Books on Happiness / HarperCollins,.It's All in Your Head - Thinking Your Way to Happiness.[2006.ISBN0060759992]

By Stephen M. Pollan

and Mark Levine

B E S T - S E L L I N G A U T H O R S O F

S E C O N D A C T S A N D D I E B R O K E

To m y g r a n d c h i l d r e n .

— S t e p h e n P o l l a n

To R o c k y a n d W i n s t o n .

— M a r k L e v i n e

M O R A L

Happiness is a how, not a what; a talent, not an object.

—HERMANN HESSE

C o n t e n t s

Acknowledgments, vii

Prologue, ix

C H A P T E R 1 : It’s All in Your Head, 1

C H A P T E R 2 : You’re Just Where You’re Supposed to Be, 23

C H A P T E R 5 : You Don’t Have to Go It Alone, 90

C H A P T E R 6 : There’s No Time Like Now,

So Take the Action, 112

About the Authors

Other Books by Stephen M. Pollan and Mark Levine

Credits

Cover

Copyright

AboutthePublisher

A c k n o w l e d g m e n t s

A book like this draws not only on people with whom we’ve spoken, but on books we’ve read, movies and television shows we’ve watched, music we’ve heard, and art we’ve seen. To come up with a comprehensive list of all the sources and influences that helped us write this book is, as a result, impossible. Instead we’re forced to highlight only a handful of influences. We apologize, in advance to all those we’ve left out.

Thanks to the friends, family, and clients who allowed us to draw on the stories of their lives as examples in this book.

Thanks to David Allen, Saint Augustine, Hannah Arendt, Marcus Aurelius, Honoré de Balzac, John Barrymore, Walter Benjamin, Ambrose Bierce, Jorge Luis Borges, Urie Bronfenbrenner, Frank Buchman, Frances Burney, Samuel Butler, Julius Caesar, Albert Camus, Angela Carter, Miguel de Cervantes, Martin Charnin, Joseph Conrad, Mason Cooley, Nathaniel Cotton, Faye J. Crosby, Robertson Davies, Charles Dickens, Diogenes, Leo Durocher, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Epictetus, Gustave Flaubert, Anne Frank, Baltasar Gracián, Robert Grudin, Hermann Hesse, Eric Hoffer, Oliver Wendell

viii A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S

Holmes Sr., Thomas Henry Huxley, Eugène Ionesco, William James, Susan Jeffers, Thomas Jefferson, Janis Joplin, Franz Kafka, Yoshida Kenko,¯ Ernest Kurtz, Philip Larkin, D. H. Lawrence, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Dominic Maruca, Margaret Mead, Thomas Moore, O. Herbert Mowrer, Fridtjof Nansen, John Henry Cardinal Newman, Blaise Pascal, Alastair Reed, François, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Jean Rostand, Wendy Coppedge Sandford, Arthur Schopenhauer, George Bernard Shaw, Baruch Spinoza, Publius Syrus, Henry David Thoreau, Roderick Thorp, Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, Oscar Wilde, Thornton Wilder, Frank Lloyd Wright, Steven Wright, and Stefan Zweig for lending us their words of wisdom.

Thanks to Steve Hanselman for helping to inspire this book. Thanks to Joe Tessitore, Libby Jordan, Herb Schaffner, Knox Huston, Paul Olsewski, and Keith Pfeffer of Collins for their vision and encouragement throughout the project. In fact, we’d like to thank everyone at HarperCollins. For years we talked about finding a home with a publisher. Thanks to the extraordinary people at HarperCollins, past and present, we’ve now had a happy home on 53rd Street for seven years and as many

books.

Thanks to our agent, Stuart Krichevsky, and Shana Cohen and Elizabeth Coen of the Stuart Krichevsky Literary Agency for their unflinching help and support. We’re always told how rare it is for authors to have as close and lasting a relationship to an agent as we have with Stuart. That’s a testimony to his skill, vision, humor, and above all, patience.

Thanks to our wives, Corky Pollan and Deirdre Martin Levine, for their understanding and love.

P R O L O G U E

A Hindu legend says we were all once gods. But eventually we abused our powers. Brahma, the chief god, decided to punish us by taking away our divinity. Brahma called a meeting of the other chief gods to figure out where to hide our holiness. One god suggested hiding it deep beneath the earth. “No,” Brahma said, “man will just figure out a way to tunnel miles below the surface.” Another god suggested hiding our holiness at the bottom of the ocean. “No,” Brahma responded, “man will just learn how to dive to the seabed.” A third god came up with the idea of placing our divinity on top of a towering mountain. “No,” Brahma said, “man will just climb every tall mountain on the planet until he finds it.” Stumped, the other gods told Brahma they gave up—there didn’t seem to be any place to hide our holiness and keep it out of our reach. “Wait,” Brahma said with a smile. “I’ve got it. We’ll hide man’s holiness deep within himself—he’ll never think to look for it there.” Since then, we’ve spent ages digging below the earth, diving to the sea floor, and climbing tall mountains, looking for something that’s already within us.