Book in 1 Sentence

Be content with what you have. Rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.

– lao Tzu

.

3 Key Insights:

1. You already have all you need to be happy.
2. Successful people are not happy. It is the HAPPY people that are successful.
3. Hit flow, do what is meaningful.

.

Notes & Quotes

.

1. Redefine success

Great work –> big success –> be happy 

Be happy –> great work –> Big success

You have to be happy first and then comes success. Its not the other way around. The greatest discovery of any generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitude. The problem isnt that we have negative thoughts , the problem is we think we shouldn’t be having any negative thoughts. Negative thoughts do come, its all in the attitude, as Whitman says:

Keep your face always toward the sunshine- and shadows will fall behind you.

Walt Whitman

90% of happiness isn’t based on whats happening in the world , its based on how we see the world. The 90/10 Principle suggests that 10% of life is made up of what happens to us, and 90% is how we react to it. focus on Your reactions and attitudes in order to increase happiness.

.

HABITS THAT GENERATE HAPPINESS

• 3 Walks: The more physically active people are, the greater their general feelings of excitement and enthusiasm.
• The 20 min replay: Writing positive experience dramatically improves happiness. Carrying out random acts of kindness improves happiness.
• A complete unplug: The richest, happiest and most productive lives are characterized by the ability to fully engage in the challenge at hand, but also to disengage periodically and seek renewal.

• 2- Min Meditation: Meditation can permanently renew your brain to raise level of happiness.
• 5 Blessings/Gratitide: Reflect upon your present blessings.

• Hit Flow: Be in the flow. Find your flow. Being completely involved in the activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, every movement, and thought follows, your whole being is involved and you are using your skills to the utmost.

.

Happiness vs competition

Happy people don’t have the best of everything. They make the best of everything. Be happy first.

.

4 SIMPLE words that lock all criticism:

• DO
• IT
• FOR
• YOU

Its hard to compete endlessly because theres always more to compete with when you get there.

For happiness, it is imperative that you get out of the rat race, the race of competition. the race where enough is not enough! Whatever you want and desire, even if it is less than what others get and are after, you should be at peace. Your definition of success must be yours and the opinion of others mustn’t impact anything!

You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in this entire universe deserves your love and affection.

“You already have it all”

Accepting yourself communicates confidence. What do you do with people views? How do you stop judging at it? Laugh at it!

You are what you are. Stop apologizing and accept yourself.

.

.

Never retire

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

― Theodore Roosevelt

.

Creativity researchers refer to places ideas suddenly pop up into our heads as 3 Bs

• Bed
• Bathtub
• Bus

Stop thinking to do,
 Stop doing to think
Stop both and your brain gets really excited.

Decision Making

• Fewer choices= faster decisions
• Look at decisions you make on a daily basis and decide which ones to automate, regulate, effectuate and debate.

.

Conclusion:

Happiness = (Happiness + Expectations) / Reality.

The Book suggests that by lowering our expectations and increasing our focus on accepting and appreciating our current reality, we can boost our overall happiness.

If you can keep your head when all about you   
    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
    But make allowance for their doubting too;   
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   
    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
    And treat those two impostors just the same;   
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
    And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   
    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
    If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   
    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Rudyard Kipling