When Happiness is Not Enough: Balancing Pleasure and Achievement in Your Life

Happiness is such a simple, unifying concept. We all want to be happy. We all want to die happy. But do we really know what happiness is? Do we really understand its complexity? Does pure joy lie on the same continuum as a quiet satisfaction? And does happiness in itself lead us to live a fulfilling life? This book helps us to discriminate clearly between two fundamental types of happiness. It helps us to know ourselves better, and to make active choices towards a more fulfilling life. The central theme here is that the simple concept of plain Happiness is not enough. Instead, complete happiness is to be found by blending feelings of sensory pleasure with feelings of satisfaction through achievement. We learn to balance the excitable pleasure of the moment with the deeper satisfaction of achieving our established goals in life. If we can establish a healthy balance between Pleasure and Achievement for ourselves, then we learn to live a fulfilling life. And by applying the Pleasure/Achievement Principle to the lifestyle decisions that we make, we will learn to experience a far deeper sense of personal fulfillment in our lives. Chris Skellett trained at the University of Birmingham, England, and has since worked as a clinical psychologist for over 30 years. A former national president of the Hospital Psychologists Association, he has also served on the executive boards of both the New Zealand Psychological Society and the New Zealand College of Clinical Psychologists. Chris is now in private practice as a consultant psychologist and executive coach. Here, he helps clients apply the basic principles of a fulfilling lifestyle to the pressures of the corporate environment.