The Situation Is Hopeless, But Not Serious: The Pursuit of Unhappiness

by Paul Watzlawick

Book Overview

Calling upon metaphors, vignettes, jokes, innuendos, and certain other "right-hemispheric" language games, Paul Watzlawick shows how we can (and do) make everyday life miserable.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393018210
• ISBN13: 9780393018219
• Release Date: January 1984
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 125 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Funny and insightful!

This book is such a joy to read! It is one of the funniest books I have read and yet we learn so much about ourselves with it! It shows us how we create much of the unhappiness that we experience and in an indirect way, how we can step out of it. If you want to learn more about consciousness and how it relates to our happiness, read "The Ever-Transcending Spirit" by Toru Sato. It is not as funny but it tells us more about how consciousness works in a simple way. I think you will like it.

LAUGHING YOURSELF OUT OF UNHAPPINESS

A review by the marqueeofburano: A wonderful, witty, exposé of our endeavors to live a more miserable life by Watzlawick, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral science at Stanford University. The treatment of the subject will surely make you laugh at yourself and thus, perhaps, contribute to make you a better person.W. deals with the fundamental, painful, necessity of the human being to be unhappy (in order to be quiet). And in fact, he contends that the best chapters of universal literature dwell with disaster, tragedy, guilt, madness, etc. Dante's Inferno-W. writes- is very superior to his Paradise; same case as Milton's Paradise Lost compared with his Paradise Regained; Faust I's greatness is proportionally inverse to the tediousness of Faust II. So the author embarks hilariously in a methodic introduction to the best and more verifiable mechanisms to achieve unhappiness. Samples:Always be truthful to yourself. A principle, from Polonius in Hamlet,of the outmost necessity for us ( its application is what gets the guy killed by Hamlet like a rat). So then, we must resist any temptation to yield to any other criteria or opinion, apart from ours. Never compromise or accept someone else's advice. The author then addresses the issue of the old saying: "time cures all wounds"..... According to W. four sound mechanisms exist if you want to avoid time's healing effects and transform the past into a present source of suffering. In the exaltation of the past we find those that only remember the good things about their youth and not the years of insecurity and anxiety. In so doing, they have a consistent reserve of sadness about their miserable present...... Also, this fidelity to the past, impairs our ability to enjoy the present and fully dedicate our efforts to the endeavors of the moment. Another mechanism is to consistently dwell with the guilt complex that past errors create, finding excuses or scapegoats (our parents, God, chromosomes, teachers etc.) while doing nothing to avoid committing the same mistakes again.The author drives his point with practical examples. For instance the story of the hammer. A man wants to hang a painting. He has the nail, but not the hammer. Therefore it occurs to him to go over to the neighbor and ask him to lend him his hammer. But at this point, doubt sets in. What if he doesn't want to lend me the hammer? Yesterday he barely spoke to me. Maybe he was in a hurry. Or, perhaps, he holds something against me. But why? I didn't do anything to him. If he would ask me to lend him something, I would, at once. How can he refuse to lend me his hammer? People like him make other people's life miserable. Worst, he thinks that I need him because he has a hammer. This is got to stop ! And suddenly the guy runs to the neighbor's door, rings, and before letting him say anything, he screams: "You can keep your hammer, you b......" Watzlawick not only discussess techniques to create false problems, but also the ones that make it

Hilarious

Brilliant. When I wasn't laughing out loud, I was pierced by his trenchant obervations. Shows us how we choose unhappiness without even thinking about it. He is no Pangloss, the world is a tough place, but Watzlawick shows us how we make it worse than it has to be for ourselves. Highly, highly recommended for anyone with a sense of humor who wants to know more about him/herself.

How to be happy and laugh about yourself

I just got the german version "Anleitung zum Ungluecklichsein" for Christmas and can only recommend this title to everyone. The more skilled you are in being unhappy, the more this book is for your (despite the title!). Watzlawick shows with a lot of humor, how we make our own lives miserable and how funny and silly that really is if you look at it. Laughter and wisdom in one book.

Foiled Again!

Wonderful prose that's tongue-in-cheek throughout, Dr. Paul Watzlawicks book is a sure side splitter. Citing from real life events that exhibits silliness in our everyday lives, the author demonstrates and prepares a step by step process in which to fail over and over again and to be unhappy. This is for those that are in pursuit of being unhappy. Like the miserable and worried and the paranoid and the "I'll say 'no' because I can." After reading this book, I can happily say that I am unhappy.