Book: The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking by Oliver Burkeman. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.

It was a suggestion from a friend when I published the review of Don’t Panic: Taking Control of Anxiety Attacks, as he found the content to be complimentary.

I liked the book overall. It’s interesting how the author shows some scientific facts of the “positive thinking” which contradicts the current collective thinking. I don’t have anything against positive thinking, but I’m sure positive thinking alone will not do much.

There are many mentions of stoicism and I read better books than this one that was dedicated to stoicism itself. It was nice to remind me of some concepts to consider. Memento Mori was one that I found particularly interesting when I read A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy.

My current way of thinking is that all could be much worse and “Is is the worse that can happen?”. It helps to better evaluate the current situation.

In the beginning, I had a 3-star review for this book, but the final chapters brought the 4th star. :)

Here are my raw notes about the book:

  • If positive thinking does not help, is it worth calling it positive after all?
  • Nothing is positive or negative per se, it’s your perception that makes it good or bad.
  • Are things/people acting badly or it’s us waiting for them to act in a different way?
  • The only things we can control are our judgment of things and how we can face them
  • Be upset about a situation (a long line in the supermarket) is irrational since you have no control over it. You have the freedom to go to a different supermarket or just be there and accept the situation #Stoicism
  • If you accept the universe to be uncontrollable, you will be much less anxious. There’s always much worse situations and these are the ones we must fear of
  • Vipassana Vendetta. When your mind doesn’t have big problems to think about, it will start creating new ones from simple situations
  • Always think about how bad it will be if you fail to do something. If it’s tolerable, go for it
  • The ego is more focused in the future. It’s much easier to think compulsively about the future than the present
  • You are not your thoughts. You can be a witness to them
  • We are not more insecure than we were in the past. There are countless manuscripts showing how people felt very insecure about many things since BC
  • We always try to find stability for everything. This is not possible because everything changes. We change. We are born, change, grow, and die. Nothing is the same forever.
  • We build castle walls to be safe, but that’s exactly what brings the enemy. Because there are Castle walls, there’s nothing to attack.
  • According to Ernest Becker, all religions, political identifies, and other projects are a way for us to feel immortal
  • Our immortality view is sometimes so important that we are willing to sacrifice our physical mortality for a sentiment of immortality (war)
  • The denial of death affects us a lot
  • Jean-Paul Sartre wanted to die quietly…. certain that the last burst of my heart will be inscribed on the last page of my work, and that death would only be taking a dead man