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 | | The Art of Happiness at Work by Dalai Lama, Howard C Cutler ISBN-10: 9781594480546 ISBN-10: 1-59448-054-0 ISBN-13: 9781594480546 ISBN-13: 978-1-59448-054-6 Paperback 2004-09-07 Riverhead Trade Find Lowest Price |
Editorials | ||
Product Description For the first time since their revolutionary book, The Art of Happiness, His Holiness the Dalai Lama and psychiatrist Howard Cutler reunite to explore ways in which work and careers can become a meaningful part of our lives. Using common sense and modern psychiatry, this illuminating book applies 2,500 years of Buddhist tradition to the contemporary struggles faced in finding a calling. The Dalai Lama answers the questions everyone wants answered about the nature of work and finding fulfillment. | ||
Amazon.com Review In their 1998 book The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living, His Holiness the Dalai Lama and co-author Howard C. Cutler, M.D., explored how inner development contributes to overall happiness. In their second collaboration, the authors considered how they could best follow their highly successful first book. They chose a subject that affects millions of people around the world and produced. In this very readable, useful book, the authors attempt to discover the following: "Where does work fit in to our overall quest for happiness?" and "To what degree does work satisfaction affect our overall life satisfaction and happiness?" The Art of Happiness at Work is a modern-day Socratic dialogue in which Cutler asks the Dalai Lama about the difficulties and rewards we might encounter in the workplace. The authors explore issues such as work and identity, making money, the Buddhist concept of "right livelihood," and transforming dissatisfaction at work. The discussion appears simple, if not obvious, at first, but upon closer scrutiny, the Dalai Lama's profound wisdom and sensitivity emerges. For the Dalai Lama, basic human values such as kindness, tolerance, compassion, honesty, and forgiveness are the source of human happiness. Throughout the book, he illustrates with clear examples how bringing those qualities to bear on work-related challenges can help us tolerate or overcome the most thorny situations. Recognizing that not all problems can be solved, the Dalai Lama provides very sound advice. The authors urge balance and self-awareness and wisely state, "No matter how satisfying our work is, it is a mistake to rely on work as our only source of satisfaction." --Silvana Tropea | ||
Reviews | ||
Being Happy at Work - Go Figure This book resulted from an earlier work, The Art of Happiness, written by the same authors which took a more global look at the issue of happiness. Why look at the issue of happiness at work? A 2005 study by the Gallup Organization shows that just 20% of us are passionate about the work we do. A terrible statistic given that we spend at least one-third (and in many cases much more) of our day working. I picked-up this book because much of my work as a consultive coach revolves around the arenas of worksite wellness and life-work integration, both of which are impacted by one's level of happiness. While this book does have some challenges, overall, I was not disappointed. For each of the topics presented, I liked how the book integrated Western psychological research and thinking with Eastern Buddhist philosophy. This book clearly has a big picture - high level type of focus. If you are looking for daily practical tips and advice as to how to be happier at work, you will be disappointed by this book. If you are interested in learning about an overall happiness framework you can use to guide your life's journey towards a greater level of happiness, then I believe you will find the book valuable. I found the book to have two challenges: 1. The book does drag along at times 2. I sometimes found it difficult to determine which of the authors was speaking. Was it the Dalai Lama or Dr. Cutler? | ||
Mostly Common Sense about the Workplace I have read quite a few books by the Dalai Lama and/or co-written by the Dalai Lama and, unfortunately, this is my least favorite. The majority of the book focuses on common sense ways to find happiness at work: such as finding balance between challenge and capabilities and having oulets outside of work for your happiness. This being said the best readers of this book would be employers. Employers could certainly read some of the actual complaints and studies about workplace satisfaction to try and improve working conditions. Besides my feeling that this would be an interesting read for anyone in management, I can not highly recommonend this book which is disappointing. | ||
Cutler reprise Once again Dr. Cutler and the publishers have listed the Dalai Lama as first author although this book like the previous one was written by Cutler and not the Dalai Lama. As in his other book, Cutler uses some quotations from the Dalai Lama sprinkled thinly through the book to justify the listed authorship. Buyer beware. There are many other excellent books actually written by the Dalai Lama. | ||
I found my peace at work.. The Dalai Lama encourages the daily grind to become peaceful. Good for those with stressful positions. | ||
Cultivating Harmony At Work After much success with his first book in collaboration with the Dalai Lama, The Art of Happiness, Howard Cutler decided to write another book. In this book Cutler wanted to explore some ideas and topics not touched upon in the first one. Namely, since work takes up an overwhelming amount of the day for most people, how can we find happiness at work? After all, most of us cannot sit around all day in a cave without venturing out into the real world. If we have no practical way to take our spiritual practice into the real world then what good is it? The first thing that becomes readily apparent to the reader is that the Dalai Lama feels that cultivating inner values contributes to the greatest possibility of being happy at work. Obviously if you have a bitter attitude about work it doesn't matter what type of career you have you are probably going to be dissatisfied. Also, cultivating inner values like compassion and kindness can help you get along with other co-workers and this contributes to happiness as well. Later in the book other topics are brought up which are rendered as conversations that took place between Cutler and the Dalai Lama. After these conversations end Cutler usually provides his own commentary about them as the chapter ends. Some of the topics are; making money, work boredom, job career and calling, right livelihood. Many of the practical suggestions center around maintaining an optimistic outlook, calm mind, and a realistic perspective. For instance, having your self-identity tied up with the money you make is not a realistic perspective. You are not your money and what happens if you suddenly stop making money. You are all of a sudden a worthless person because you no longer have a high income? So a realistic perspective is crucial. The Dalai Lama encourages us to even take jobs that pay less money but that leave for more time to spend with family, friends, and doing things we enjoy. It's hard to be happy when you are a slave to work. Many of the other suggestions in the book I felt centered around common-sense objectives. For instance, have a self-understanding of your strengths and weaknesses so you won't be devastated if you are not great at certain aspects of your job. Also, try to do your job with a sense of meaningfulness and skill so you gain a feeling of satisfaction from doing a good job. Despite this book having a fair amount of good advice for all of us I did find myself becoming a bit bored with it. Some of the conversations seemed to ramble on and became somewhat monotonous. I think if some of the more redundant conversations were cleaned up a bit it would have been a better read. Nevertheless, it's still enjoyable for the most part as most books concerning the Dalai Lama with his practical advice and good attitude tend to be. | ||