Customer Reviews

The Situation Is Hopeless But Not Serious (The Pursuit of Unhappiness)

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A review by the marqueeofburano: A wonderful, witty, exposé of our endeavors to live a more miserable life by Watzlawick, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral science at Stanford University. The treatment of the subject will surely make you laugh at yourself and thus, perhaps, contribute to make you a better person.
W. deals with the fundamental, painful, necessity of the human being to be unhappy (in order to be quiet). And in fact, he contends that the best chapters of universal literature dwell with disaster, tragedy, guilt, madness, etc.
Dante's Inferno-W. writes- is very superior to his Paradise; same case as Milton's Paradise Lost compared with his Paradise Regained; Faust I's greatness is proportionally inverse to the tediousness of Faust II. So the author embarks hilariously in a methodic introduction to the best and more verifiable mechanisms to achieve unhappiness. Samples:
Always be truthful to yourself. A principle, from Polonius in Hamlet,of the outmost necessity for us ( its application is what gets the guy killed by Hamlet like a rat). So then, we must resist any temptation to yield to any other criteria or opinion, apart from ours. Never compromise or accept someone else's advice. The author then addresses the issue of the old saying: "time cures all wounds"..... According to W. four sound mechanisms exist if you want to avoid time's healing effects and transform the past into a present source of suffering. In the exaltation of the past we find those that only remember the good things about their youth and not the years of insecurity and anxiety. In so doing, they have a consistent reserve of sadness about their miserable present...... Also, this fidelity to the past, impairs our ability to enjoy the present and fully dedicate our efforts to the endeavors of the moment. Another mechanism is to consistently dwell with the guilt complex that past errors create, finding excuses or scapegoats (our parents, God, chromosomes, teachers etc.) while doing nothing to avoid committing the same mistakes again.
The author drives his point with practical examples. For instance the story of the hammer. A man wants to hang a painting. He has the nail, but not the hammer. Therefore it occurs to him to go over to the neighbor and ask him to lend him his hammer. But at this point, doubt sets in. What if he doesn't want to lend me the hammer? Yesterday he barely spoke to me. Maybe he was in a hurry. Or, perhaps, he holds something against me. But why? I didn't do anything to him. If he would ask me to lend him something, I would, at once. How can he refuse to lend me his hammer? People like him make other people's life miserable. Worst, he thinks that I need him because he has a hammer. This is got to stop ! And suddenly the guy runs to the neighbor's door, rings, and before letting him say anything, he screams: "You can keep your hammer, you b......"
Watzlawick not only discussess techniques to create false problems, but also the ones that make it actually possible to avoid solving problems and conver them into eternal torments. Here we get the example of the man that claps his hands every ten seconds. Asked why he does that, he answers: "to drive away the elephants..." -"But why, there are no elephants here"- The guy says: "Precisely".
This is a very funny book. It deals, with a fresh and delightful approach, with many of our karmas and mind bothering mosquitoes.......

Wonderful prose that's tongue-in-cheek throughout, Dr. Paul Watzlawicks book is a sure side splitter. Citing from real life events that exhibits silliness in our everyday lives, the author demonstrates and prepares a step by step process in which to fail over and over again and to be unhappy. This is for those that are in pursuit of being unhappy. Like the miserable and worried and the paranoid and the "I'll say 'no' because I can." After reading this book, I can happily say that I am unhappy.

I just got the german version "Anleitung zum Ungluecklichsein" for Christmas and can only recommend this title to everyone. The more skilled you are in being unhappy, the more this book is for your (despite the title!). Watzlawick shows with a lot of humor, how we make our own lives miserable and how funny and silly that really is if you look at it. Laughter and wisdom in one book.

Brilliant. When I wasn't laughing out loud, I was pierced by his trenchant obervations. Shows us how we choose unhappiness without even thinking about it. He is no Pangloss, the world is a tough place, but Watzlawick shows us how we make it worse than it has to be for ourselves. Highly, highly recommended for anyone with a sense of humor who wants to know more about him/herself.

This book is such a joy to read! It is one of the funniest books I have read and yet we learn so much about ourselves with it! It shows us how we create much of the unhappiness that we experience and in an indirect way, how we can step out of it. If you want to learn more about consciousness and how it relates to our happiness, read "The Ever-Transcending Spirit" by Toru Sato. It is not as funny but it tells us more about how consciousness works in a simple way. I think you will like it.

The author extracts from his extensive practice and writing in the field of communication theory an amusing list of "technics" people use to make their own lives miserable. They span from the avoidance of things that could solve one's own problems to the dual tendency to insist focusing on what cannot be reached; to projecting one's prejudices on others like when one wants to ask something fearing it will not be given and thus putting in act behaviours that forster just that reaction.

All in all the feeling that one gets from the book is that we do not need terrorism, wars, discriminations, torture, presidents of the United States or Osamas... all that is needed to make ourselves unhappy is already inside ourselves - thus, and here comes the positive message, it is there that it may, and must, be cured.

Paul Watzlawick has written some really exceptional material, but I found this book to be less so. I did finally get a very useful insight near the end, but I felt like I was going through a lot of repetitive material. Kind of like a long run for a short slide. For a more enjoyable read by the same author, try "Change: Principles of Problem Formation and Problem Resolution." For me his best was "How Real is Real? (An Anecdotal Introduction to Communication Theory)" , now out of print and a classic.

Wonderfuly witty and insightful. I bought the book largely because I couldn't resist the title and I wasn't disappointed.

In "The Situation is Hopeless But Not Serious", Watzlawick shares a humorous insight into human nature and what people do to ensure that they are unhappy. For those who are in pursuit in unhappiness, he warns about the things not to do unless they want to jeopardize the feeling of unhappiness and end up feeling happy and content. Having one's goals fulfilled may leave one feeling empty, without any purpose, without anything meaningful to do, so as long as one has some kind of problems to work on, one has something to occupy himself, unachievable dreams to fantasize about and a good deal of unhappiness may be created by wanting to get somewhere and doing everything that ensures one doesn't really get there, or wanting to have something while doing everyone in one's power to ensure one doesn't get it - that way one can continue to long for it.

Even when there really are no problems, people can create them simply by interpreting that something or someone is contrary to them, or finding fault with something of someone. And that is easily done no matter what situation a person finds himself in. Watzlawick shares countless variations on the views one may adopt if he wants to ensure that the world is against him, variations that may bring you to tears laughing while you read them, and perhaps even if you know someone who acts in those ways that may drive you crazy, you can feel instantly better, realizing how ludicrous the situation is, while at the same time understanding that the seemingly senseless behavior fulfills a real need the person has - to feel that he matters, that he counts, that he is important.

The book ends with a quote from Dostoyevski's book "The Possessed":

"Everything's good ... Everything. Man is unhappy because he doesn't know he is happy. It's only that. That's all, that's all! If one finds out, one will become happy at once, that minute."

The situation is hopeless and the solution is hopelessly simple.

And come to think of it, this book may be a great gift for any unhappy person you may know.

If you are not needing the science background (which P.W. provides elsewhere), this is a classic.