The Antidote is a wry, witty travelogue that turns decades of self-help advice on its head. In it, Guardian journalist Oliver Burkeman chronicles a series of journeys by people who share a single, surprising way of thinking about life. Whether philosophers, experimental psychologists, New Age dreamers or hard-headed business consultants, they have in common a hunch about human psychology. They believe that in our personal lives and in the world at large, our constant fixation on eliminating or avoiding the negative—uncertainty, unhappiness, failure—is what causes us to feel so anxious, insecure, and unhappy. He argues there is an alternative “negative path” to happiness and success that involves coming face to face with the things we spend our lives trying to avoid, to even embrace them. This is the “backwards law”: The more we’re willing to embrace what we think of as negative, the happier and more successful we’ll become. We may need to completely rethink our attitudes toward such things as failure, uncertainty, disorder, insecurity, and death.
The Antidote
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“The Antidote is a gem. Countering a self-help tradition in which “positive thinking” too often takes the place of actual thinking, Oliver Burkeman returns our attention to several of philosophy’s deeper traditions and does so with a light hand and a wry sense of humor. You’ll come away from this book enriched—and yes, even a little happier.” - Daniel Pink, author of Drive and A Whole New Mind
About the Author
Oliver Burkeman is a feature writer for The Guardian. He is a winner of the Foreign Press Association's Young Journalist of the Year award, and has been shortlisted for the Orwell Prize and the What the Papers Say Feature Writer of the Year award. He writes a popular weekly column on psychology, "This Column Will Change Your Life," and has reported from London, Washington, and New York, where he currently lives.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By Reader Writer Runner
TOP 50 REVIEWER
Format:Hardcover
In "The Antidote," British journalist Oliver Burkeman asserts that one cannot achieve happiness through the clichés of positive thinking, motivational pep talks and narrowly-focused goal setting. Instead, living a fulfilling life requires embracing both uncertainty and negative thoughts. In eight chapters, readers meet Stoics, Buddhists and other philosophers all of whom possess "a willingness to...pause and take a step back; to turn to face what others might flee from."
Burkeman does not intend to offer fool-proof rules for a happy life. He thoughtfully and thoroughly explores topics often shied away from and arrives at wise advice. This fresh and readable book offers humour, anecdotes and a powerfully sustained thesis.
Burkeman does not intend to offer fool-proof rules for a happy life. He thoughtfully and thoroughly explores topics often shied away from and arrives at wise advice. This fresh and readable book offers humour, anecdotes and a powerfully sustained thesis.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By Rodge
TOP 50 REVIEWER
Format:Hardcover
Burkeman provides a surprisingly useful tour of the power of negative thinking, taking us to science, Buddhism, and Stoic philosophy. Missing, from my perspective is any exploration of the negative from the Judeo-Christian perspective. Presumably Job has nothing to say. Nonetheless this book will make you smile at the emptiness of pop psychology, which is sometimes couched in learned language. It might even give you hope to try anew to embrace and accept all elements of life, and find a richer existence thereby than what you may have expected.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By fred sonmor
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
This book is well written ,concise and easily read.
A reasoned look at our quest to be happy.
From the stoics to Eckhart Tolle he touches a lot of perspectives but lingers long enough to give us some understanding
of each and how they fit into our quest for happiness.
If you enjoyed this book you might like THE ART OF LIVING EPICTETUS ( sharon lebell )
A reasoned look at our quest to be happy.
From the stoics to Eckhart Tolle he touches a lot of perspectives but lingers long enough to give us some understanding
of each and how they fit into our quest for happiness.
If you enjoyed this book you might like THE ART OF LIVING EPICTETUS ( sharon lebell )
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