The "Be Happy" Book

I'm one of those people who, if given a good book, could sit for hours on end, buried in it. A-book-a-day is entirely possible for me... if time would allow for that. Or if the book is short enough!

Though I'm typically drawn to fictional novels and "chic-lit," I decided to change things up last time I went to Barnes.  Several people had mentioned and recommended a particular book to me and I decided to find out what all the hoopla was about. And somewhere in the three or so hours it took for me to read it front to back, I found out.

The book, Zen and the Art of Happiness, written by Chris Prentiss is a little (seriously super short!) treasure of advice and wisdom on how to achieve true happiness. Now, I'm often pretty skeptical of these types of books and will usually eye-roll over them, but this one seemed different.

The author recognized that the reader would be suspicious to some of the material.  He even said in the beginning that the book's key advice* would seem so simple and obvious that the reader would feel ripped-off.

*There is only one way to achieve lasting happiness.  That way is simple: Be happy.*

But you'll see as you read along that there is more to it than that. Prentiss makes you think about your life and makes you realize that its not so much the circumstances that happen, but rather how you look at things and react to things that creates your happiness/unhappiness. He tells you to treat every happenstance as if it were "the best thing that could happen to you" and that if you look at life's events (good, bad, controllable, uncontrollable) in this way, your whole frame of mind changes. And you are happy.

I won't go into it any more for a) fear of spoiling it for you OR b) fear of explaining it poorly so that you're turned off by it. So I will end here with saying that if you are human, I guarantee you will get something out of this book.

xo Belle