This Book Will Make You a Little Bit Happier
Five million people were watching when Dan Harris had an on-air breakdown. He was filling in for Robin Roberts as news reader on Good Morning America when panic overtook him, his palms started sweating, and he couldn’t manage to produce logical sentences. In desperation, he threw the ball back to the anchors much earlier than he was supposed to—a serious violation of television reporting protocol.
In the months before he had the panic attack, Harris was kind of a mess. He’d always been a worrier. He was a wunderkind at ABC News, which was great but stressful. After returning from reporting assignments in war zones, he’d started doing lots of cocaine and ecstasy in an attempt (he eventually realized) to recapture the excitement of brushing up against danger.
10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works--A True Story
Paperback $15.99
10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works--A True Story
By Dan Harris
Paperback $15.99
His public freakout sent Harris looking for help. He ultimately found it in meditation. And luckily for readers, he wrote an excellent book about how his practice made him (slightly!) happier than he used to be. It’s a great read for January, the month of fresh starts.
It’s skeptical and plainspoken.
If you’re not into yoga, spirituality, or New Age mumbo-jumbo, this is the book for you. Harris is grossed out by phrases like “yield to the present” and “the one indwelling consciousness.” He thinks that kind of squishy language turns off “smart, skeptical, and ambitious people” who might really like meditation if they gave it a shot. He’s a practical guy who’s interested in results, and he writes like it. His sentences are cleanly and precisely written—and often funny.
It’s honest.
Harris tells the truth about others and, more charmingly, about himself. He depicts Peter Jennings as a bad-tempered boss, a reporting genius, and a generous mentor. He raves about Diane Sawyer’s work ethic and instinct for asking the one question that gets to the heart of the matter. He admits that when you work in news, you see major world events, including tragedies, in a selfish way (Did I get to cover it? Was I good?) Other admissions: he has “the attention span of a six-month-old yellow Lab” and the soul of a junkie. He tried to get his therapist to okay a monthly coke binge. He fixates on his hairline. He’s short (“I’m about five-foot-nine on days when I’ve used [my wife’s] volumizing shampoo”). The more Harris reveals his flaws, the more you like him and want to follow his advice.
It’s well-sourced.
As a reporter on the religion beat for ABC News, Harris has access to important people in the self-help biz. He first gets interested in mindfulness when he encounters the work of Eckhart Tolle, Oprah favorite and author of The Power of Now. Unlike the average Tolle fan, Harris is able to sit down for an interview with the “elfin, rheumy-eyed” author. He also hangs out with Deepak Chopra, bestselling author, self-help guru and purveyor of Chopra-branded cold and flu remedies. In the end, neither of these writers have answers that satisfy Harris. He gets frustrated with Tolle’s lack of practical advice and concludes the best parts of his book were just “unattributed Buddhism.” Chopra strikes him as saner, but perhaps insincere. Then Harris’s wife gives him a book by Dr. Mark Epstein, a psychiatrist with a degree in medicine from Harvard University. Epstein’s smart, literate approach appeals to Harris. When the two men meet for beers at the Tribeca Grand Hotel, Harris at last gets a practical recommendation for how to achieve happiness, although it’s a recommendation he hates: meditation.
It’s useful.
Harris demystifies meditation. You don’t need a seminar, a mantra tailored to you, or a guru. All you need to start are Harris’s easy-to-follow instructions:
- Sit comfortably. You don’t have to be cross-legged. Plop yourself in a chair, on the cushion, on the floor—wherever. Just make sure your spine is reasonably straight.
- Feel the sensations of your breath as it goes in and out. Pick a spot: nostrils, chest, or gut. Focus your attention there and really try to feel the breath. If it helps to direct your attention, you can use a soft mental note, like “in” and “out.”
- This one, according to all the books I’d read, was the biggie. Whenever your attention wanders, just forgive yourself and gently come back to the breath. You don’t need to clear the mind of all thinking; that’s pretty much impossible. (True, when you are focused on the feeling of the breath, the chatter will momentarily cease, but this won’t last too long.) The whole game is to catch your mind wandering and then come back to the breath, over and over again.
Harris admits that at first, he found meditation hard. To his surprise, “repeatedly hauling your attention back to the breath…required genuine grit.” But sitting in silence for ten minutes a day starts to pay off in his daily life. He begins to see in-between moments (sitting in traffic, waiting for his TV crew to finish a task) as chances to focus on his breath or take in his surroundings. When he signs up for a silent, 10-day-long meditation retreat, he achieves a breakthrough in his practice—although that breakthrough is preceded by almost unbearable boredom and pain.
Harris is the first to admit that meditation isn’t a miracle cure. But it’s made him about 10% happier. You’ll put down this entertaining and helpful book convinced it might make you just a bit happier, too.
More books that will energize your spirit >
His public freakout sent Harris looking for help. He ultimately found it in meditation. And luckily for readers, he wrote an excellent book about how his practice made him (slightly!) happier than he used to be. It’s a great read for January, the month of fresh starts.
It’s skeptical and plainspoken.
If you’re not into yoga, spirituality, or New Age mumbo-jumbo, this is the book for you. Harris is grossed out by phrases like “yield to the present” and “the one indwelling consciousness.” He thinks that kind of squishy language turns off “smart, skeptical, and ambitious people” who might really like meditation if they gave it a shot. He’s a practical guy who’s interested in results, and he writes like it. His sentences are cleanly and precisely written—and often funny.
It’s honest.
Harris tells the truth about others and, more charmingly, about himself. He depicts Peter Jennings as a bad-tempered boss, a reporting genius, and a generous mentor. He raves about Diane Sawyer’s work ethic and instinct for asking the one question that gets to the heart of the matter. He admits that when you work in news, you see major world events, including tragedies, in a selfish way (Did I get to cover it? Was I good?) Other admissions: he has “the attention span of a six-month-old yellow Lab” and the soul of a junkie. He tried to get his therapist to okay a monthly coke binge. He fixates on his hairline. He’s short (“I’m about five-foot-nine on days when I’ve used [my wife’s] volumizing shampoo”). The more Harris reveals his flaws, the more you like him and want to follow his advice.
It’s well-sourced.
As a reporter on the religion beat for ABC News, Harris has access to important people in the self-help biz. He first gets interested in mindfulness when he encounters the work of Eckhart Tolle, Oprah favorite and author of The Power of Now. Unlike the average Tolle fan, Harris is able to sit down for an interview with the “elfin, rheumy-eyed” author. He also hangs out with Deepak Chopra, bestselling author, self-help guru and purveyor of Chopra-branded cold and flu remedies. In the end, neither of these writers have answers that satisfy Harris. He gets frustrated with Tolle’s lack of practical advice and concludes the best parts of his book were just “unattributed Buddhism.” Chopra strikes him as saner, but perhaps insincere. Then Harris’s wife gives him a book by Dr. Mark Epstein, a psychiatrist with a degree in medicine from Harvard University. Epstein’s smart, literate approach appeals to Harris. When the two men meet for beers at the Tribeca Grand Hotel, Harris at last gets a practical recommendation for how to achieve happiness, although it’s a recommendation he hates: meditation.
It’s useful.
Harris demystifies meditation. You don’t need a seminar, a mantra tailored to you, or a guru. All you need to start are Harris’s easy-to-follow instructions:
- Sit comfortably. You don’t have to be cross-legged. Plop yourself in a chair, on the cushion, on the floor—wherever. Just make sure your spine is reasonably straight.
- Feel the sensations of your breath as it goes in and out. Pick a spot: nostrils, chest, or gut. Focus your attention there and really try to feel the breath. If it helps to direct your attention, you can use a soft mental note, like “in” and “out.”
- This one, according to all the books I’d read, was the biggie. Whenever your attention wanders, just forgive yourself and gently come back to the breath. You don’t need to clear the mind of all thinking; that’s pretty much impossible. (True, when you are focused on the feeling of the breath, the chatter will momentarily cease, but this won’t last too long.) The whole game is to catch your mind wandering and then come back to the breath, over and over again.
Harris admits that at first, he found meditation hard. To his surprise, “repeatedly hauling your attention back to the breath…required genuine grit.” But sitting in silence for ten minutes a day starts to pay off in his daily life. He begins to see in-between moments (sitting in traffic, waiting for his TV crew to finish a task) as chances to focus on his breath or take in his surroundings. When he signs up for a silent, 10-day-long meditation retreat, he achieves a breakthrough in his practice—although that breakthrough is preceded by almost unbearable boredom and pain.
Harris is the first to admit that meditation isn’t a miracle cure. But it’s made him about 10% happier. You’ll put down this entertaining and helpful book convinced it might make you just a bit happier, too.
More books that will energize your spirit >