Solve For Happy: Engineer Your Path to Joy

by Mo Gawdat

Eckhart Tolle says this is “to die before you die,” to live life knowing that because one day it’ll all be gone, there’s really nothing that you have, and so nothing you have to lose.

Learn to die before you die. It is time to face your fears.

Because of its evolutionary origins, the world your brain deals with is ancient, murky, and terrifying.

For millennia, our brains have been equipped with the seven incredible features I’ve just highlighted: filters, assumptions, predictions, memories, labels, emotions, and exaggeration.

We also tend to give greater weight to negative thoughts when we make decisions.

We also dedicate more of our brain resources to negative information.

we tend to remember negative traits more easily.

we tend to recall negatives more often.

62 percent of all emotional words in the English dictionary being negative.

Most of us tend to be negative most of the time.

Our brains tend to criticize, judge, and complain more often than not.

Life is almost entirely made of positives.

Focus on the white of the page, not the black of the ink.

How much of the constant stream of thoughts in my head is true?

The story your brain tells you is always incomplete.

But in anatomical terms, blind spots are the parts of your visual field where you can’t actually see because your retina lacks the necessary cells where it connects to the optical nerve. With no cells to detect light, a part of the field of vision isn’t perceived; you would see this as a black spot were it not for your brain’s ability to make assumptions. The brain interpolates the blind spot based on surrounding detail and information from the other eye when available, so the blind spot is replaced with the image it is likely to contain.

An assumption is nothing more than a brain-generated story. It’s not the truth!

Predicting something will happen often lays the path to make it happen.

Your predictions are nothing more than brain-generated future possibilities. They have not happened. They’re not the truth!

Your memories are nothing more than a record of what you think happened. They’re often not the truth!

In the absence of context, labels very often cover up the truth.

Although harsher, life then was much simpler; that’s because the emotions of our ancestors were more in harmony with the norms of the animal kingdom.

We’re not as rational as we think. Our perception of the truth is often distracted by our irrational emotions.

What’s more than the truth is less than true.

Teach your brain to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

An easy way to spot the assumptions is to understand that true events in our life are described with verbs such as I saw, I heard, I was informed, and I noticed, while the stories we make up use verbs such as I guess, I feel, I assume, I think, and even I’m sure.

Keep asking the question “Is it true?” as many times as you need until you realize how ridiculous the statements our brain offers us really are.

Most of the time the only thing wrong with our lives is the way we think about them.

Every truth happens exactly as expected, even when you least expect it.

The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.

if you find that a certain concept leads to your suffering, then perhaps you should doubt its validity as truth.

We’re not here to suffer but rather, as Arianna Huffington has said, “to be whittled and sandpapered down until what’s left is who we truly are.”1

When nothing is certain—and nothing ever is—choose to be happy.

Being fully aware of the present moment considerably increases your chances of being happy.

Awareness isn’t an on/off switch. It’s a dimmer switch. When you choose to crank it up, you become more aware.

You don’t need to do anything to be aware. Your default status is awareness. To reach it you need to stop doing!

All that doing and thinking of modern life leaves no space to let awareness in. By removing the clutter, we become present, pay attention, and start to receive. You cannot fill a glass that is already full.

Stop doing and just be.

The result of awareness is a net positive especially when there’s nothing to do.

The world outside. Through sensory input you can grasp the world around you. Perceive the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and feelings of touch.

Inside your body. By directing your attention inward, you can become aware of your own body. Become aware of your pains, sensations, breaths, heartbeat, and so on. You can direct your attention to different parts of your body and feel the life in them.

Your thoughts and emotions. When you are aware enough, you can start to observe the dialogue and observe the drama. You can watch your thoughts and emotions as they ...

Your connection to the rest of being. At the highest level of pure awareness, you invite the connection you have with the rest of being: the love you have for the waves of the ocean, the admiration you have for butterflies, and the sympathy you have for your fellow humans who suffer around the world. Those connections aren’t sensory perceptions of the external world; they aren’t feelings of your own body, and they aren’t thoughts or emotions. They are pure connecti...

It all starts with making awareness your priority. Be crazy about finding out everything happening around you and inside you. Be curious. Be an explorer. Be a fanatic.

The black belt of presence is to notice when you’re not aware.

Less is more.

Yes, that’s right. Just stop. Whenever you feel your mind racing or the day rushing by, just stop. Tell yourself that you’re not going back to the hubbub of life until you observe ten things around you, one for each one of your fingers.

In Inception, my favorite movie of all time, the dream world and the real world become entangled. The dreamers use a totem to distinguish between being in a dream and being awake. You can too. Always carry something with you that reminds you that it’s time to be aware. It shouldn’t be a useful everyday object, but something that’s odd enough to serve as a reminder every time you see it.

It’s time for an awareness break.