Happiness book review
In 2015, the most popular course wasn’t one about business. It was one about happiness. The creator of that course is Dr. Rajagopal Raghunathan, he synthesized some of his lessons from that into his first book, If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Happy. 15 years after completing his MBA, he noticed his friends’ career and academic success seemed to be very unrelated. In this course/book, the author lists out — The 7 deadly sins that hinder happiness and corresponding happiness maximizing habits.
Anti-patterns and patterns for happiness
Although happiness is an. Important goal for people, they continuously devalue it as they go about their lives — Why
1 —Smart People tend to devalue happiness — Why? Well, because it is a hard-to-grasp soft concept, so prioritizing things like money, success and fame feels like a more concrete step. After all, these are proxies to happiness to some extent. Ask yourself when did I feel happy today? What emotions connect you to happiness. Then start activities that get you into that state. Prioritize happiness
2 —Desperately seeking or avoiding likes(pretend to not care) causes more pain. Relationships/Connections are a crucial part of happiness. So what’s a good way to deal with this? Simple: Find middle ground for love. Be generous. The sense of accomplishment we get from helping others shows us we can spread happiness from within and improves our self-image. Dont be extreme such as being needy or avoidant.
3 — Although being superior enhances happiness levels, pursuit of superiority lowers the level. Studies show that Superiority does make you happier. Higher status individuals do not feel the need to watch what they say while lower status people have to be accommodating (hence vulnerable). Those higher in status have greater self-esteem / control / autonomy over decisions and hence this makes them happier. The more you strive for it the less happier you are.
Mitigate the need for superiority by removing the need for superiority as a determinant of success. In cognitive intellectual jobs, it is more of a hindrance. Material success makes us self-centered and greedy. We are at an all-time high in material prosperity.
Instead experience flow which is meaningfuland satisfying. What do people from various walks of life — from plumber to artist to CEO have in common? Even though people differ in what they find meaningful, they all have the concept of Flow in their life. Features of flow include being so absorbed in the activity that you lose perception of time. Being in the moment. Pursuing flow is a sustainable source of happiness than chasing superiority as you are not impacting others. Flow isn’t finite or scarce. It is about finding an effortless way of living. Drive a slow and organic shift towards a career/life with flow.
4 — Being in control enhances happiness. We can shape events and outcomes to our liking. It makes us feel competent and progressing towards mastery. It makes us believe that we are NOT under some one else’s control. Personal autonomy is an important need. Helps us set loftier goals and achieve more.
Seeking control over others — But being overly controlling is not good for happiness. It makes some one a slave which is no fun. When we seek to control others, they exhibit psychological reactance. That is why in relationships you can either get their love or control not both.
Power stress refers to the tendency to get angry and frustrated when others do not behave the way you want them to. When you seek control over others, you set yourself up for negative feelings.
Seeking control over environment and events is another form of control. Life is unpredictable. When life does not go as per plan, those in higher need for control suffer more e.g BP goes up, they get angry. Being overly controlling of outcomes lowers happiness levels due to the quality of decisions made. When you want the outcome badly, you are likely to sacrifice things that make you happy. This has impact on one’s own physical and emotional health as well as relationships
Instead develop internal control to mitigate the desire for external control
5 — Distrusting others causing unhappiness. We are hardwired to expect the negative and mistrust others by default.
Instead find the sweet spot for trust. If you are generally a distrusting person, sweet spot lies in being more trusting.Proactive trust creates culture of trust. Trust is critical for happiness. When we feel others trust, we are happy. People generally reciprocate trust with trustworthy behaviour
Remind yourself that people are responsible and trustworthy than what you give them credit for. Minimize pain of feeling cheated. Elicit trustworthiness.
- Take stock of trust violation, is it worth the emotion/fight
- Hold those who violated your trust accountable for their actions. Understand why someone violated your trust instead of going after revenge
- Practice forgiveness and as this is more for self than for others.
6 — When you’re too passionate about outcomes, you outsource your happiness to your goals and if you don’t reach them, you are miserable. When you’re not passionate enough, you don’t care and end up in a place you don’t want to be. Good Thing, Bad Thing, Who knows ?
The middle road Raj suggests is the dispassionate pursuit of passion: Be passionate about your life and its events, but approach it in an objective, non-judgmental way. Process vs outcome is the source of happiness. Delink happiness from outcomes
7 — Mind addiction is a desire to base our decisions on rationality rather than emotions and gut instinct. We feel uneasy admitting to this feelings serve to hinder rather than enhance quality of our judgements and decisions. Mind addiction tends to devalue happiness maximising decisions, tend to go towards the practical.
Our education system emphasises heavily on thoughtful deliberation as the best means to solve problems. To analyse and arrive at solutions to all problems and challenges it is better to rely on Mind than our Heart
Most goals tend to be quantitive in nature as they are more concrete and measurable. We fail to recognize the role of our feelings and Gut instincts to generate the most Inspiring and Happiness maximising ideas
Mind addiction is rooted in a different issue — Lack of self awareness. Some one who is conscious of what they are seeking is more likely to consider all variables and take the right call for the right decision.
Self-awareness can provide the flexibility to go with Feelings_and_gut or Instincts_and_deliberation. Self-awareness is central to happiness. Do not ignore the source within to make intelligent, happiness enhancing decisions. It helps to understand when mind gets in the way. The real source of happiness is within us that can be accessed anytime.
