Solve For Happy: Engineer Your Path to Joy

by Mo Gawdat

While our physical form decays, we never really die.

Simply put, these are cases of people who experienced death and came back. Most tell a very positive story. One of the most fascinating is the experience shared by Anita Moorjani, author of Dying to Be Me.

Without illusions, you can rise above thought to the highest level of joy.

Accepting death will set you free, but first it will really piss you off.

However unwelcome it may be, death will win eventually, so what’s the point in spending your life fighting it?

Surrender!

How would you live if you knew that today was your last day?

Live this moment as if it were your last.

Every day a version of you and everyone you love dies.

We keep adding to our bucket list, forgetting that the time to live that list may never come. Life is one long bucket list. Live it while you still can.

Live before you die.

Life is a zero-sum game: we come into it with nothing and leave it with nothing. For this to be mathematically correct, everything we are ever given has to someday be taken away.

Nothing can be gained that will not eventually be lost.

If nothing is mine, then nothing can be lost.

Rent a full and happy life.

L.I.P.

Have fun!

If we don’t know what we’re solving for, then whatever answer we may find will be irrelevant.

Is our universe the result of randomness or intelligent design?

There’s no scientific way to prove that something does not exist!

Absence of a proof that something exists does not prove that it doesn’t.

Absence of a proof that something does not exist should be seen as a probability that it does.

“Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.”

We are all part of a grand design.

This story demands the presence of a designer—which, unfortunately, is an entity that has been taken over and disfigured by religious institutions to the point where we would rather deny its existence than belong to the madness waged in its name.

There is a grand designer, and there was a Steve Jobs too.

I seek the wisdom in those messages and ignore the parts that got augmented with human interpretations, greed, and tradition.

There’s no divine intervention.

The design is just functional.

The results of our own acts should not be blamed on the design.

Life always meets realistic expectations.

Accept the design.

Live the truth. Finding joy truly is that simple!

No one could have known this was going to be how things turned out. Knowledge is an illusion. Don’t let it confuse you.

We try the best we can. We take the right actions and keep the best attitude. The results are not up to us. Control is an illusion.

In Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s famous conception of grief, it all starts with denial. Then we move into bargaining, anger, and depression, before reaching acceptance.

No, there’s no way I can prove this with total certainty, but isn’t that the nature of all knowledge?

When you choose between two thoughts and can prove neither with total certainty, choose the one that makes you happy. What could be simpler?

The gravity of the battle means nothing to those at peace.

You win the game only when you stop listening to her voice and focus on the reality of the gameplay. Sound familiar?

Make a difference. Not for any reason, but just because you can. There is nothing you can do for the ones who are dead, but you can for the living.