Happiness Comes in All Shapes and Sizes
I just finished reading the cutest, furriest, most adorable- and enlightening- book about finding happiness.
About a mouse* on a fact-finding mission to discover what makes other wild animals happy.
Yes, the main character is a mouse*.
(*Okay, it’s actually a rat, but I just can’t handle that- so to me, Lucky is a sweet little mouse.)
The author reached out to me about writing a review, and I was a little hesitant. I was absolutely flattered to be asked to review a fellow author’s book on Amazon, but I didn’t know how I felt about animals searching for true happiness.
I soon realized I had nothing to worry about. The book was amazing, easy to read, the perfect length, and the perfect amount of feel-good material.
The best aspect of the book was it’s exploration of different types of happiness.
Most people today feel that they need to be an entrepreneur to be happy, or traveling full-time, going on adventures, practicing yoga, and/or any of the other new trends that those of us pushing the ‘happiness’ brand tend to talk about.
Most people can’t necessarily pursue the above-mentioned lifestyle/s, don’t want to, or aren’t quite ready for them, so I appreciated that Van der Merwe included a variety of different perspectives on happiness.
Here are some insights I picked up from the book:
- A number of short-lived highs don’t necessarily equal a better life versus 10 years of relaxed, peaceful happiness.
- You live in your mind. Your state of happiness depends more on how you view the situation than what the situation actually is.
- Plan fun activities far in advance so you can spend a longer amount of time looking forward to them, thus adding more hours of happiness to your week.
- Don’t allow yourself to be happy exclusively on the weekends. Plan fun activities and set aside time to make happiness happen every single day, as often as you can.
- Money never has, and never will, buy happiness.
It will probably be the only book I ever read about self-discovery that features wild animals as the book’s main characters, but the ‘fable’ approach was perfect, and each short story left me feeling uplifted.
For anyone who would like to start with some small doses of happiness in their life, and/or reinforce some positive life values, let Lucky lead the way.
Happy teaching, and happy self-discovery.
(Note: The author didn’t ask me to write this post, but I liked the book far too much not to write about it here. For additional information, visit the website: http://www.luckygohappythebook.com/)