The Happiness Problem: Expecting Better in an Uncertain World

Do your personal and professional achievements fail to bring lasting satisfaction? Do you find that material and social progress seem only to create more problems than they solve? The Happiness Problem shows that this paradoxical state of affairs is the inevitable result of human psychology. No matter how much we improve our lives, humans will always be vulnerable to feelings of disappointment, loss, and suffering. Instead of acknowledging our insecurities, we grasp at the things we can control to make us feel better. Sam Wren-Lewis offers an alternative to the cycle of unhappiness, one that embraces the uncertainty inherent in life, and values things like truth and connection over workplace or material triumphs. By better understanding what causes happiness—and its hopeless opposite—Wren-Lewis shows how we can gain a deeper understanding of our own personal and social problems and leads the way toward their potential solutions.