Russ Harris provides the most approachable primer to what you will learn in a long course of ACT, one of my favourite modes of therapy. Letting the radio play on without giving it much attention is very different from actively trying to ignore it.

It looks at upping awareness of the pernicious cycles we get bogged down in, while nudging us in the direction of a value-driven life, as opposed to a goal-driven one. The Happiness Trail is a compact companion to help guide through some of these challenges and I wish I had read it sooner.

The course of true love is never smooth, and Jake turns out to be the best friend of her younger brother. Getting your share of health and happiness doesn’t require any fancy equipment, although a pair of running shoes with a good grip will make it more fun! The wind will blow their own freshness into you and the storms their energy while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.

A periodic hike not only stretches the limbs, but also reminds us: Wow, there’s a big old world out there.

Camp out among the grasses and gentians of glacial meadows, in craggy garden nooks full of nature’s darlings. This book is very interactive as well with many diagrams and drawings that makes the reading experience better.

In fact, there’s one very familiar face in the group: her brother Duncan’s best friend, Jake (Luke Grimes). He starts the book by dispelling “happiness myths,” such as how happiness is the natural state for all humans, or how to live a better life we have to get rid of negative feelings. He has been an adjunct faculty member at his alma mater, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore for close to three decades and also headed The Lawrence School Lovedale, Nilgiris and SDM Institute for Management Development Development, Mysuru. In The Happiness Trap, Russ Harris crafts a persuasive, intelligent argument for why we should stop aiming for happiness and instead aim for a mindful, values-driven life.Ilisa designed a series of 10 postcards to celebrate the programme and 1,000 of these postcards will be given to people inviting them to visit the trail in the next few weeks.

You, who know that all the bruises and scrapes from scrambling and rambling are the best because they remind you of being alive.If adventure has a final and all-embracing motive, it is surely this: we go out because it is our nature to go out, to climb mountains, and to paddle rivers, to fly to the planets and plunge into the depths of the oceans. I *am* saying that instead of distancing ACT from obvious Eastern connections, it would seem more appropriate to deliberately and respectfully highlight the connections, give credit where credit is due, and *then* point out that it’s possible to utilize some of these ancient practices with modern Western cues, in a non-religious way in service of our mental health (as Easterners figured out, like, forever ago).