Rush

by Buchholz, Todd G.

• ISBN13: 9781594630774
• ISBN10: 1594630771
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-05-05
• Publisher: Hudson st Pr

Summary

A former White House director of economic policy makes the outrageous argument that we don't really want to relax-we want to compete. We think we will be happy when we have some downtime-when we can finally go on vacation, disconnect, shut down. But in this provocative book, Todd Buchholz will convince you that what you really want is to chase your tail-even if you never catch it. Weaving in everything from neuroeconomics to evolutionary biology to renaissance art to General Motors, Buchholz will convince you that the race to compete has not only made us taller and smarter, it's what we love and need. Among the book's many counterintuitive takeaways are: * Put off retirement-it can make you stupid. * We all need to be control freaks. * In-house competition is actually great for morale. * Never let the ninth place team take home a trophy. Witty, breezy, and very funny, Todd Buchholz shows that it's the race itself that literally delivers the rush, even if we never reach the finish line.

Table of Contents

Preface: ôI Made a Mistakeö	p. ix
The Rush of Life: Our Brains, Our Bodies, Our Economy	p. 1
Bye-Bye, Eden, Forever	p. 3
What Is Competition? What Is Happiness?	p. 23
Rush to Action: The Biology of Risk and Happiness	p. 39
We Are All Control Freaks-and Need to Be	p. 68
Darwin and a Tale of Three Apes: Why Competition Does Not Make Us Evil	p. 87
Happiness is Hard Work	p. 111
Whistle While You Work	p. 113
How Time and Interest Rates Bring Us Closer	p. 127
The Era of the Stranger	p. 142
Forget Utopia: Necessity Is the Mother of Happiness	p. 165
The Era of the Stranger	p. 142
Learning and Living in the Real Would	p. 193
No Competition Without Motivation	p. 195
Everybody Play Nice	p. 207
Repair Yourself; Repair the World	p. 219
Concluding Thoughts: Your Most Important Competitor-You	p. 241
Acknowledgments	p. 245
Notes	p. 247
Index	p. 279
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