Build the Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier

by Arthur C. Brooks

Start by making more purely observational statements rather than values-based ones. Reframe “This coffee is terrible” as “This coffee has a bitter flavor.”

Spend more time enjoying things that amaze you.

In the Tao Te Ching, the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu wrote, “Care about people’s approval and you will be their prisoner.”

Next time you feel self-conscious, notice that you are thinking about yourself. You can safely assume that everyone around you is doing more or less the same.

“Those who grasp at perceptions and views go about butting their heads in the world.”[29] More recently, the Vietnamese Buddhist sage Thích Nhất Hạnh wrote in his book Being Peace, “Humankind suffers very much from attachment to views.”

Make we your default pronoun when talking with others. If you like staying out late but your partner hates it, say “We prefer not to stay out so late” when you turn down a ten p.m. dinner for your partner’s sake.

Work, at its best, is “love made visible,” in the elegant words of the Lebanese poet Kahlil Gibran.

“Spiral” careers are the last category. This is like a series of smaller careers. People in this model might make a pretty dramatic career shift every decade or so, but there is a method to the madness. They are using their skills and knowledge in one field and applying it to another, while getting a variety of experiences for their own fulfillment.

Narcissus fell in love not with himself, but with the image of himself. And so it is when we professionally self-objectify: we learn to love the image of our successful selves, not ourselves as we truly are in life.