Happiness is peace of mind

We all want to live happily and we all have different ideas about how to do it. But we know that whatever precautions we take and however fortunate we are, there will be bad times as well as good. If we want to live as happily as we can it would be great to remain serene in the face of all that happens to us, or at least recover our serenity or peace of mind as quickly as we can when we lose it.

How to be Glad

If you are trying to shake off the winter blues through sheer willpower alone, maybe you should add the Lost Art of Being Happy to your reading list. It is essentially a manual on changing bad thought patterns; the chapters on letting go of obsessive thoughts and learning to cultivate compassion may sound a bit new-agey, but they are surprisingly persuasive.

Helen Brown, Style Magazine - Sunday Times 11 November 2007

245 pages paperback

What inner skills do we need to live happily? There must be many answers, but the book develops an approach by looking at what can go wrong, at what spoils our happiness. The important thing though is not to know some magic list, but just to have a reasonable system and then practice, practice, practice as our inner lives reap more and more benefits. These are the five sets of skills we suggest.

Mindfulness

Vital for observing what goes on in the inner life and also to create inner stillness.

Benevolence

The key to combating negative emotions like anger and hatred - can you be angry and happy at the same time?

Story

We need skills to deal with problems arising from our view of the world, including our view of ourselves. All descriptive language is story and our stories are often wrong and always partial, never the whole truth. If we can change the story, we can change our world.

Letting go

Includes some key elements for dealing with our reluctance to accept change, our attachment to the past (forgiveness for example is included here) and our fears about the future.

Enjoyment

Gratitude, patience, humour, playfulness - the positive side of appreciating and enjoying what we have instead of fretting about what we don't.

Endorsements

"This is a wonderfully wise book on how we can train our minds to be happy. It's beautifully written."

Professor Lord Layard FBA (Director, Well Being Programme, LSE)

"I cannot think of a single human being who would not benefit from reading this highly intelligent, sympathetic book. Most of us are unhappy to some degree or other. Follow the way of life that this book recommends and happiness will be yours."

Dr. Anthony Seldon (Master of Wellington College and pioneer of teaching happiness skills in schools)

"This is an important and original book. Tony Wilkinson brings a wealth of experience, a keen intelligence and an enquiring mind to the thorny and complex issue of contemporary spirituality. It is a must read for anyone interested in self-knowledge."

Malcolm Stern (psychotherapist, author, Channel 4 presenter and co-founder of Alternatives)

Tony Wilkinson studied philosophy at Cambridge University. While pursing a career in the civil service and later investment banking, he practiced meditation, became a long-term student of Aikido and studied the religions of the East.