?This book will challenge you to rethink your vision of a good life. With sharp insights and
lucid prose Paul Bloom makes a captivating case that pain and suffering are essential to
happiness. It's an exhilarating antidote to toxic positivity.? ?Adam Grant #1 New York Times
bestselling author of Think Again and host of the TED podcast WorkLife One of Behavioral
Scientist 's "Notable Books of 2021" From the author of Against Empathy a different kind of
happiness book one that shows us how suffering is an essential source of both pleasure and
meaning in our lives Why do we so often seek out physical pain and emotional turmoil? We go to
movies that make us cry or scream or gag. We poke at sores eat spicy foods immerse
ourselves in hot baths run marathons. Some of us even seek out pain and humiliation in sexual
role-play. Where do these seemingly perverse appetites come from? Drawing on groundbreaking
findings from psychology and brain science The Sweet Spot shows how the right kind of
suffering sets the stage for enhanced pleasure. Pain can distract us from our anxieties and
help us transcend the self. Choosing to suffer can serve social goals it can display how tough
we are or conversely can function as a cry for help. Feelings of fear and sadness are part of
the pleasure of immersing ourselves in play and fantasy and can provide certain moral
satisfactions. And effort struggle and difficulty can in the right contexts lead to the
joys of mastery and flow. But suffering plays a deeper role as well. We are not natural
hedonists?a good life involves more than pleasure. People seek lives of meaning and
significance we aspire to rich relationships and satisfying pursuits and this requires some
amount of struggle anxiety and loss. Brilliantly argued witty and humane Paul Bloom shows
how a life without chosen suffering would be empty?and worse than that boring .
