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'Smart, engaging and funny. It will make you question everything you think you know about what you want' Caroline Criado Perez, author of Invisible Women

Be ambitious; find everlasting love; look after your health ... There are countless stories about how we ought to live our lives. These narratives can make our lives easier, and they might sometimes make us happier too. But they can also trap us and those around us.

In Happy Ever After, bestselling happiness expert Professor Paul Dolan draws on a variety of studies ranging over wellbeing, inequality and discrimination to bust the common myths about our sources of happiness. He shows that there can be many unexpected paths to lasting fulfilment. Some of these might involve not going into higher education, choosing not to marry, rewarding acts rooted in self-interest and caring a little less about living forever.

By freeing ourselves from the myth of the perfect life, we might each find a life worth living. Smart, engaging and funny. . . will make you question everything you think you know about what you want -- Caroline Criado Perez, author of Invisible Women Passionate, provocative. . . a manifesto for a better society * The Times * One of the most rigorous articulations of the new mood of acceptance. . . a persuasive demolition of many of our cultural stories about how we ought to live -- Oliver Burkeman * Guardian * A very useful antidote to the pressures of modern living. Very few books change the way you think about yourself, but this is one of them. I would particularly recommend it to young adults with all these life choices ahead of them * Tablet * Paul Dolan knows what makes people happy - and what doesn't. Happy Ever After is illuminating, wise, profound. A magnificent achievement -- Cass Sunstein, co-author of Nudge A smart and irreverent look at the bad advice, lame instructions, and missing ingredients in society's recipe for a happy life -- Daniel Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness A splendid demonstration of how conventional aspirations can make us miserable -- Richard Layard, author of Happiness A timely warning that we need to question standard assumptions about what is good for individuals and society. Dolan makes a compelling case for putting people's own perceptions of their wellbeing at the heart of policy making -- Lord Gus O'Donnell, former Cabinet Secretary

Happy Ever After: A Radical New Approach to Living Well