What Nobody Tells You About Happiness

Why am I not happy?

When therapist and life coach Andrew Shaw starts working with someone, this is usually their first question. And for good reason: we’ve all been told that happiness is the ultimate objective, proof of a life well-lived.

But what if it’s the wrong goal? What if the pursuit of happiness is the very thing making you unhappy? Over the last decade, Andrew has delved into ancient wisdom and modern science to understand how we get happiness wrong – and how to get it right. Happiness, he has learnt, is not a permanent state but a temporary feeling. If you felt it all the time, there’d be something wrong with you. And if you spent your whole life chasing it, you’d only push it further away.

Now, Shaw draws upon all he’s learnt to sketch out an alternative path to a meaningful life. The goal, he shows, is not to eliminate pain but to embrace it – and not to pursue happiness but to transcend it. Along the way, he reveals an alternative path for anyone seeking true fulfilment: one that leads not to illusory happiness, but to lasting contentment.