10% Happier by Dan Harris

I read it as an: audiobook

Narrator: Dan Harris

Source: My own collection

Length: 07:50:00

Publisher: HarperAudio

Year: 2014

Dan Harris, the anchorman for Good Morning America, had a panic attack on national live TV and decided then and there that he might need to consider making some changes. Perhaps not doing cocaine anymore was one change. Learning about mindfulness and meditation was another. However, like me, Harris is a super skeptic and he gave meditation a hard side-eye. Eventually, he came around and realized that it is actually a thing that works, and which has scientific studies to back it up, and was able to get his shit together.

This was an ok book. I don’t know that I find Harris an interesting enough person in and of himself to have had a burning desire to listen to this. I got it when it was an Audible daily deal and it was the next in my queue. He really is kind of a dick, though good on him for trying not to be a dick so much anymore. I do really like his concept of how meditation makes him just 10% happier. I think that’s a really important point to make. Meditation (or medication, or religion, or shopping, or whatever you want) really isn’t a cure-all for anything in life, and it’s up to each individual how we choose to respond to a thing. You can’t expect something to make you purely happy, nor should you go looking for such a thing. To do so will surely make you 100% miserable. I think that’s something a lot of folks still need to figure out.

Overall, this was an all right book. I’m glad I had the time to listen to it mostly in one go because I didn’t think it was that interesting and I might have DNF’d it if I had had to listen to it over several days.