It’s a stoic life for me

I’ve been an admirer of Derren for nearly 20 years and to hear him talk about this subject particularly coming off a bad break up really helped me focus on what’s important and what matters. I loved the book and loved that he read it himself. I highly recommend giving it a listen no matter what state you’re in.

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A must!!

An absolute must for everyone! How refreshing! Truly an answer on how to be happy right now, right here, right where you are.

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Finally, an extraordinary book

I'm not young and I've read dozens of book about the art of living over my lifetime. Some uselessly complicated and full of pseudo "philosophical" rhetoric, others too shallow and simplistic to even qualify as bad recipe books.But this one strikes the perfect balance. It draws heavily on the stoics, but on other sources as well. There are no recipes for happiness. It's an ongoing journey where we find people and tools to help us along. Ultimately, it's about facing our common, ultimate mystery: death, with courage, serenity and a twinkle. This book is one of the few that is up to the challenge. It provides us with a mixture of thoughtful perspectives from philosophers and scientists, and beautiful and poignant accounts from people who have faced, or are facing, death, but who will never be "famous".

I usually have no patience for the shallow, hollow, and dollar-oriented platitudes found in many self-help books. Many are insults to basic common sense. But this one is of another kind. It kept me interested from beginning to end, making me feel, empathize, and reflect. It's a great book, and a wonderful experience. Whatever expectations I initially had, it exceeded them and more.

I strongly recommend this book, especially if you're tired of the marshmallow miracle diet advocated by a significant portion of the self-help industry, and are looking for something deeper, closer to life as we experience it.

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Worth the listen

As someone who has explored multiple self-help books, including 'The Secret,' I found this to be a refreshingly insightful read. It was my first foray into stoicism, and, cheesy as it may sound, I genuinely feel like I'm walking away a better person after finishing it. The vocabulary was a bit challenging for me at times; however, I believe I'll revisit this book in the future to pick up on anything I might have missed. I'm incredibly grateful to have stumbled upon this recommendation on Reddit—it has truly made a positive impact on me.

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Incredible and valuable message, but not an easy solve

I was really put off by this book for the first few chapters. Between the scholarly British accent and rich vocabulary (be prepared to look up words like “perspicacity”), it initially came off as an arrogant author more ready to criticize why self help won’t make you happy, than to provide any solutions himself.

But somewhere around the middle of the book the reasoning behind this approach starts to make itself clear, and the incredible value of a book like this becomes apparent.

I believe that this author really wants the best for everyone, and has made the difficult call to write what’s good for us, that we don’t necessarily want to hear. Taking a look at what some of the smartest philosophers throughout history have discussed, and finding joy in small things like a clay sugar pot, he attempts to show us that what we think we want in life, is very often not what will make us happy.

As he suggests, leave the false easy answers to the politicians and ‘The Secret’. Consider instead trying to live a more full life in each and every moment—with all of life’s ups and downs—than assuming you should always aim to be “happy”.

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1 person found this helpful

Fantastic

Put it this way... I'm starting again. This is a phenomenal work. Derren is powerful and super interesting.

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