“If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap. If you want happiness for a day, go fishing. If you want happiness for a month, get married. If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime, help others.” – Chinese proverb
Rather than a shortcut to personal happiness, and despite its Danish title, The Little Book of Lykke is an international introduction to why some communities are happier than others. Investigating six keystones highlighted by a United Nations report, Lykke takes you across all six inhabited continents on a “treasure hunt” for what makes people happy. In surprisingly succinct sentences, it carefully considers cultural attitudes, national policies, local efforts, and individual case studies. Sure, some explanations may be oversimplified, but as a starting point, the analyses were more than sufficient to set Lykke firmly apart from the more wishy-washy-flower-child happiness self-help guides.
That said, some practical suggestions for individual implementation are given. They were helpfully grouped into boxes of Happiness Tips, which translated positive principles scientists, psychologists and anthropologists have observed around the world into small, day-to-day tasks. But the intention of these is to not only help yourself become happier, but also to make others happier too (which in turn will make you happier as well).
And of course, the binding and format of this book are lovely – if books can be hygge, then Wiking’s (currently) two-part series is the epitome of it. The Fair Isle illustrations and matte cream covers are cute touches, and aptly bring a smile to my face. Not to mention Wiking’s compulsive (and very topical) pun-making.
So should you read this book? If you want a one-stop checklist of steps to lifelong happiness, maybe not. The Little Book of Lykke is much more than that. But if you want a solid launch pad for your own investigations replete with social experiments and studies to refer to, then Lykke would be a good place to start.
Side note: I had first read the opening proverb on the corridor walls to a mall bathroom in Hong Kong, and I remember thinking it was the most profound advice I had ever heard. (Although hopefully your marriage remains happy for more than a month!) I was pleasantly surprised to find it in a book by such a quintessentially Danish author.
Rating: 4/5
Christy Lau 