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Happy: Why More or Less Everything is Absolutely Fine by Derren Brown throws the towel on today’s age of positive thinking. Like with his enigmatic charisma, he guides readers on a different path to ‘happiness’. One that halts the pelting, positive treadmill and focuses on finding acceptance in the reality of disappointment and joy. His graceful writing stretches 446 pages and makes clear readers do not need yet another ‘quick rich scheme’ or a book jammed with positive quotes. After finding myself binging on plentiful ‘inspiring’ messages, I appreciate his view that positivity guides have paradoxically caused discontent in needing continued positivity. Brown introduces Stoicism as the old age thinking to rediscover an approach to finding resilience, acceptance, and happiness in precarious human life. He carves open the stoic perspective by taking the reader through a phenomenal breadth of knowledge, history, philosophy, and psychology. The book offers lots to contemplate, from angles of life to acceptance of death. Ultimately, this book provides a framework to discover and take greater happiness from ordinary life. This article will not be a book review and instead focus on Brown’s interesting contempt of today’s ‘positive thinking’ mantra. Why has the positive thinking movement become such a toxic barrier to happiness? How can positive thinking become suddenly negative and destructive? 

“The unwavering belief in the power of positive thinking can, surprisingly, be every bit as destructive as spending your life steeped in the gloomiest outlook.”

Brown, derren (2016, p.26)
  1. The burden of today’s positive thinking: 

The trouble is not positivity itself, but the superficiality and guilt brought about in today’s positive craze movement. The reality is that happiness cannot be forced down on ourselves when loss, harm, hatred and violence mar our deep emotional state. Trying to suddenly think positive can leave hurtful sentiments unaddressed as people return to chasing the glamour and aspirations of those ‘happy’.  Sooner or later, as Brown points out, we fail and blame ourselves for underachieving and lacking happiness to the degree of what the celebrity life suggests. In our downstate, we may scroll through social media or click on a video and mull at the pure smiles and joy. The family in that vlog channel or that career guru relishing a curated life. They will remind you should be happy, while at the same time showcasing everything you do not have. Dreams as vivid and aspirational as they can be can lead us to retreat away from our own unique life journey. There is little surprise when the misfortunate many are left feeling inferior and discontent because of an exhausting journey for status and money. The material reminder to think positively, to keep obtaining and indulge in luxuries, sees with it a trail of envy. The young generation now experiences a wave of resentment and restfulness from today’s pressure to replicate extraordinary dreams with little acceptance of the journey there.

The burden of positive thinking trend is epitomised by today’s exploitive quick rich schemes and underwhelming, self-rationalising narratives. Brown recalls to a great extent his experience with pseudo faith healers in the USA. He shows how false promises have kept the weak and vulnerable in perpetual despair. The supposed ‘healers’ lead their followers to see myriad mistakes in their lives, unto a path of eternal condemnation. They heartlessly seize this moment to impose didactic paid services on their down-trodden followers. The sessions get them feeling good again but equally fail in developing any practical change or plan towards reorganising their lives. Therefore, like students of career gurus, followers find themselves stuck in false ‘positivity’ cycles, amending ‘faults’ and awaiting happiness in more paid sessions.  

Today many have leapt onto the ‘positivity’ train with little practical plans, feeding into a cycle of want and disappointment. Brown avoids excoriating positive thinking trends; he acknowledges there are good intentions behind some of the messaging and the fact that they do strike a good feel factor in people. I hold greater sympathy to ideas like the ‘law of attraction for helping individual a focused mindset with passion and purpose. However, I accept Brown’s overall contempt. The law of attraction like many radical positive thinking movements derives from a core self-deception that lacks preparation for when things do not turn our way (p.39). 

Like with the tension between political theory and practice, a battle between ideals and reality, the law of attraction rests heavily on the blissful former. To the extent, that idea is, if ever, made a reality. Looming questions and feelings exist before then. One may ask what if the universe does not grant such ambitions? We only hear the success stories behind the law of attraction. The opening of the new store can easily be attributed to myriad factors including the law of attraction. On the other hand, what about those who have not yet succeeded, what do we attribute their failure to or what alternative future lays beyond their failed ‘law of attraction’ following? Subsequently, a reality opens up showing the world is decided by far greater fate than our dreamy wants of this finite world. The Law of attraction rests on blind faith and a misleading confirmation bias. Are we to continue denying happiness until our dreams, realistic or not, are fulfilled? (Brown 2016, p.41).  

People need to accept one’s reality filled with success and failure as telling signs of our unique journey through this universe. It is not to dash away ambition or dreams, rather that there is an urgent need to avoid reaching an entitled mindset. Deeper happiness is to be found beyond egoism; from seeing the world as it is, there are aspects and actions which leave our statuses, riches and wants as secondary. A ‘positive’ consequential luxury if they come our way than a necessary entitlement. Therefore, in today’s age of needing to be positive should not mean burdening yourself with pictures and titles, happiness is to be found nearer as Brown carefully draws out.  

  1. Today’s superficial ‘positive’ world- The Hedonic Treadmill: 

Positive thinking today has taken a hard turn into chasing material happiness, a never-ending hit of dopamine in what Brown refers to as a ‘hedonic treadmill’.  Charlatan career gurus, day-time investors, financial advisers and social media ‘inspirers’ have promulgated a conception of happiness being rooted in money and status. There is no need to explain at length that no one wants to live in poverty, and we all want better for not ourselves but also our family and their future. However, without thinking twice many have been led to correlate more wants and luxuries with more happiness.  

Brown shows happiness based on temporary purchases and wants rarely deliver satisfaction in life. He uses a small but relatable example of buying a new phone to express how thin happiness can be. After months, perhaps years of waiting, we get hold of the new iPhone or Android smartphone and gloat with excitement about all the new features. The screen- size, pixel density, colours, camera, latest operating software and more. A few months run on and before you know it, not only is there a ‘better’ latest smartphone but also our initial fizz for our current phone has faded. Admittedly, people may not be as impulsive as Brown thinks when money and lifestyle are strong, real-world limitations. Nonetheless, the feel for a new phone, a new purchase, is felt by everyone and displays a symptom of today’s short-term consumerism and ‘happiness’. 

A stronger element of the hedonic treadmill I suggest is found in careerism. Careerism is defined as a shrewd devotion to a career at the expense of ethics or personal life. While for some this forms part of a life-long ambition, careerism tied to expecting more money and status and thus quickly joins the hedonic treadmill. If I battle my way to making £100,000 a year, I not only can afford a luxury car but also put a deposit on a nice house and buy myriad clothing and jewellery luxuries. But what about the boats, the multiple vacations, huge housing and security for the next generation, all would be content with £1 million. Once reaching that, one would naturally question if I were so high why not just buy all which the heart can desire, companies, yachts, supercars, mega-mansions and more. Defining happiness according to status and money traps people on the hedonic treadmill. Pursuing self-interest delivers an empty feeling in so far as it relates to a never-ending supply of material wants and goods. With the vast hours sacrificed, the insurmountable stress, the lack of fulfilment, you may only be following the current path because of your obsession with the verdict of others. The hedonic treadmill has no stop. Short-term pleasures and judgements from others will never cease. Schopenhauer remarks, “Wealth is like seawater. The more you drink it, the thirstier you get” (cited in Brown 2016, p.60). Brown stresses there is subsequently a gross misunderstanding of money and happiness. Too often many of us assume a straight linear chart, the more money, the more happiness in one’s life. However, like many other celebrities have recalled, Brown explain fame and money has taught him securing a comfortable life is enough for financial success. More money does not bring greater happiness in the long run. The anecdotal experience is backed by psychological research which has identified there is a default comfort level/happiness to people depending on our personality that we return to (Brown 2016, p.22, 44-45). Hence, regardless of the level of the dopamine rush from the outside world, besides drugs, there remains a deeper, nearer happiness level people can discover and express. 

The lesson to take is that happiness is found far closer and greater to us than many expect. Our conditioning in hyper-capitalistic society has alienated us from seeing value in living a comfortable life where there remains plenty to receive, admire, respect and give back for a meaningful, purposeful and loving existence. Today’s distorted mantra of positive go-getting thinking paves a pernicious cycle of material gain without making people question where they can find happiness. Thereby, we require deeper contemplation with not just our mental state but also our very existence which Brown bravely opens up in a rebuke of glorified enlightenment rationality (Brown 2016, p.260). It is positive to see the University of Bristol have adopted this thought and pioneered a happiness course, questioning what happiness is and why we feel it. 

https://unsplash.com/photos/o4EywnFHwk0
  1. The Reality of Fate: 

“What upsets people is not things themselves but their judgments about the things.” Epictetus 

Rather than blissfully ignore the reality of emotions, thoughts and events you may experience, Derren Brown shows how Stoic thinking can be a framework for helping us embrace the present. A major aspect beyond forcing positive thinking is to find acceptance in uncontrollable fate. Fate is the belief that to every action and event there is a realm that exists beyond our physical control. Stoics were huge on this common religious idea, that humans ultimately have limited power over preceding events. Marcus Aurelius stressed the need to recognise fate as a means towards personal acceptance, contentment and progress: 

“It is time now to realize the nature of the universe to which you belong, and of that controlling Power whose offspring you are; and to understand that your time has a limit set to it. Use it, then, to advance your enlightenment; or it will be gone, and never in your power again.”

MARCUS AURELIUS. MEDITATIONS. BOOK II.4

There is difficulty in discussing fate without touching on religion. Brown’s total denial of a Supreme Creator to the universe’s order, formation and end come off as more ambiguous than a convincing rejection. Amongst his many denials of God, there is acceptance society has struggled with managing life and death from its departure from religion (Brown 2016, p.116, 308, 325, 360). The emptying of western culture by enlightenment philosophy and post-structuralist thought has left us squandering for new values and a position in this mortal life. As Carl Jung remarked “We think we can congratulate ourselves” denoting the way people have forgotten the psychological need for such traditions and rituals (cited in Brown 2016, p.358). Without grounding ourselves to something beyond us, accepting our limited power and reach, we fall into an empty view of life running away from us. Life feels unfulfilled, meaningless and disappointing. The present does not receive enough focus to realise ways we can be immensely appreciative for the smallest joys scattered in everyday life. It seems as much as he accepts life requires deeper meaning and explanation, beyond what western philosophy has proposed, he refuses or fails to push readers to explore deeper existential questions.  

“Most of what happens in life is entirely out of your control, and while blind self-belief might disguise the fact for a while, it will eventually prove an anaemic opponent to brute reality.”

BROWN, DERREN (2016, P.47)

Nevertheless, Brown’s questioning of the emptiness of modern secular society helps readers to discover kindfulness and avoid plunging into the pessimism of nihilistic thinking. Whether you believe in a deity or not, it is possible to accept the universe carries with it an order and the chances concerning the life you are born into and will live, beyond our own actions, is left to a higher presence. While we still need to act, we must realise chasing dreams is endless and can make the fulfilment of happiness forever delayed. Disappointment is inevitable in life and we need to accept that this is okay. Tangible happiness still exists in life although only discovered after probing through present life.  The happiness we find will is not in a delusional, utopian world but from the very life we live and can influence through considered thoughts and actions. Ideals will prosper or fail but deeper feelings of kindness, compassion, mercy, love and community will forever tingle our deeper senses for happiness. 

Brown goes beyond cold Stoic thinking by tying fate with a discussion of death as a means for readers to see beauty in one’s own life journey. Life can be enjoyed by confronting the reality or fate of death. Life is mortal, meaning our experiences and struggles will be discovered and lived once. What we see, hear, smell, feel and taste will not be repeated in another life and forms our long tunnel through Earth’s finite existence. When we pass, there will be another generation and so forth, until the Earth meets its destruction. Do not let life pass on you. Prince or Pauper, thinking about death helps us realise our everyday life is to savour and nurture within our profoundly unique existence. Our struggles can be our persona arena for self-overcoming and meaning. In the incredible words of Lao Tzu: “In Life we differ, in death, we don’t”.

**This started as an article in a brief rumination to the sudden trivia of positive thinking gurus. Soon enough, plucking Brown’s framework for a happy life, I ploughed on into writing this lengthy essay. I hope you can read on and let me know what you think about finding happiness in life.  Of course, don’t forget to check out Derren Brown’s book below!