That is an version of The Surprise Reader, a publication by which our editors suggest a set of tales to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Join right here to get it each Saturday morning.
Once you watch an actor accepting an Oscar, or examine an excellent scientist receiving an enormous prize, you may think that they’ve discovered the important thing to happiness. Who wouldn’t be comfortable, residing life with a lot expertise or smarts? However the relationship between intelligence and happiness is sophisticated, Arthur C. Brooks wrote in 2023. “The presents you possess can elevate you up or pull you down; all of it relies on how you employ them,” he defined. Right this moment’s publication explores make the most of your abilities and smarts so as to add pleasure to your life, fairly than letting them chip away at what truly makes the times significant.
On Happiness and Intelligence
How Good Folks Can Cease Being Depressing
By Arthur C. Brooks
Intelligence could make you happier, however provided that you see it as greater than a software to get forward. (From 2023)
Need Much less
By Arthur C. Brooks
The key to satisfaction has nothing to do with achievement, cash, or stuff. (From 2022)
A New Understanding of Human Beings’ Most Primary Need
By John Kaag
The thinker Rebecca Newberger Goldstein’s newest e-book seems past happiness because the purpose of a well-lived life.
Nonetheless Curious?
- Why so many good individuals aren’t comfortable: It’s a paradox, Joe Pinsker wrote in 2016: Shouldn’t essentially the most achieved be properly geared up to make decisions that maximize life satisfaction?
- A brand new system for happiness: The happiness we search could require investing sooner than we expect—and will assist us align our expectations and actuality on the finish of life. (From 2022)
Different Diversions
PS
Each week, I ask readers to share a photograph of one thing that sparks their sense of awe on the planet. “A driver unknowingly leaves behind a factor of magnificence in contemporary snow,” Jane P., 60, from Portland, Oregon, writes.
I’ll proceed to characteristic your responses within the coming weeks.
— Isabel
