Happy Ever After by Paul Dolan – A book review

I learned about the works of Prof. Dolan by watching his lectures at LSE. I was impressed with his body-builder physique, his colourful G-Shocks, big white glasses, as well as his f*ck-all mannerism, which to me were all very un-academic. Yet there was something in his ideas that spoke to me deeply that I decided to read his books. Originally, I wanted to read his first book, Happiness by Design, but my local library didn’t have it on their catalogue, so I settled for the second book, Happy Ever After, in audio book form. It kept me company during my long commute hours.

My background

I have to be honest about my intention when reading the book. I wanted to be happy. I have been living in the UK continuously for almost 3 years now, consumed in my PhD studies and a life of constant struggles just to keep our head above the water. Life has been hard, yet the prospect of the future is even dimmer. I have moments of happiness, especially when I spend time with my partner and sometimes, when I was inspired to do my own research. But most of the time, I feel like I could do with a bit more happiness. And to some extent, the book helped.

First of all, the book is filled with western left-wing political ideology. Growing up with a traditional education in the suburban of Northern Vietnam, I used to lack the vocabulary to understand political debates and ideas, and even 2 years ago, the thought of getting involved in politics was alien to me. I guess this can be true to a lot of my peers back in Vietnam. We were so used to politics being for the elites, and generally accepted as default that life could be lived in just one way, and the definition of a good life is universal, at least in our little universe. Because of this, even though branded as a socialist country, we as a society is incredibly conservative, and most amazingly, being so without even realising it. A lot of the divisions within a family can be attributed to ideological differences, but instead are generally labelled as generational gaps. As my PhD progresses and as I start to unfold the personal assumptions that I am bringing into my research, I also acquire a vocabulary to describe my political ideology, thus my understanding of the world expands substantially.

My review

So what do I think about the western left-wing ideology underpinning the book? On the one hand, I feel liberated. On the other hand, as the world is getting more and more divided, I loathe the kind of activisim that most lefties push forward, including the social equity progressive ideas in this book. I am all for choosing the life that makes us happy even if it may require making choices that are non-conformative to social expectations. However, lecturing others about your ideology and trying to convince them using dodgy statistics and pretentious rationality is just condescending and ignorant of the human nature.

In other words, even if by now, I can comfortably say I am more aligned with left-wing ideas, and personally I feel comforted by the ideas put forth by Dolan, reading a book that sings about the wonder that is liberal progressive politics makes me cringe so hard I almost gave up the book half way through.

But then again, I guess I am just lucky? Lucky to have been able to pursue whatever the hell I want in life, despite being constantly told when I was young how as a girl I should live. Lucky to have met my husband, who is secure in his own skin to not let his insecurities be a burden on his own wife’s ambitions. Lucky to have had a great education, formal or informal, to be able to look at life from multiple perspectives and thus have a little bit more perspective. I have had it relatively easy in life, so I might not be aware of the struggles that other have to put up with just to get the basic “rights” that I have now taken for granted.

So with that background, as a reader of the book, I’d say meh. As an book embedded with so many statistics, it lacks the academic rigour to be taken seriously as a scientific piece of writing. As a self-help book, it is too complicated as a result of a (though justifiable) desire to be overly precise terminologically. It makes a good self-affirming read whether you’re politically aligned or misaligned with the author. If you’re a lefty, you feel good about yourself because you have the confirmation that you are nice, progressive, and radical. If you’re a righty, you feel good about yourself because you have the confirmation that those lefties are stupid.

What I think can be improved, then?

I remember the thing that pulled me to Paul Dolan’s books was the idea that happiness is a nexperience, not a thought. As such, a book about happiness should be able to put the focus of readers onto their subjective emotions and experiences, instead of rational arguments and statistics about happiness to compel readers to be open to the authors’ ideology because it is objectively better. But I guess as academics, evidence-based writing is the kind of social conformation that burdens all of our works. We don’t feel our writing is good unless it cites some great authors and includes impressive statistics.

So how to improve the book? The honest answer is, I don’t know. I’m wrestling with my research write-up everyday, trying to grasp the vocabulary that my reviewers speak. So if I have to suggest somethings, um, perhaps, know the form of writing you’re attempting, know your audience, and be willing to adjust?