Modern life is fast-paced. If you want to live it, you have to keep moving, keep striving to improve yourself, and keep trying to be happier every day. That's what we've been told, but the truth is that these demands come at a price: stress, burnout, depression, and a slow transformation of our social relationships into business ventures. Svend Brinkmann doesn't have the solution to any of this, but he does know a way out of the obsession with self-improvement: hitting the brakes. In this ingenious study, the acclaimed Danish psychologist invites us to reject self-help mantras and encourages us to simply be ourselves. The secret to a good life lies not in finding a more profitable or happier self, but in serenely and stoically embracing our own ways of being. With his exhortation to seek deceleration, this vibrant anti-self-help manual offers an alternative to coaching, positive thinking, and the daily imperatives of self-realization.