You Can Be Happy No Matter What: Five Principles for Keeping Life in Perspective

To begin with, I don't have a problem with the core premises of this book. There is no doubt that a good deal (though certainly not all) of our emotional and mental condition is the result of our perspective, and that learning to adjust the way we habitually perceive the world can help us keep our balance and good mood. The five principles at the core of his book are intended to formalize this basic insight into a concrete system of rules. But the main problem here is Carlson's inability to recommend any practicable way of putting these principles to practice (which is supposed to be the sole merit of this work, since all the principles, except the last, timeworn "the present moment", are borrowed from other authors). It is one thing to say that thoughts are separate from feelings, that people live in different realities, etc, it is quite another to put this into a concrete mode of thinking and behavior.

When I bought the book I was under the impression that Carlson was a practicing therapist, who has applied the principles he advocates to his own clients. But his book is surprisingly short on real-life examples: the vast majority of cases are either hypothetical, or are taken from his own personal experience. Apart from examples, Carlson relies simply on assertions: This is so, and this is not so. (My favorite is when he keeps repeating, without any evidence or argument, and without explaining what he means exactly, that "stress does not exist"). You have to take his word for it. But even if you do so, the way he tries to demonstrate how the principles work still leaves a lot to be desired.

I admit a lot of what Carlson says makes sense in theory: watch your disturbing thoughts, but do not let them affect you; a mood is a temporary condition that will pass with time; etc. But how do you apply that to your daily life? It's like telling someone "Don't be shy. Shyness is only a state of mind, not caused by any actual danger or threat". Sure, everybody knows that. But it's not easy just to dismiss this feeling. You can reason with a person all you want that shyness is not a rational or justified feeling (which is something they already know), but the only way they can get over it (and the job of a good councilor/therapist) is tangible, specific advice on strategies of dealing with this problem, and, of course, a lot of practice.

Real growth is an arduous process, and Carlson offers very little help in this department, except general observations. Consider, for example, his account of how he dealt with his nervousness about public speaking. He says he was under the false impression that speaking was stressful in itself. But then his problem ended when he realized that stress came only from his own thinking and beliefs about stress. It was then, he says, that he became a better speaker. This is all! You realize it is all your thinking, and your problem is solved. Now I have had some experience with stage freight, both because I suffered from it myself, and I also (later of course) helped others (college students) to deal with it. With all due respect to Carlson, the first thing one should know about stage freight, in my humble experience, is that the stress is real and justified: having your ideas scrutinized by others, being the center of attention with all people looking at you, and the fear of failure, are in themselves enough causes for worry. This is an inevitable reaction, and pretending that it should go away with a sleight of the mind could actually make matters worse. In fact, the first step toward progress for many people is realizing that their stress is natural and that they shouldn't be sacred of it, or try to just gloss over it. Of course, anyone who has had some experience with the fear of public speaking knows that it is perfectly treatable. But it takes more than hitting upon the idea that it's only your thoughts that create the problem. Part of dealing with the stress is certainly the right attitude, which involves a lot more than a simple realization that the stress is not real (one thing that helps people is learning, for example, common psychological fallacies about public speaking). Then you need some practice with specific psychological and psychical methods of dealing with the nervousness. With time, there is real progress for most people.

So the mindset (supposing it is the right one to begin with) is just the first step. You cannot tell someone that it is s state of mind and expect them to change. The main problem here, as with all the other principles in the book, is one of distinguishing between a genuine, healthy feeling of well-being and plain repression. Of course, Carlson says repeatedly that this is not what he's advocating, but his entire approach to dealing with troublesome situations (at least when it comes to cases of real distress, not intrusive whims) leads in this direction. Some reviews have mentioned the example Carlson gives of getting the news about his friend's tragic sudden death, and how he shortly managed to switch his mind from shock and sadness to positive thinking about his friend's virtues, presumably putting an end to his distress. Several commentators have rightly remarked about how unrealistic this is. But let's say, for argument's sake, that Carlson's method works, and that you manage to divert your mind from your tragic loss into a calmer, happier mode of thinking. Does that solve your problem? I don't think so. If you are a human being with a shred of normal human sensitivity, you cannot avoid feelings of loss, pain, sadness, and bitterness. These will arise anyway, and your attempts to switch your frame of mind into something else will only give you a temporary relief. At root, this is nothing but repression, and sooner or later all the feelings you were evading will catch up with you, stronger and harder to deal with.

This brings me into another significant flaw with Carlson's approach: he belittles the power of expression as a way of dealing with your feelings. He brusquely dismisses catharsis as amounting to no more than banging your head against the wall to get some relief when the banging stops. There goes a few decades of psychological research! Now, I can't begin to count the ways in which this analogy is plainly false. Suffice it to say that when you discuss your negative experience you're not actually reliving it, but doing what Carlson recommends throughout the book: putting things in perspective. The power of expression through speaking or writing has been widely documented by actual therapists (see, for example, James W. Pennebaker Writing to Heal). But beyond that, everyone has had the experience of getting something off their chest, of recounting a bad experience to someone they trust, and the effect is not simply one of causing yourself pain, so that you can feel some relief afterwards. If this was the case, the feeling would be short and temporary (and there would be no guarantee it would happen in the first place). In my experience, and I believe many people would agree, this is not how it works: the feelings of relief are genuine and long-lasting. When you express your feelings or write about them (a truly powerful method), you achieve several things: 1. You simply understand the problem and what led to it, and thus may find means of dealing with it, 2. (especially when you tell it to someone), you may realize you're not the only one who has gone through this experience, 3. You put the problem in its place: quite often, the effect of relief comes from the realization that the problem is not as grave as you had originally thought; in a way, you demystify it and learn to distance yourself from it. When you express your trauma, you bring it out into the open, so that it becomes something that has shape and limitations--something, in short, you can handle. On the other hand, if you insist on diverting your attention from your negative experience, waiting for it to vanish when the current mood recedes, the pain will remain unresolved, though temporarily forgotten. In fact, it may get deeper; because you have this disturbing feeling inside, and you persist in not facing it, it may turn into something mysterious and uncanny. It hurts you, but you don't know what it is; in fact you're trying to convince yourself that you shouldn't have it. Consequently, you may end up feeling there's something wrong with you.

Obviously, I'm not talking here about passing impulses (seeing an old high-school classmate in a big expensive car, and thinking "I haven't really done much with my life"). Yes, these can be ignored, and with time they simply vanish on their own. But if negative ideas keep repeating themselves, then there may be an underlying reason. And here is another important factor that Carlson ignores or glosses over. Yes, a sudden feeling of sadness may be temporary and unworthy of much attention, but if you keep having it again and again, then it's merely self deception to insist that it is just a mood that will inevitably pass, and that you can always get away from it by changing your perspective. Now Carlson is not completely unaware of this problem. He argues that stress is a warning signal that lets us know in advance that we are "headed away from happiness" (another no-brainer). But what he recommends strikes me as shallow and evasive: as you realize that you are "headed away from happiness", do not fight stress; just stop whatever you're doing and wait for happiness to come back. Of course on a mere practical level, there are many cases where this is just not an option: you cannot simply wait out a stressful situation; you have to face it now. But even if you manage to take a break, Carlson has no advice on what to do--other than simply wait. As he puts it: "The longer we wait to disregard the stressful thoughts, the more difficult it becomes to bring ourselves back to our natural state of mind". In other words, it's all a state of mind; if you just wait it will go away, and that's all there is to it. In a pretty disingenuous gesture, Carlson says he is not calling for apathy here, but the "opposite". This is because "The more peaceful and happy we feel inside and the less distracted we are by our own thinking, the more productive and efficient we can be in all areas of life". Well, certainly! But then how do we get to this "peaceful and happy" state? Isn't this what the book is supposed to be teaching us in the first place? Carlson's answer, in other words, is, Be happy and peaceful and everything will be all right. And how can you be happy? Just ignore things and wait for happiness to come your way.

So if the book is so flawed, why does it seem to be so popular with many readers? I think the answer, is that, as stated earlier, there is some truth to the basic principles that are treated so superficially by Carlson. There is a case to saying that a change of perspective may help you feel better about yourself and your environment, that some disturbing feelings are just passing moods, that you shouldn't obsess over negative experiences, and so on. People try to apply such rules to their lives, and, sure enough, in some cases (especially when there are no real traumas or serious problems), it gives them a temporary relief. But it is unrealistic, and I would say even dangerous, to turn this into a recipe for happiness in all situations, "no matter what". Not all negative thoughts are temporary moods; not all serious life tribulations can be resolved by changing your mindset. There are serious challenges that need to be met head-on; sometimes you do need to change your job, or neighborhood, or partner; and, yes, there are feelings (no matter how negative) that need to be exteriorized and confronted--or they would keep knowing on the inside until they get out of control. If you do not realize that, and keep pretending it's all a state of mind, you would ignore your problems until they catch up with you when you least expect them. What is more, you may develop some thinking habits that could prove harmful. If you really convince yourself that you can be happy "no matter what", and then inevitably fail to do that, you may think you may have some kind of an inherent problem.

So happiness no matter what? I don't think so. At best, this slim volume may give you a set of tools that could prove useful in some situations--say, like breathing into a bag may help in relieving stress. But it would be foolish to think that the bag itself can save you from the stress, or that stress is only in your head. If you're not an automaton (or a mouse, as one reviewer put it), you know you cannot always think yourself into happiness. You need to confront life challenges and find ways (often your own ways) of tackling them. This is part of the "happiness" of living.

This book wasn't bad but to wrap it up, the message it this: just choose to be happy. That's a nice thought, and boy, how very happy we'd all be if things were that simple. Essentially, this book tells you to put blinders on and to decide to be happy no matter what. There were a few really good points made in this book, a couple sentences that made me really think, but aside from that, this is a self help book intended for those with little problems in life. I may be wrong, but I don't see this book lending any help to those going through real, genuine trials and tribulations.
Again, nice book, nice idea, and good intentions, but FAR too unrealistic for most people.

One thing common among all humans is that we constantly think; thus a book on understanding thought is invaluable to anyone seeking to sustain a high quality of life. Richard Carlson provides a commonsensical view of thoughts with this goal in mind. This book stands out among all books on the power of thoughts as it is based on a practical approach that can be instantly tested as oppose to many in the genre that include mystical beliefs about what the power of thought can accomplish.

So many books in the genre are based on the notion that your thoughts shape reality. Carlson, in a down to earth practical approach, notes that thoughts are thoughts, and that is all. Our thoughts can be completely counter to reality and they are still thoughts. Our thoughts can shape our mood, can influence our decisions, and can weigh heavily on the actions we ultimately take; however, beyond our own internal interpretation of events, thoughts have no other proven influence on reality. It is on this basis that Carlson discusses the value of understating our good and bad thoughts, and dismissing bad thoughts is simply the best policy. If you want to change your reality then take action. Being in the best mood possible is going to provide you with the peak mindset and most amount of mental strength and energy to permit this action. The moment you are fooled into the notion that what you think about alone will change reality, you are setting yourself up for dissapointment and failure.

Perhaps put best in Carlson's own words:
"We don't always have power over other people and/or events, but we do have tremendous power to feel happy and contented with our life. One nice byproduct of feeling happy `for no reason' is that troubling details begin to work themselves out. We actually think better, more clearly, and more intelligently when our minds are not full of boggling concerns...Feeling good' is highly practical."

Carlson's book is a refreshing getaway from the mystical books that currently engulf the genre. I highly recommend this book to anyone with interest human psychology that is seeking a practical approach to understanding thought rather than guesswork and unsubstantiated convictions.

I had boughten this audio book for a long time and never really heard it. Until I started having rougher days at work and it was starting to affect my ability to keep working. I listen to it and found it insightful. I put some into practice that I am the one in control about the negative thoughts in my head and decide whether to take action or let it pass. And so far I been having good and fair work days. Thanks

Seems simple, and it is - but why can't deep wisdom be simple! The whole Happiness psychology summed up in this little book. Brilliant and recommended by rabbi Zelig Pliskin of Jerusalem.

The book is great and I would recommend this book to anyone. Prices on Amazon.com are great as well.

started to read the book on the passing of my wife actually I was told to read it from chapter 4

This is a fast read with many tips that can be incorporated into everyday life. Your really can be happy again. I am