Special Presentation | Cover Inscription
Turns Out You're Not Unhappy is Albert Leung’s first collection of reflective essays, sharing with readers the true meaning of happiness.
Albert Leung has written more than 4,000 song lyrics. For happiness, he wrote this one book.
Since its original publication, the book has sold more than 400,000 copies. This special reprint brings the classic work back to readers, with transcripts from three additional talks on happiness delivered by Albert Leung.
In a troubled and restless world, people in modern cities often seek fleeting moments of happiness through external things, only to feel even lonelier after the laughter fades.
The source of happiness, it turns out, has always been within reach. We simply failed to notice it.
After spending years immersed in writing lyrics and essays, surrounded by countless melancholic love songs, Albert Leung takes the opposite journey in this book: learning and practising happiness together with his readers.
In the preface, he explains that this book does not offer a thousand ways to be happy or countless destinations for carefree enjoyment. If we have not yet put down the burdens in our hearts, there is nowhere we can truly go to find freedom. Rather than offering comforting words or easy solutions, he chooses to confront these burdens, understand the sources of pain, and learn how to protect the mind. Only when the heart is free from attachment can worries and suffering lose their power, allowing us to rediscover the true source of happiness: peace and freedom of mind.
To put it simply, when it comes to love, finding happiness through inner peace means learning not to miss any opportunity for flirtation, while never waiting for anyone; not wanting what is not given to us, and not loving what is not ours.
The title Turns Out You're Not Unhappy also carries an implied subtitle: “You simply hadn't noticed.”
As Albert Leung writes in the preface, happiness is determined by the mind. It is always present, just like air. We only notice it when we breathe deeply, but when we become too attached to the feeling of happiness, we begin to fear losing it. And once we become attached to happiness, we become unhappy.
The book is divided into eight chapters, with the final chapter exploring death. Albert Leung believes that if we do not understand death, we cannot truly understand life, just as we cannot understand happiness without understanding suffering. If we avoid contemplating the ultimate ending and never explore what lies beyond it, the happiness we experience beforehand may ultimately be nothing more than an illusion.
Happiness cannot be pursued through external circumstances, because disappointment and setbacks are inevitable. True happiness can only be cultivated within ourselves, allowing us to face whatever happens in the outside world without fear.
You don't need to search. You don't need to chase.
