Martin Seligman

Published nine years after [b:Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment|28012|Authentic Happiness Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment|Martin E.P. Seligman|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388186865s/28012.jpg|1930010], this book bills itself as a sequel to that book, saying that the Authentic Happiness model is incomplete. I liked reading Authentic Happiness better. Chapter 1 of this book makes a case for a more complete model, and describes that model. The rest of the book seemed like a travel log. The end of the book claims that this is good psychology despite the claims of critics.

The model proposed in this book is:
• Positive emotion (of which happiness and life satisfaction are all aspects)
• Engagement
• Relationships
• Meaning
• Achievement
(Page 24)

I read a Kindle edition, and liked how references were done. There would be a phrase in colored text. Clicking on it took me to that endnote. Going back was just as easy. (Either the back arrow, or click on the colored text at the start of the endnote.)

A Kindle disappointment: The Table of Contents on an iPad had ten chapters, but on the Mac Kindle reader, instead of 10 chapters it just lists: Part 1 & Part 2.

In summary: Authentic Happiness is more engaging reading. This book gives some information on what has happened in the intervening nine years.… (more)

First problem with this book was my own-- I thought this was another exploration into Seligman's well known work and concepts or perhaps newer work. It is actually an autobiography which may have been obvious to everyone else so it would not be fair to give a low rating because of this.

Second problem with this book may also be my own in that it is an example of the idea that one should not meet their heroes. Seligman turns out to be by his own autobiographical accounts-- arrogant, sexist, scared of black people, and surprisingly not quite an embodiment of the ideas behind the work he has spent decades popularizing.

To paraphrase one example of his arrogance, Seligman credits himself as maybe not an Einstein but at least an Oppenheimer. Even Steve Jobs, never to be mistaken as humble, denied being as good as Oppenheimer in the Walter Isaacson bio.

The bits where Seligman discusses his work, his colleagues, and other influential and behind-the-scenes figures in related fields are interesting, even if he does spend much of that time criticizing others. Unfortunately and oddly, most of the book seems to be written as though he were responding defensively to a critique of his character, originality, and intellect. To be fair, he expounds on some of the origin of this, he gives examples of how he had been tough to work or get along with and had to work on his communication style throughout his career.

Was not worthwhile.… (more)