A Happily Curated Book List
Data source: Kaggle
Hello readers, hopefully you are reading this because you are still following and curious to explore your own Data Driven Wellness journey. I am slowly improving my scavenging for free datasets skills but it has been a whirlwind of a month – packing, moving, working, and enjoying Seattle and friends consumed much of my time throughout July. If you have been following along since the beginning, you may remember I am in the midst of a cross country move to Boston to start my MBA.
All this to say, I have not forgotten about our little sacred space and am working towards being more efficient with my blog posts. So, with all that being said, I wanted to come back with a very simple – perhaps not even worthy of being considered an analysis – but valuable entry that will encourage you to explore how you are investing in your healthy, happy mind.
Happiness: A closer Look
I am almost certain that we are all on a never ending quest to be/feel content. Such a simple but absolutely powerful state of being that seems to be more difficult to achieve in an increasingly complex and distracting world. Data continues to tell us that happiness levels steadily decline year after year, and there is no denying that the alarming trend of mental illness and addiction in young people has increased as well.
My sister once told me that the only books I read are self-help books. While that may be true, I cannot say that I have ever been bored by one. In fact, it has been a revolutionary way to enhance my knowledge on mindfulness. So, I wanted to offer a comforting list of bestselling happiness books that may entice you to gift some precious time to your spiritual and mental well-being.
Bestselling happiness Books: Overview
Every year, experts from around the globe come together to assess and quantify the elusive emotion of happiness. In an effort to increase our global happiness levels, the World Happiness Report gifts us a happy little list of books to explore. This list explores the concept of happiness from various perspectives—through the lens of science, history, philosophy, mindfulness, or spirituality. I find many of these perspectives (as I am no expert in any of them) quite fascinating. So search no more, here is a list of 33 books that can guide us toward a deeper understanding of what it means to be truly happy.
Bestselling Happiness books as of March 2024
The two titles that I have highlighted are ones I can give my own perspective on. The Art of Happiness is a wonderful book spoken with global wisdom from the 14th Dalai Lama himself. Dividing the book in parts, his approach gives purpose to very real emotions and challenges, describing our ability to harness our emotional power through our very own mind and thoughts while also combining the connection to humanity.
I technically have not read this title, but I do listen to the 10% Happier podcast and it always feels like a grounding and relatable conversation for me, with very compelling guest speakers offering enlightening experiences (both professional and personal).
Titles to Explore
As you can see, I have a whole new set of books I now need to get through. Another helpful variable reported in this dataset talks about the key takeaways. Based on those points and titles from this list, the ones I will probably reach for first from the shelf are below:
Book names, authors, and summaries of their key takeaways
A few of the other variables that are available as a way to evaluate which title might be of interest to you are: Favorite Quote, One Line Review, and Why You Should Read. I would love to explore those further if you are interested in visiting them with me. Otherwise, feel free to check out the kaggle dataset for yourself and share your thoughts with the community.
Let me know if you have read any (or all) of these titles, or perhaps you might have recommendations that are not included on the bestselling list.
Closing Sunday Thoughts
I keep saying it is simple to be happy, but actually, it is a serious mental exercise to consciously self-assess ourselves every single day, with our biggest tests being through day to day interactions with people. Bettering ourselves through mindfulness is really a lifelong journey. And finding joy through compassion and purpose is the goal.
I would like to continue exploring the theme of 'happiness' in the next couple of entries. Now that you are all familiar with the World Happiness Report, hopefully you can visit some of their great research here, and I look forward to further exploring the 2024 report in our next entry.
Have a very happy week!
DDW Final Food for Thought: Stoic Joy
"But can you be fully content with your life, can you bravely face what life has in store from one day to the next, can you bounce back from every kind of adversity to others around you? That’s Stoic joy - the joy that comes from purpose, excellence, and duty" (The Daily Stoic, Ryan Holiday).