In The Happiness Advantage Shawn Achor criticizes the mindset that society possesses. He states that in today's world we see things in only one light, the negative one. We are constantly bombarded by tasks and responsibilities that carry weight and stress. All of these components combined force us to follow a mindset of extreme urgency and unbalance. We strive to reach the target or quota in front of us and when we reach it instead of settling, we try to pursue a higher accolade. Also while we're doing this we're not happy. He criticizes how people follow the straight path of getting that raise or completing that essay in order to be happy. At the end of that we aren't happy but instead restart the cycle for a new goal.
In his arguments he provides "The Seven Principles" in which he outlines how we can change that formula. Some of these include taking things step by step, altering your mindset to a positive one, and being able to fail but turn that into a positive. Within our table discussions we broke these down to their messages and purposes. The overall tone of the group was doubt. Achor's argument makes a valid point on many levels but it seems as if his solution is a little obvious. His statistics made me believe him when he said that those who work with a positive mindset create a better product. However the methods he gave us created a sense that this was another self-help book that was similar to the others. Other things like the piece by piece concept added to this feeling. Of course we take things step by step. We've been taught from our childhoods to do this, brick by brick, step by step. His other point is the "falling up" concept. When we fail we automatically focus on what just happened, the failure, but we eventually come to grips with it and learn from it. In my opinion some of the concepts in his book amalgamate into a refresher-course instead of a message to promote enlightenment.
I like that number.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Bao. The solution is pretty obvious, but I think that this book is more effective than other "self-help" books because of how Achor presented his information. Many of the steps were "refreshers" like the Falling Up principle. We already know that when we fall down we just get back up and learn from it, but Achor just makes the concept more interesting. I mean he calls it falling up instead of falling down and that's what grabs the readers attention. One of the reasons most of our group chose this book was because of the video. We were intrigued with Shawn Achor and the way he presented himself and his ideas. The book may contain similar information as other self-help books, but the approach is different.
ReplyDeleteIt did seem like this is a "self-help" book. The information he gave about his experiences and statistics with the Happiness Advantage seemed to easily changeable. Like the people suddenly got happier after an amount of time. This made our group doubt that it could actually work because it was too obvious of an answer. Maybe the answer is that obvious but we just don't take the actual time to do the easy things that will help promote our positive mindset.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the world really IS that simple. Learn to scan the world for good things, and be grateful for what's working in our lives -- how could such practices FAIL to make us feel better? I know I feel pretty good when I'm working productively, the words are flowing like water, I'm exercised and rested...and I remember to count my blessings. I mean, "duh." But even though we know this, we don't do it all of the time. Why?
ReplyDelete