I'm delighted you have visited this site: thank you. I'm Tony Wilkinson. I was born and raised in the North of England. I was something of an academic prodigy as a child, although I grew out of it! I studied sciences and philosophy at Cambridge University, spent a few years working for the UK government and then pursued a twenty year career in finance in the City of London, becoming director of a major investment management company. I've been married, divorced, remarried, raised children and travelled widely. (Not necessarily in that order.) In the last forty years I’ve also studied meditation, psychology, religions and aikido, all of which influence the book.
I'm delighted you have visited this site: thank you. I'm Tony Wilkinson. I was born and raised in the North of England. I was something of an academic prodigy as a child, although I grew out of it! I studied sciences and philosophy at Cambridge University, spent a few years working for the UK government and then pursued a twenty year career in finance in the City of London, becoming director of a major investment management company. I've been married, divorced, remarried, raised children and travelled widely. (Not necessarily in that order.) In the last forty years I’ve also studied meditation, psychology, religions and aikido, all of which influence the book.
The Lost Art of Being Happy
Living happily depends on your inner life, the conscious world of your thoughts, emotions, beliefs desires etc. Your inner life, though, is largely based on patterns or habits and so your happiness depends on these habits. You can't always control what happens in the world around you and you can't always control how you react inwardly to what happens. But if you learn to pay attention to your inner life you can shape the way your inner habits change over time. By training and changing these habits, which is the same thing as acquiring inner skills, you can live with more serenity and peace of mind. This is an ancient idea, but somehow it repeatedly gets lost. The book shows how this idea is relevant, indeed vital, for our lives today.
The process of training the inner life amounts to a form of spiritual practice - the practice of inner skills. Just as religious spirituality has always been about training and shaping the inner life for religious purposes, this spirituality is the same but with a more down to earth motivation, happiness. This is a spirituality sceptics (or skeptics, if you are in the USA!) can be comfortable with because it doesn’t require faith. In that sense the book is a plea for, and an articulation of, a secular spirituality. It shows how we can add something essential to our lives which materialism misses out but which is not dependent on beliefs in spirits or the supernatural. If you have such beliefs that's fine too, of course, but you still need to train your inner life.
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Values and integrity
Focusing on the inner life and the inner skills developed by practice also offers a way to find personal values in a base which is rational, not supernatural and not dependent on passing whims or desires. The skills we discuss are essential to living with peace of mind and thus their development is a rational choice which can underlie everyday life choices. Inner skills thus become a source of values and to adopt them at the centre of your life leads not only to happiness but a life of integrity. This theme has extraordinarily wide implications which are fully developed in a forthcoming book.
Comments on the book
- Professor Lord Layard FBA (Director, Well Being Programme, LSE) said: “This is a wonderfully wise book on how we can train our minds to be happy. It's beautifully written."
- Dr. Anthony Seldon (Master of Wellington College and pioneer of teaching happiness skills in schools) said: “I cannot think of a single human being who would not benefit from reading this highly intelligent, sympathetic book. Most of us are unhappy to some degree or other. Follow the way of life that this book recommends and happiness will be yours.”
- Malcolm Stern (psychotherapist, author, Channel 4 presenter and co-founder of “Alternatives”) said: "This is an important and original book. Tony Wilkinson brings a wealth of experience, a keen intelligence and an enquiring mind to the thorny and complex issue of contemporary spirituality. It is a must read for anyone interested in self-knowledge."
Press comment
- Helen Brown in "The Sunday Times": "surprisingly persuasive"
- Oliver Burkeman in "The Guardian": "..a convincing case that spiritual wisdom is easily detachable from myth and mysticism, not to mention organised religion. But nor [does it] fall for the trap of making wisdom purely instrumental - a tool for achieving achieving the perfect relationship or career. I hope it's the start of a trend: popular books about the inner life...that don't require religious belief or an obsession with self improvement."
