The Happy Mind: A Simple Guide to Living a Happier Life Starting Today
By: Louis Fourie, Kevin Horsley / Narrated By: Dan Culhane
Length: 2 hrs and 9 mins
As long as you’re not expecting brain science, this is a great little audiobook
And I say that even with the knowledge that the authors weren’t attempting much when they wrote this. They knew they’d have few allusions to brain studies, knew there’d be little in the way of research studies to pull up to quote as backup for their suggestions.
Still, authors Fourie and Horsley have managed to pull together a small book that is really quite useful, and does indeed have some research behind it.
Mostly, you’ll get broad ideas to think about: What is happiness; what causes it; how to find it and hold on (Uhm, do NOT try to hold onto it!). And you’ll discover that happiness is something that we need to decide to do on a daily basis. It’s something we can plan for as it’s entirely up to us what angle we’re going to look at events through.
My drop dead favorite concept in the world gets an especially good amount of air time: Gratitude! Looking for and appreciating the smaller things in life is what can make or break a mood; it certainly shapes it. Imagine you’ve lost absolutely EVERYthing, your job, your family, your health, etc. Worst day, right? Now imagine you got it all back in one fell swoop: Best day in the world, right? We should live like that, appreciating what we have, and that’s a surefire shortcut to feeling happiness.
I gotta tell ya; there’ve been several changes in my life the past couple of years, and I’m not the best, most adaptable person in the world when it comes to change. I know, I know: Change is what spices life up, and it’s what makes a person learn and grow (The authors advocate for initiating change, especially as you get older). Still, all that notwithstanding, I do whine about it more than is good for me. And what this little book reminded me of was of just how very much I STILL have in my life that is good and wonderful. I hope you can get a bit of those same “News-Flash” realizations if you listen to this book.
By the way, don’t expect too much from the narration. And don’t worry about it either. Dan Culhane is a capable narrator, but there’s only so much you can do when it comes to reading a list of ideas and suggestions. So, decent job, sir. And when he narrated the last story of the elderly woman moving into a nursing home, and she decides to be happy? Well, I just got a lump in my throat. I hope to be that gracious then, that gracious now.
And besides: Things can always be worse!
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