or mindfulness. The purpose of mindfulness is to expand your awareness to what is happening right now, like the person who is talking to you right now, like the person who needs your help now.

That brings me to the second point. Is Whippman talking about meditation and mindfulness as concepts or is she talking about the way they are packaged and practiced? While she doesn’t clarify, I suspect it is the latter, combined with her ideological bias that these concepts are somehow “blaming the victims” and “keeping people in their places.” It is one thing to disagree with the effectiveness of meditation or mindfulness. It is quite another to extrapolate it to mean avoiding social contacts and unwillingness to work toward social changes. While the happiness industry gets a thorough critical examination, her favored ideas are based on studies that receive almost no such examination.

Although I have used meditation and mindfulness as examples, there are other things like this in the book that provide a less critically examined ideological backdrop. When she wants to establish that we are working longer hours, she does so by reinterpreting the statistics that indicate otherwise. As a matter of fact, she doesn’t review many studies at all.

So, for what I see as a flawed understanding of some basic concepts by viewing them through an ideological lens, I would give this book a single star.

Averaging my five (for the book’s insights) and one (for the book’s lack of insights) stars, I give the book a rating of three.

[Susan D'Entremont · Rating 4 out of 5]

In some ways, this is like a typical pop sociology book. What makes it interesting is what precipitated its writing. The author is a Brit who moved to California for her husband's job in the tech industry. Something about the "land of the free" struck her - she heard more talk about finding happiness in her first six months here than she had heard in her entire previous life in Britain. Yet, for all its talk, people seemed less happy here than in Britain. Was it because we talk about happiness so much that we are perpetually disappointed? She explores this in many ways, from informal conversations with various people, to talking to researchers on the topic.

There are some very funny parts of the book, like when she compares Americans' perfectionist parenting to British parents bragging about their benign neglect. She recounts a story of a British woman who forgot to pickup her kid from day care and when she finally remembered, she hugged the wrong child - "In my defense, they did look very similar." She says that both countries are prone to what might be called helicopter parenting, but the language around parenting in Britain makes parents feel less stressed and incompetent as parents.

She also is mystified at Americans focus on meditation, mindfulness and other activities that basically leave you by yourself since research shows that being with other people is one of the most surefire ways to happiness. I am an introvert, so the whole mindfulness movement appeals to me, but this segment of the book really made me think and encouraged me to seek out other people with my free time rather than something like meditation.

She also is critical of the American point of view that being happy is "up to you." Yes, attitude is part of it, but research shows that a lot of externals can make you happy. By focusing on personal happiness being inside, we ignore what we should be doing in society and government to make ourselves and others happy. It is almost as though those with the money are promoting the happiness movement to keep the rest of us from questioning the status quo. As she says at the end of one chapter, "If you really want your employees to be happy, the answer is simple. Pay them fairly, give them good benefits and adequate vacation time, and most important, let them go home." and "A growing body of research demonstrates that the stronger a country's safety nets, the happier the parents of that country are in comparison with nonparents. If a fraction of the time and emotional energy poured into agonizing over whether children make their parents happy was diverted toward giving practical support to those parents, then net happiness would almost certainly increase."

I found it fascinating that in Britain there are lots of free programs for toddlers and preschoolers. She said that these are open to anyone, no matter your income, so the classes mix a lot more than in the States. Her second child was born here, and she guesses she has never met a non-college educated parent because the programs for young kids are split into either the things like Head Start for the underclass or expensive programs for professional families, like Mommy & Me classes.

One small part of her book that I found most interesting is that studies seem to show that the more you do things like gratitude projects - where you list something every day that you are thankful for - the LESS happy and satisfied with your life you become. There is lots of speculation on why that might be. This reminds me of a time years ago when I was idling perusing a women's magazine. I felt pretty good about myself until reading the article that asked you to list the things you are especially good at. I couldn't think of much, and my sadness about that haunted me for a long time.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

I felt slightly uncomfortable when reading certain sections, such as the ones dealing with the Mormon lifestyle, because it all felt a bit condescending and stereotypical, and I skimmed over other parts when they started getting too bogged down in psychobabble, but overall, I agreed with her basic premise that spending time with your friends in real life rather than online and getting involved with your community are the best ways to find routes into happiness. The tone of the book frequently reminded me of Bill Bryson or Clive James, in the days when he would comment on clips from the totally bizarre Japanese gameshows in a benign but bemused and occasionally caustic manner. It therefore made me smile to see the tagline on the book from Newsweek, saying that it is ideal for fans of Bill Bryson.

I think this will be a book that you will either love or hate. I could see certain groups of people, such as those suffering from depression, attachment mums, Democrats or Mormons, feeling slightly hard done by, but I found it an enjoyable and interesting read.


full review on my blog : http://madhousefamilyreviews.blogspot...

[Rian Nejar · Rating 4 out of 5]

A refreshingly honest, broad, and enlightening narrative of an immigrant's search for happiness in a land that pursues happiness.

Ruth Whippman pulls no punches in this humor-filled work. She explores, criticizes, debunks, and dispenses with a whole lot of ideas - many exploited commercially - of happiness and its pursuit in America. She spares nothing and no one - names (some changed) and organizations abound in the work with witty and insightful criticism rendering them and their wares impotent. She holds little back, in that brash and cringe-worthy American way, discussing her most private experiences and sentiments in this intriguing journey of her life.

Yes, she shocks a reader at times. With honesty, oversharing, and, occasionally, surprising wisdom.

Some minor peeves. Though religion, an ancient human institution, is explored within, Ruth does not address the vast reservoir of ancient wisdom, far beyond and set apart from religion, that offers so much insight and guidance. A simple example: "One devotes so much effort to searching, and so little to finding." Abstract, broadly applicable, and yet pithy. Applied to happiness, one may comprehend that the "pursuit" is not as important as discovering happiness in various aspects and activities of life. And, though so much contemporary research is cited within, very little exploration supports the aspirations expressed at the founding of the nation: "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Ruth writes of a founding father Jefferson's sentiment, relating to happiness, but does not buttress it with convincing circumstances and events in Jefferson's life and learning that could explain it.

Ruth also makes a compelling argument that the pursuit of happiness turns Americans into nervous wrecks. But ask this: how many Americans really do pursue happiness? There is a vast gulf between the pursuits of the upper 10% and the remaining 90%, just as the contemporary refrain distinguishes the greedy 1% from the struggling 99%. Most Americans, natives, occupants for centuries, and new immigrants, are engaged in a daily struggle for survival. Making enough to pay for the many expenses, such as basic healthcare, monthly bills, mortgages for homes, and daycare/college education - often with multiple jobs - occupies almost all of the average working American's attention. How much of one's mind can one devote to consciously 'pursuing happiness?' Do the stresses of everyday living not contribute the most to one's mental exhaustion?

That said, this book is a most informative read. The understanding Ruth comes to, in her journey toward happiness is, to me, much the same as my own.

A pleasant bit was her observation regarding society, "...society is let off the hook for taking any collective responsibility for children's well-being or for offering any tangible practical support for families." We are, one and all, society's children. That contemporary society takes almost no responsibility defeats the established wisdom that it takes a village to raise a child. I'd lamented, in my narrative of life in America, that "Society takes no collective responsibility for the symptoms of its own enculturation." It is endearing to see a similar finding from another rather different perspective.

A book recommended to every parent, culture and happiness aficionado, and would-be philosopher. Thank you for your honesty, Ruth!

A Goodreads Giveaway of an "Advance Uncorrected Proof' received free and reviewed.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an absolute revelation. As a long-term sufferer of a slew of mental health conditions (depression, anxiety, mild PTSD, and BPD – Borderline Personality Disorder), I have had my fair share of being told to just “think positively/differently/more optimistically/etc.” Like, thanks, I never thought of that, let me just click my fingers and change my entrenched brain processes and habits.
Similarly sceptic, Ruth Whippman takes on one of the newest crazes to sweep the Western World: positive psychology; or, the idea that we are solely responsible for our own happiness, and can create it for ourselves with ease. Spoiler: it doesn’t fare well. Beautifully summed up in the title of a speech that one of the researchers she contacts is putting on – “Positive Psychology is for Rich White People” – Whippman exposes this ideology as misguided and vulnerable to attack at best, and simply untrue at worst. She shows who is benefitting from the emphasis on self-reliance, positive psychology, and ignorance of circumstances (e.g. race, gender, social class, etc.) as a cause for unhappiness – and how. Additionally – unlike the majority of so-called positive psychologists – she backs it up with hard evidence, and/or admits when a conclusion is hard to draw. Admittedly, some of the ways in which she critiques the research could be applied to her own research, but I would be surprised if it didn’t hold up in the most part.
If you’ve ever been frustrated by the endless reel of people on your various social media feeds who seem to be 100% happy, 100% of the time, read this book and never feel guilty nor inadequate again. When the misinformation out there can be so damaging to people, I am so grateful I read this book sooner rather than later. In the same way that people think gluten-free = healthy, whilst the exact opposite is true, eyes need to be opened. I would thoroughly recommend you pick it up before you think about buying another self-help-disguised-as-science title.
Oh, and it’s also well-written, funny, and enjoyable – always helps!

[Richard Guion · Rating 4 out of 5]

Non-fiction isn't usually my cup of tea, but I was really entertained by this book! I listened to the audiobook narrated by the author who has a charming English accent. Whippman comes to the United States along with her husband, and while he is working at a tech company, she's learning how people are obsessed with happiness - how to get it, how to keep it, how it goes along with your work.

A few fascinating take-aways I had which will stick with me:

1. Self-help books are an industry, a big business. Just the other night on TV I saw a PBS ad for a book set from Wayne Dyer about improving your mental health. Other places try to sell you on things like retreats or meditation seminars. While it may work for some people, sometimes the key to happiness isn't focusing on yourself but on others.

2. Businesses are more concerned with your "happiness", trying to create a fun atmosphere at work and even measure it in your performance review. Zappos is one such company - Whippman visits the company where she learns one key attribute to keeping your job is being social with your co-workers after work hours. And she looks at the Las Vegas Downtown project that Hsieh built to extend the notion of work/life having no separate boundaries.

3. Religious people may be happier than many non-believers, not necessarily because of their Faith, but because of the community that a church brings together and tasks focused on helping other people.

4. People with a certain income level focus more on happiness than folks without an adequate income.

[Debbie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got this book genuinely as a self help guide. However what I got was so much more interesting and now I don't want to go near self help at all.

This is a fascinating book about the American happiness industry. And terrifying. I for one wish that people at work were more involved in unions rather than dodgy big companies pushing corporate happiness whilst having awful employee rights. It makes me so angry.

I hope the uk doesn't get like this. It's bad enough working ridiculous hours without having to pretend to be happy all the time.

Mind you with the Tories in power I don't care much for our chances on this one.

It's the same when she talks about having kids. How great it is in the uk with all our pesky rights and how unhappy people are in the US with hardly any maternity leave and poor working conditions for mothers. How having a baby can cost a fortune and saddle you with huge amounts of debt if your insurance company tries to wheedle out of it.

For goodness sake people if you want to be happy don't let the Tory party destroy this country and take your NHS and rights away. We do not want to be like the US!

There are lots of brilliant insights, from Facebook to Mormonism. This is a really interesting and readable book. And I absolutely agree with her conclusions.

[Leigh Carroll · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was so looking forward to reading this book, because I've really enjoyed Ruth Whippman's essays in the Guardian, NY Times, Time Magazine etc. I took it with me on a solo weekend trip to Portland and devoured it in a couple of days, staying up way too late to finish chapter after chapter. I literally laughed out loud (LLOLd) numerous times. Ruth somehow manages to completely capture distinctly American neuroses without it being at all derogatory. She chronicles her experiences with a total soul-baring honesty, it's refreshing and very human (and very often hilarious) and I so related to her discomfort through cringeworthy experiences like corporate team building exercises and Northern California hippie mom shenanigans (as a Northern Californian mom myself, this part hit especially close to home -- I'm dying for my friends to read it). I even found myself tearing up at a beautifully written passage about her son's bris. This is a great read -- highly, highly recommend!

[Laura Martin-Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book...it was moving, laugh out loud funny, kind of terrifying (Cameron using unproven happiness theories to justify austerity) and so honest and intimate it was a bit like spending a long weekend with the author.

Whippman deftly handles the micro and macro, picking apart the mountains of happiness research and I found myself coming to the end of each chapter wanting to know what she was going to take on next. The book is a joy to read and kind of weirdly -considering its subject matter - a real page turner!

[Poppy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I couldn't put this book down! It's immensely enjoyable and insightful. With a sharp eye and natural curiosity, she covers such a universal subject with wit and dexterity. I can’t imagine anyone not taking a lot away from this book (unless you consider the happiness industry sacred perhaps, in which case, you should still read it… with an open mind). Definitely a writer to watch.