The Sweet Spot

The Pleasures of Suffering and the Search for Meaning

By: Paul Bloom

Narrated by: Sean Patrick Hopkins

From the author of Against Empathy comes 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.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

Quality of the book & the reader is very high

Excellent book with good stories. The reader’s voice & tone added a value to the book.

Balance the Risk with Reward

Paul Bloom hits the nail on the proverbial head with his lucid and well supported approach to appreciating the pain in the process as a compliment to the level of satisfaction with the outcome.

A great listen, but not too much of added value

This audiobook was hugely enjoyable, because I am very much interested in the topic and it has provided a good summary of theories on what makes people happy. However, it did not go much further beyond that. There is too little of added value provided beyond summarising (perfectly, though) ideas of others.

The narrator is excellent. For the first time I looked up on what else he is narrating, intending to pick a book based on a narrator and not on the content.

We cannot be reminded enough!!

The Sweet spot, the Goldilock zone, the flow state is the best state in which to live. We must be ever present to be able to stay in it. When we do amazing things happen. We live life to the fullest. As with Arithmetic, English and History, learning how to live in this Flow State should be taught as a mandatory class in high school. Well done Mr. Bloom and you as well Mr. Hopkins.

Intriguing

Professor Paul Bloom presents lots to contemplate while elaborating with data and logic on his claim that suffering is essential to both pleasure and meaning in our lives. I cannot recall prior to The Sweet Spot ever before listening to a book a second time immediately after finishing it. Sean Patrick Hopkins does an excellent job f narrating this fascinating book.