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Do you hate queuing at the supermarket till, waiting at the dentist’s, and sitting in traffic jams on the motorway? Your blood pressure reaches 150 in seconds, and you start frantically releasing stress hormones. But instead of getting upset, consider the following: without this unnecessary agitation eating away at your body and soul, you’d live a whole year longer. That extra year would more than make up for all the time you spent in queues.
When it comes to important issues, flexibility isn’t an advantage—it’s a trap.
So say good-bye to the cult of flexibility. Flexibility makes you unhappy and tired, and it distracts you from your goals. Chain yourself to your pledges. Uncompromisingly.
what would you say is the overall average speed of your car? Write down your estimate in the margin of this page before you read on. How did you make that calculation? Presumably you divided the total number of miles driven per year by the approximate number of hours spent on the road per
There are other factors to take into account: a) the number of hours you had to work in order to buy the car; b) the number of hours you have to work in order to pay for the insurance, maintenance, petrol and parking tickets; and
A basic rule of the good life is as follows: if it doesn’t genuinely contribute something, you can do without it. And that is doubly true for technology. Next time, try switching on your brain instead of reaching for the nearest gadget.
It’s not what you add that enriches your life—it’s what you omit.
Don’t make your emotions your compass. Your inner voice—if we continue with the compass metaphor—consists of a dozen magnetic needles, all pointing in different directions and swiveling incessantly around and around. Would you set sail across an ocean with a compass like that? Exactly. So don’t use it to navigate your life.
ataraxia, a term meaning serenity, peace of mind, equanimity, composure or imperturbability.
So even if other people—your employees or alleged friends—occasionally demand you show “more authenticity,” don’t fall into the trap. A dog is authentic. You’re a human being.
Overcoming the focusing illusion is key to achieving a good life. It will enable you to avoid many stupid decisions. When you compare things (cars, careers, holiday destinations), you tend to focus on one aspect particularly closely, neglecting the hundred other factors. You assign this one aspect inordinate significance because of the focusing illusion. You believe this aspect is more critical than it really is.
By focusing on trivialities, you’re wasting your good life.
he does seem a little wiser now: the two happiest days in a yacht-owner’s life, he observed laconically, are the day you buy it and the day you sell it.
As you can see, if it’s the good life you’re after then it’s advisable to show restraint about what you buy. That said, there is a class of “goods” whose enjoyment is not diminished by the focusing illusion: experiences. When you experience something pleasurable, you’re fully present in both heart and mind. So try to invest more in experiences than in physical objects. One side benefit is that most experiences cost less and are less subject to the effects of counterproductivity. Reading a good book, taking a trip with your family, playing cards with friends—they’re all bargains. Of course,
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Warren Buffett puts it this way: “Working with people who cause your stomach to churn seems much like marrying for money—probably a bad idea under any circumstances, but absolute madness if you are already rich.”
Has the value of your stock portfolio risen or dropped by one percent today? Don’t let it worry you. Basically, don’t think so much about money. It won’t multiply more quickly the more often you think about it.
Obsession is an engine, not engine failure.
A single outstanding skill trumps a thousand mediocre ones. Every hour invested into your circle of competence is worth a thousand spent elsewhere.
if you invest $10,000 at a five percent return, after a year you’ll be $500 richer. Piece of cake. But if you keep reinvesting these modest profits, after ten years you’ll achieve a capital of $16,000; after twenty years an impressive $26,000; and after fifty an incredible $115,000.
Because our brains have no instinct for duration, they also have no feel for exponential growth.
what does this mean for the good life? Less busywork, more endurance.
“One of the symptoms of approaching nervous break-down is the belief that one’s work is terribly important,” wrote Bertrand Russell.
You can pursue a craft with love, of course, and even with a touch of obsession, but your focus should always be on the activity, the work, the input—not on the success, the result, the output.
That’s why one of my golden rules for leading a good life is as follows: “Avoid situations in which you have to change other people.”
“Hire for attitude, train for skill.”
A related life rule is “Only work with people you like and trust.”
“Hi, this is Gary, and this is not an answering machine, it is a questioning machine! The two questions are, ‘Who are you?’ and ‘What do you want?’” There was a pause, then the voice continued, “And if you think those are trivial questions, consider that 95 percent of the population goes through life and never answers either one!”
There can be no good life without personal goals. Seneca figured that out two thousand years ago: “Let all your efforts be directed to something, let it keep that end in mind.” There’s no guarantee of achieving your end, but if you don’t have one, you’re guaranteed to achieve nothing.
Unrealistic goals are killjoys. My recommendation? Leave your goals deliberately a little vague (“well-off” instead of “billionaire,” for instance). If you achieve them, wonderful. If you don’t, you can still interpret your situation as though you had (at least in part).
So don’t be surprised when somebody else judges you “incorrectly.” You do the same yourself.
In terms of your overall assessment, only the peak and end of the holiday matter
Don’t let those afflictions cloud your judgment of your whole life. Better a life well lived and a few painful days on your deathbed than a shoddy life and a good death.
Age and death are the price we pay for a good life—like a hefty bill after a meal.
A good life was made up of the “higher pleasures.” Striving for these was called eudemonia
Just as every musical note has two qualities—pitch and volume—every experienced moment has two components: a pleasurable (or hedonistic) component and a meaningful component.
Say you’re in a meeting and somebody starts going for you, really getting vitriolic. Ask them to repeat what they’ve said word for word. You’ll soon see that, most of the time, your attacker will fold.
American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr put it this way: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”
My suggestion? Get yourself a “too complicated” bucket. Throw in all the questions that don’t interest you, that are unanswerable or too much hard work. Don’t worry, you’ll still be left with a handful of topics every day on which you can or must offer an opinion.
It’s immensely liberating not having to hold an opinion on all and sundry.
everything you own, value and love is ephemeral—your health, your partner, your children, your friends, your house, your money, your homeland, your reputation, your status. Don’t set your heart on those things. Relax, be glad if fate grants them to you, but always be aware that they are fleeting, fragile and temporary. The best attitude to have is that all of them are on loan to you, and may be taken away at any time. By death, if nothing else.
You won’t find happiness in status, in expensive cars, in your bank account or in social success. All of it could be taken from you in a split second—as it was with Boethius. Happiness can be found only in your mental fortress. So invest in that, not in a Porsche collection.
Wisdom is a practical ability. It’s a measure of the skill with which we navigate life.
virtually all difficulties are easier to avoid than to solve, the following simple definition will be self-evident: “Wisdom is prevention.
Einstein put it this way: “A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it.”
‘If a person gave your body to any stranger he met on his way, you would certainly be angry. And do you feel no shame in handing over your own mind to be confused and mystified by anyone who happens to verbally attack you?’
Avoid ideologies and dogmas at all cost—especially if you’re sympathetic to them. Ideologies are guaranteed to be wrong. They narrow your worldview and prompt you to make appalling decisions. I don’t know of a single dogmatist with anything approaching a good life.
In his excellent book The Evolution of Everything, the brilliant British polymath Matt Ridley proposes a radical rejection of the “great men” theory: “We tend to give too much credit to whichever clever person is standing nearby at the right moment.”
Key to the good life is not idolizing “great men”—and not clinging to the illusion that you can be one yourself.
“Technology will find its inventors,” argues Ridley, “not vice versa.”
companies’ strong results have less to do with their decisions than with market trends as a whole. Warren Buffett puts it like this: “[A] good managerial record (measured by economic returns) is far more a function of what business boat you get into than it is of how effectively you row.”
