We are promised that many things have the possibility of making us happy, more money, children, friends, experiences and so on, and they have been countless books written claiming to have the secret of happiness wrapped within the covers. But in this book Dolan has looked at the things that make us happy from a scientific and behavioural economics perspective. It has been proven many times that material possessions up to a certain point have very little effect on you happiness state.

He defines happiness as ' experiences of pleasure and purpose over time'; with his primary idea being that purpose is itself a feeling. To get a higher level of happiness, you would need to get the balance pleasure and purpose just right. Most people take little pleasure in work, but do find it has a purpose, whereas TV can be pleasurable, but is rarely purposeful. The activities that people considered made them most happy were time spent with others and and working as a volunteer.

It did make for interesting reading, and he does expand his (and Daniel Kahneman's) ideas into a readable book. But overall it does feel a little two dimensional, and doesn't seem to have a huge amount of depth. Shame really, because i think that the principles he outlines are along the right lines. ( )

Dolan provides the practical capstone to all of the latest happiness research. Despite the classical debate between meaning and hedonism, people can actually derive happiness from both purpose and pleasure. The relative importance of these depends also on the person, so it's helpful to get intentional and aware about it. Much of happiness is driven by what we choose to focus on. Maximizing happiness is a function of deciding, designing, and doing happiness. ( )

A mixture of self-help and popular psychology Dolan has sensible ideas about how to maximise your chances of happiness in the here and now which do not contradict the insights of Quaker spirituality.

Dipping into this after hearing the author on Radio 4 last week.

A mixture of self-help and popular science, this is an engaging read, not least because Dolan comes across as extremely likeable (in spite of confessing to not having read a novel since he was at school!).

Dolan pithily defines happiness as "experiences of pleasure and purpose over time" and sets out to help the reader maximise and find their optimum balance of those two things. Key to this is allocating your attention wisely and not falling into the trap of mistaken desires, projections and beliefs. Early on, he makes a distinction between his definition of happiness and that which features in life satisfaction surveys, the former being concerned with the "film" of your life as opposed to the "snapshot", with life as it is experienced rather than as it is evaluated. For instance, someone who has a prestigious job of which they are proud may enjoy the fact of holding that job while not at all enjoying the everyday reality of it.

The inclusion of purpose as a factor of happiness is also interesting: apparently men experience more pleasure over time than women, but with purposeful activities taken into account, women experience greater happiness. This makes me feel better about some of those useful, necessary, but not particularly fun tasks I spend time doing!

This is a quick read and I found myself instantly applying some of the ideas to my life, to good effect. It's also helped me banish certain negative and unhelpful thoughts about work/my employment status that tend to intrude from time to time. However, as what I've read starts to fade from my memory, I can tell that this is a book I will need to return to at regular intervals. Recommended.