Have you ever wondered why wealth, love and family often become a source of stress rather than happiness? And what to do if positive slogans and laws of attraction don’t work, positive visualization and vision boards don’t bring you closer to your goal, and your confidence is just a mask hiding fear and anxiety? You are not alone in these questions. After all, the replicated recipe - thinking about the good, denying doubts and failures - does not suit everyone. “The Antidote” is a book about happiness for people who hate positive thinking. But there is a “negative” path to happiness, proven over centuries, says the author of this book, journalist Oliver Burkeman. “Every cloud has a silver lining,” says the English proverb. In the same way, our fears, failures and disappointments have their downside - opportunities for change for the better, self-improvement and a philosophical view of the world. Therefore, by accepting the unpleasant aspects of life, we paradoxically come to happiness, success and well-being. Oliver Burkeman found an antidote to an unhappy life by meeting different people, drawing on fresh scientific research and philosophical ideas of the past. Long before the science of psychology appeared, Buddha, Seneca, Descartes and other thinkers talked about how to find happiness. These lessons are still in demand today. For example, the film “The Matrix” is in many ways an interpretation of the ideas expressed by Descartes back in the 17th century. Unlike modern self-improvement gurus, the great philosophers suggested enjoying uncertainty, making peace with uncertainty, becoming more familiar with failure, and even learning to appreciate death. By reading this book, anyone can become a little Stoic, or a little Buddhist, or practice more memento mori.