"This book will challenge you to rethink your vision of a good life. With sharp insights and lucid prose, Paul Bloom makes a captivating case that pain and suffering are essential to happiness. It's an exhilarating antidote to toxic positivity." --Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again and host of the TED podcast WorkLife One of Behavioral Scientist's "Notable Books of 2021" From the author of Against Empathy, a different kind of happiness book, one that shows us how suffering is an essential source of both pleasure and meaning in our lives Why do we so often seek out physical pain and emotional turmoil? We go to movies that make us cry, or scream, or gag. We poke at sores, eat spicy foods, immerse ourselves in hot baths, run marathons. Some of us even seek out pain and humiliation in sexual role-play. Where do these seemingly perverse appetites come from? Drawing on groundbreaking findings from psychology and brain science, The Sweet Spot shows how the right kind of suffering sets the stage for enhanced pleasure. Pain can distract us from our anxieties and help us transcend the self. Choosing to suffer can serve social goals; it can display how tough we are or, conversely, can function as a cry for help. Feelings of fear and sadness are part of the pleasure of immersing ourselves in play and fantasy and can provide certain moral satisfactions. And effort, struggle, and difficulty can, in the right contexts, lead to the joys of mastery and flow. But suffering plays a deeper role as well. We are not natural hedonists--a good life involves more than pleasure. People seek lives of meaning and significance; we aspire to rich relationships and satisfying pursuits, and this requires some amount of struggle, anxiety, and loss. Brilliantly argued, witty, and humane, Paul Bloom shows how a life without chosen suffering would be empty--and worse than that, boring.

“Self-loathing is a dark land studded with booby traps. Fumbling through its dark underbrush, we cannot see what our trouble actually is: that we are mistaken about ourselves. That we were told lies long ago that we, in love and loyalty and fear, believed. Will we believe ourselves to death?” —from Unworthy As someone who has struggled with low self-esteem her entire life, Anneli Rufus knows only too well how the world looks through the eyes of those who are not comfortable in their own skin. In Unworthy , Rufus boldly explores how a lack of faith in ourselves can turn us into our own worst enemies. Drawing on extensive research, enlightening interviews, and her own poignant experiences, Rufus considers the question: What personal, societal, biological, and historical factors coalesced to spark this secret epidemic, and what can be done to put a stop to it? She reveals the underlying sources of low self-esteem and leads us through strategies for positive change.

Tired of trying to be confident, positive, and spiritually centered? Now the real you can shine through! You can be happy, productive, and well adjusted while remaining as neurotic as ever. That's the premise of The Happy Neurotic: How Fear and Angst Can Lead To Happiness And Success! by counselor and stand-up comic David Granirer. Granirer states, "Many self-help books promise us wealth, perfect health, and even to reverse the aging process if only we love ourselves, say positive affirmations, and eliminate all negativity. But most of us aren't getting any richer, healthier or younger, and we're starting to feel like idiots as we go around chanting, 'I am a perfect being of love and light' while cutting people off in traffic. Negative emotions are not only impossible to eradicate, they are also keys to our happiness and success." Instead of wasting time and money on futile attempts to become totally confident and relentlessly positive, Granirer's readers learn how to achieve the common sense and attainable reality of the Happy Neurotic - someone who uses negative emotions to create happiness and success and has a sense of humor about it all. The book even includes a special chapter teaching readers how to use humor as a powerful tool for accepting and even celebrating their dysfunctions. According to Granirer, "Everyone is dysfunctional to some degree. This book helps readers make their dysfunctions work for them." This funny and highly irreverent book also challenges many popular New Age teachings. Readers learn why they shouldn't trust the universe, why programming themselves for success often doesn't work, and about negative, fear-driven people who live charmed lives. Counsellor and stand-up comic David Granirer's work teaching comedy to people with mental illness as a way of building confidence and fighting public stigma has been featured by media across North America. He also helps hundreds of organizations use humor to cope with stress and adversity. Granirer lives in Vancouver, Canada. Book jacket.