Washington Post
‘A fascinating new book that explores our sometimes misguided attempts to find happiness’
Time
‘Gilbert’s elbow-in-the-ribs social-science humor is actually funny… But underneath the goofball brilliance, [he] has a serious argument to make about why human beings are forever wrongly predicting what will make them happy’
New York Times
‘[Gilbert is] an engaging and amiable writer, with a penchant for comedy and cracking wise … but though the delivery may often be antic, the matter is serious…. Reading his engaging, accessible book made me happy. Even if it won’t last’
The Globe and Mail
For Oli, under the apple tree
One cannot divine nor forecast the conditions that will make happiness; one only stumbles upon them by chance, in a lucky hour, at the world’s end somewhere, and holds fast to the days, as to fortune or fame.
Willa Cather, ‘Le Lavandou’, 1902
CONTENTS
Chapter 1. Journey to Elsewhen
Chapter 2. The View from in Here
Chapter 4. In the Blind Spot of the Mind’s Eye
Chapter 5. The Hound of Silence
Chapter 11. Reporting Live from Tomorrow
How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is To have a thankless child.
Shakespeare, King Lear
WHAT WOULD YOU DO right now if you learned that you were going to die in ten minutes? Would you race upstairs and light that Marlboro you’ve been hiding in your sock drawer since the Ford administration? Would you waltz into your boss’s office and present him with a detailed description of his personal defects? Would you drive out to that steakhouse near the new mall and order a T-bone, medium rare, with an extra side of the really bad cholesterol? Hard to say, of course, but of all the things you might do in your final ten minutes, it’s a pretty safe bet that few of them are things you actually did today.
Now, some people will bemoan this fact, wag their fingers in your direction, and tell you sternly that you should live every minute of your life as though it were your last, which only goes to show that some people would spend their final ten minutes giving other people dumb advice. The things we do when we expect our lives to continue are naturally and properly different than the things we might do if we expected them to end abruptly. We go easy on the lard and tobacco, smile dutifully at yet
