Authentic Happiness, Martin Seligman
Authentic Happiness : Using the New Positive Psychology to Realise Your Potential for Lasting Fulfilment by Martin Seligman, Nicholas Brealey, 2003. ISBN:1857883292
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"A highly insightful scientific and personal reflection on the nature of happiness from one of the most creative and influential psychologists of our time"--Steven Pinker.
The most original idea that Martin Seligman introduces in this book is that authentic happiness comes from cultivating your strengths, and using them as much as possible. He also pushes the cause of optimism which has found a place in other books of his (e.g. Learned Optimism).
Martin Seligman produces a lot of evidence to show that the things we think might think might lead to authentic happiness, probably will not. For instance, winning the lottery is unlikely to give us authentic happiness because we soon slip back into our old habits. He even raises doubts about whether marriage makes us happier, do we become happier when we get married or do we get married because we are happy?
Besides exercising our strengths Martin Seligman holds that one of best chance of increasing authentic happiness is to pursue gratifications. Note, he does not define gratifications as sensory pleasures, like eating rich food, but as higher activities, like reading Dylan Thomas.
As Martin Seligman says (Authentic Happiness p.112), "It is the total absorption, the suspension of consciousness, and the flow that the gratifications produce that defines liking these activities—not the presence of pleasure. Total immersion, in fact, blocks consciousness, and emotions are completely absent." Pursuing gratifications requires us to gain and practice certain skills, and Seligman shows how we can gain these skills in the pursuit of truly authentic happiness.
Besides practicing out strengths and pursuing gratifications Martin Seligman suggests that, at a deeper level, we need to practice virtues to gain authentic happiness. With colleagues he read "over 200 virtue manuals" by such writers as Aristotle, Plato, Aquinas and Augustine; including books like the Old Testament, Talmud, Koran and the Upanishads; and figures like Confucius, Buddha, Lao-Tze, and Benjamin Franklin—some two hundred virtue catalogues in all.
Martin Seligman and his colleagues found that traditions flung across three thousand years and the entire face of the earth endorsed six basic virtues, which are fully explained in authentic happiness.
- Authentic Happiness by Martin Seligman is the essential introduction to the field of positive psychology.