What did I learn from this book?
Book name: Solve for Happy — Mo Gawdat
tldr version
We think Happiness = Events ~ Expectations (“~” means approximately)
Events = any event (meeting a stranger, rain, news, etc.)
Expectations = our expectation of the event. (stranger should be super nice and have same interest as we do, rain should stop as soon as we step out)
Concepts:
Broadly speaking, if our life events match our expectations then we are happy else we are not. But, our perception of reality itself is skewed by many factors and we would have such crazy expectations in our minds even Asian parent’s expectations from their kids seems realistic. Understanding these factors is like removing layers of masks from a villain, once you are done with it you will see that the villain with so many shades was you.
These factors that affect our expectations are:
- Thoughts — We think our thoughts are ours and assume that it must be authentic, right? Thoughts are like pop- up suggestions from our brain which is mostly a less optimistic way of interpreting events. Since you can observe these thoughts, you can decide what thoughts are bringing a smile to your face and what is making you frown. Everything you think is a twisted version of the event your brain throws at you. You don’t have to accept it or like it, much less believe it. You are an observer of these thoughts, so it’s up to you to straighten out the twists your brain generates. Make a list of all the happy thoughts, revise it or append as many items as you can to that list. Whenever you observe a negative thought brings you down. Treat a thought as a placeholder, go through that list, replace that negative thought with a happy one.
- Self — We all have an image of ourselves that we crafted carefully from our childhood and maintaining it. I am obviously joking, our image is not crafted with care, it is formed on the go based on the inputs we receive from our environment as we grow up. We can also call it Ego. We fight hard to keep this image, if you observe you will realize that everybody is walking around as though they have a spotlight hanging above them because of the superstars they are. Drop this image every now and then, you will become aware of what you really like, what you enjoy doing, who and what do you care about. You will be surprised to learn that the 10 wrist watches you collected in the last few years show the same time and it will be on the same wrist, only you will know which one you are wearing, everybody else is looking at their own watches.
- Knowledge — We all would have heard of the question, knowing what you know now, if you want to change something what would you have changed? Don’t think too much. The right answer is nothing, what you know now is not ultimate at any level, even if we assume you have the ultimate knowledge, you change one event from your life, you will end up in a totally different place. So, thinking only if I knew better, I would have done something different can only leave you with a bitter taste. You would have made the best decision based on the facts you knew at that time, if something didn’t go as you thought, you can always recover and work on it.
- Time — Time is a man-made concept, earth doesn’t care if you’re ready or not, it will spin like there is no tomorrow (pun intended). When you are unhappy your mind is either in the past or in the future. That lost opportunity, that missed dress, that missed discount of 50% of the ergonomic mouse that would have changed my productivity game forever. Or, it will be thinking about how you will be spending your billions while enjoying a vacation in Europe 10 years from now and how you can safeguard your billions from the identity theft that can happen from your fingerprint grabbed by the notorious hackers from the cup of cappuccino you were holding in a cafe in Milan (Of Course, during your Europe trip). But if you can actually think of the present, there is nothing that can make you unhappy (I am walking, there is a dog, it is cold, this has very least chance of making you unhappy)
- Control — Assuming we have control over events in life is a guaranteed way of losing whatever sense of peace we have goodbye. Among the 7+ billion population with so many random events, trying to control some aspect of life seems like watering your plants at home and thinking it would save you when climate change comes to get you. It’s wishful thinking at best. The best strategy is to take responsible action and give up control of the outcomes.
- Fear — Everyone fears something. It’s just a bug in human evolution. If you dig deep down every fear is rooted to survival. Instead of walking away from fear inducing things, try to analyze the fear and ask smart questions such as what is the worst that can happen? Can you prevent it? How to recover if the worst comes to play? and what’s the best that can come out of it.
Along with these layers our brain tries to Filter out unwanted information, make assumptions, try to predict future, label humans and events, blinded by emotions and exaggerate.
Ultimately, living in the present is the best shot at being happy.
