In this highly entertaining and literate book, Shawn Christopher Shea takes us on a provocative journey into the world of practical philosophy, applied spirituality and everyday psychology. Calling upon more than twenty years of clinical experience, fifty years of navigating life's ups and downs, and an array of thinkers and pop icons - from Alan Watts to Albert Einstein, Billy Graham to Bob Dylan, the Dalai Lama to the English mystic Julian of Norwich - he weaves a gentle compassion and a tart wit into this compelling look at human nature and our never-ending quest for happiness.Not content with traditional stereotypes of happiness, Shea is on a search for a tougher happiness that is present and revitalizing even during times of stress, loss, and pain. He begins with the intriguing twist that happiness is not so much a feeling as it is both an attitude and a feeling. He shows how to distinguish between success and happiness, emphasizing the importance of embracing life as a series of moments to savor as opposed to a series of goals to achieve. For Shea happiness is determined within each moment by five interacting processes - our biologies, our perspectives, our relationships, our environments, and our spiritual quests. These five interacting, constantly shifting processes, give happiness its fluid nature; change one factor, and you change them all. This "matrix effect" explains why happiness is often elusive and fleeting. It need not be so.Using the human matrix, Shea shows what it is that limits our ability to find happiness and what it is that allows us to transcend those very same limits. Shea demonstrates how an understanding of this human matrix can be used to forge a resilient and enduring attitude of trust and a resulting feeling of confidence and compassion - a combination we call happiness. Written with elegance, wit, and a disarming playfulness, Shea's surprising answers to difficult questions are not so much things to do as they are creative ways of thinking, fresh manners of conceptualizing and innovative approaches to understanding human nature - all of which are invaluable tools for finding our own unique answers to the puzzle of happiness.A bold, dazzling, and wonderfully fresh antidote to the simplistic platitudes so common in the self-help books of today! Shawn Christopher Shea pulls on everything from his clinical practice to arcane philosophy to pop culture as he poignantly answers a most modern question: If we're so successful, why aren't we happier? The end result is deeply affecting, often funny, and always instructive. Destined to inspire an entire generation with the excitement and happiness to be found in the nurturance of compassion and the quest for meaning. -Paul Farmer, M.D., Ph.D. Harvard Medical School Following in the groundbreaking footsteps of M. Scott Peck's The Road Less Traveled, Shawn Shea guides us down the road to happiness in his insightful and engaging book. I found it very compellin

Shawn Christopher Shea, M.D. is an internationally acclaimed speaker and innovator in the field of suicide prevention and mental health

Part I Defining the Goal of the Quest: The Meaning of Happiness The purpose of our lives is to be happy. -The 14th Dalai Lama Happiness is like a sunbeam, which the least shadow intercepts. -Chinese Proverb Will Mulder find happiness? No. Thats not for him. Hes a questing hero. -A fans comment from a Web site on The X-Files The Nature of the Beast We are questing beasts. Our lives are frequently a delightful, and sometimes not so delightful, series of quests. Indeed, our lives are not so much a neat series of well delineated quests as they are, more often, a tangled mass of conflicting quests that simultaneously demand our attentions. Our quests are sometimes ordinary and downright primitive in nature. We search for food, shelter, safety, and sex. Our quests are sometimes elevated and important in nature. We tirelessly work to become school teachers, doctors, entrepreneurs, and homemakers. Our quests are sometimes viewed as trivial in naturebut this does not change how hard we pursue them. We relentlessly search for the golf swing of Tiger Woods, a set of abs like the ones on those annoyingly handsome men smiling astride their Bowflexes, or a wrinkle-free forehead thanks to the wonders of Botox. Our quests are sometimes interpersonal. We look for a good set of friends, colleagues we like and partners to cherish. Finally, our quests are sometimes grand and spiritual in nature. We pray to be compassionate, find the right religion or touch the face of god. Put all these pressing pursuits together, and it is no wonder that we are frequently tired and just a bit out of sorts. Were pooped. Moreover, by simultaneously pursuing too many of these goals it is easy for any given human being to sabotage his or her ability to successfully pursue one of the most basic yet critical of all the queststhe quest for happiness. Whether we are working eighty hours a week to get the money to secure our child the best college education that money can buy or relentlessly hunting down a Beanie Baby whose soaring value will undoubtedly secure that very same education, we are preoccupied with a massive set of quests. Not all of these pursuits support each other nor are they necessarily good for ourselves or other creatures on this planet. And, compared to the other creatures on the planet, we seem to spend an inordinate amount of time discussing, prioritizing and, ultimately, picking our quests. Having practiced clinical psychiatry for over twenty years, I have come to believe that this questing business has a good deal to do with our eventual happiness or unhappiness. Indeed, when people enter my office, although they seldom use the word quest, their pains are almost always rooted in this questing business. They are unhappy about what quests they are on, what quests others have foisted upon them, the fact that they are failing with their quests, the fact that others feel they are failing with their quests, the fact that they are afraid that others will

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Excerpted from Happiness Is: Unexpected Answers to Practical Questions in Curious Times by Shawn Christopher Shea
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