Happiness has become a global obsession, a commodity and an unquestioned goal for many. From the promises made by the consumer culture that material things will make you happy, to the mass ingestion of happy pills such as Prozac and Ecstasy, to the largely unquestioned link between success in business and true happiness - what is happiness, actually? And has it always meant the same thing it appears to mean today?
This highly readable book examines how people have come to expect happiness and to experience 'happiness anxiety' when they doubt their current levels of happiness, and the solutions they seek to achieve this mysterious human condition. It offers an alternative view to the prevailing consumer-based definition of happiness and examines whether the quest for happiness as it is understood now is perhaps a fruitless one that leads only to further unhappiness.
