How to Be Happy in Spite of Yourself

Much has been said about happiness—about what it is and how to get it. Little has been said about how to stay happy. We all share the experience that happiness is hard to achieve and even harder to hold on to. We are not often happy, and when we are we don’t stay happy for long. In contrast, we are often unhappy, and when we are it seems to be enduring. Why? In How to Be Happy in Spite of Yourself, author Dr. Robert Dawson offers a look at happiness and explains why instinct needs us to be unhappy. It answers the following questions: • What is wrong with me or with others? • Is something broken that needs to be fixed? • Is it possible for me to be happy more of the time? • Can I get better at snapping out of being unhappy? Dawson details the three-step habit we need to develop to moderate the negative effect of the human survival instinct on the quality of our life. When we realize our instinct is undermining our happiness and see it for what it is—a normal and necessary automatic reaction to life’s challenges—we are on the way to being happy in spite of it.