Book Review: When Am I Going to Be Happy?
I’ve just discovered a clearly written and practical self-help title on Amazon, When Am I Going to Be Happy? How to Break the Emotional Bad Habits That Make You Miserable – by Penelope Russianoff
Although published in 1997 – it could just as well have been written today.
I particularly like the way the author hands back power to the reader by discussing destructive emotions (such as fear, guilt, anxiety, worry) – as ‘habits’ – as opposed to labeling such emotions as ‘traits or inherited qualities’. The latter implies we can’t change the unwanted emotion; the former implies we can change the unwanted emotion.
Here are some quotes.
“What is a negative emotional habit? Like any habit it is a learned reflex. It is a response that becomes unthinking and automatic through constant repetition. The drug addict is hooked on heroin or some other dangerous substance. But others of us become guilt addicts, or anxiety addicts, or rejection addicts, or fall into any of a dozen other negative emotional obsessions.” (p.7)
“Strange – while negative emotions stick to us like tar, our positive, healthy, happy feelings are often fleeting and fragile. Good moods are shattered by the mildest opf reversals and instantly replaced by bad moods.” (p.7)
“I sometimes suspect that people cling to their emotional bad habits because negativism seems somehow more chic these days. It is fashionable to be cynical and pessimistic. It is cornball to be positive and upbeat. It is Mary Poppins to look for the silver lining. It is sophisticated to find the dark clouds.
Why should this be? Why this obsession with accentuating the negative? Why, in a society that has declared the pursuit of happiness as an inalienable right, are so many of us addicted to habits of thinking that virtually ensure our unhappiness?” (p.8)
When Am I Going to Be Happy?: How to Break the Emotional Bad Habits That Make You Miserable
Posted: May 22nd, 2009 under power of mind, self help.
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