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Let me take this opportunity to encourage everyone to
purchase a book entitled What Happy People Know: How the
New Science of Happiness Can Change Your Life for the Better by
Dan Baker, Ph.D, Director of Life Enhancement Program at Canyon
Ranch, and Cameron Stauth (2003, Rodale, Inc.).
On a flight from Houston to Gainesville, I literally consumed this
book - alternating between shedding tears of recognition and joy and
laughing right out loud from sheer ... well, happiness!
One of the greatest
deficiencies of the old approach in psychology was that it was
focused exclusively on mental illness and pathologies, assuming that
relieving states that made life miserable would automatically lead
to finding happiness. This was, after all, the normal human
condition.
According to Baker, this just has not happened. The absence of
disease is not the same as health, just as the absence of poverty is
not the same as wealth.
Dr. Baker believes
that the quest to achieve happiness in the truest sense of the word,
not as an ephemeral feeling, but in the deepest sense of the word
will characterize psychology in this 21st century.
With a beautiful
writing style that appeals to every kind of brain - from the left to
the right and everything in-between - Dr. Baker has the ability to
capture us wherever we are! He helps us understand how we can
make meaningful changes in our lives to activate the happiness that
is screaming to be released within each of us.
I heartily endorse
this magnificent book!
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