Impractically Happy

A blog about the pursuit of happiness, and its unintended consequences Probably the most effective way to find deep, abiding, life-long happiness still involves moving to a monastery, as the Buddha suggested twenty-five hundred years ago, and meditating for a few decades until your personality has been restructured to the point that you no longer e... xperience desires. But those of us who like our personalities the way they are and who enjoy getting caught up in worldly experiences need to realize one thing: if you're going to seek happiness while living your life, the quest is going to get a little impractical. Children will interrupt your meditation. Your boss will complicate your equanimity. And the choices you make will probably lead to some unintended consequences. Balancing happiness with everything else - and doing it honestly - is what Impractically Happy is about. Happiness is an American preoccupation. But the culture of happiness with its emphases on quick fixes and positive life-hacks often overlooks the long and complicated history of our ideas about feeling good, the roadblocks our society erects in its way, and the complexity of human lives. (Did you know that the secret in The Secret has been around for more than one hundred years? Or that the Romantic movement of the 18th and 19th centuries still shapes the ways we think about authenticity?) With book and movie reviews, a little encyclopedia of theories of well-being, and articles on life in the 21st century, Impractically Happy takes a step back and looks at this topic as an important psycho-cultural phenomenon.Read More