23: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking with Oliver Burkeman

“The effort to try to feel happy is often precisely the thing that makes us miserable. It is our constant efforts to eliminate the negative — insecurity, uncertainty, failure, or sadness — that causes us to feel so insecure, anxious, uncertain, or unhappy.”—Oliver Burkeman, The Antidote

I read Oliver Burkeman’s The Antidote a few years after it came out, and it quickly ascended to the top of my all-time favorite books list. At one point during the most intense part of my tumultuous pivot year, I gave up on trying to be happy and focused on equanimity instead. Ah, the sweet relief! I no longer felt the self-imposed pressure to meet some benchmark of bliss every day, and instead surrendered into how I was really feeling: sad, confused, and tired.

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