Ottawa author Bayne Wetmore releases book on life and happiness

Ottawa author Bayne Wetmore said he started writing his book, “Happiness Times Two” 40 years ago after hearing the Socrates quote “the unexamined life is not worth living.”

In the time since then, he’s focused on examining writing his own study on what happiness is and what can be done to achieve it.

“We only get one life and I was 40, and I thought ‘what am I doing right? What am I doing wrong? What should I eliminate? What should I add?’” Wetmore said.

Wetmore said he wants people to leave after reading the book with the understanding of the scope of the universe: There are billions of stars and the sun is the star for Earth, and a million Earths could fit into the sun.

“The Earth is large from our perspective, but we’re almost nothing,” Wetmore said. “I say that and at the same time we consider ourselves the most important thing to have ever existed even though there’s trillions of life forms on Earth.”

Wetmore said he also wants readers to understand they should appreciate what they have and learn to find the joys of living.

Wetmore said the first half of the book was written periodically during the last 40 years and more was added when the pandemic began and he realized he’d learned so much in the time since he wrote the original draft. The second half of the book applies what he’s learned to what he wrote previously.

“Happiness Times Two” is currently available on Amazon and Apple, and Wetmore is hosting a book signing at 6 p.m. Thursday, July 21, at Prairie Fox Books, 719 La Salle St., Ottawa.