#note/sourcereview/article | #note/sourcereview/book ## What is the thesis? You can never be happy because of the [[hedonic treadmill]], but you can always work on being happier. Turn happier into a verb, it is an active process involving [[cognitive reframing]] of many of the situations you find yourself in. You can start now! [[the best time to plant a tree was 30 years ago, and the second best time to plant a tree is now]] ## Am I convinced and why? ## Summarize the argument ## Chapter One: Happiness is not the goal, and unhappiness is not the enemy _see thesis above "happier is not a state of being, but a state of doing—not a thing you wait around and hope for, but an achievable change you actively work toward." Quotes: - "The macronutrients of happiness are enjoyment, satisfaction, and purpose." - "satisfaction. It’s that thrill from accomplishing a goal you worked for." - "Enjoyment takes an urge for pleasure and adds two important things: communion and consciousness" - "This is especially true with worldly things like money, power, pleasure, and prestige (or fame)." - "Enjoyment takes work and forgoing pleasures; satisfaction requires sacrifice and doesn’t last; purpose almost always entails suffering" - "Without purpose, however, we are utterly lost, because we can’t deal with life’s inevitable puzzles and dilemmas. When we do have a sense of meaning and purpose, we can face life with hope and inner peace." #### 1 Managing emotion #### 2 The Power of Metacognition - [[metacognition]] is a key to understanding yourself, and before you go and change anything, [[first seek to understand]] #### 3 Choose a better emotion _You don't have to stay with your first emotion, you can just observe it. "Your emotions are signals to your conscious brain that something is going on that requires your attention and action—that’s all they are." ![[Positive Negative Affect.png]] - Practice [[gratitude]] over simply remembering - Find opportunities to laugh! Laugh at yourself, your situation, the world - Choose hope over optimism - Choose compassion over empathy #### 4 Focus less on yourself ### Building What Matters - #### 5 Build your imperfect family - Chapter focusing on overcoming differences to experience your family, accept your family, be present for your family - Much of this is about dating to marriage, I'd like to think I'm past that. - Value lies for me in the acknowledgement that looking for people that are compatible is a mistake, look for people who are complementary to you - #### 6 Friendship that is deeply real - Focus on cultivating friendships that are "un-useful," these are people you stay connected to and love despite their lack of usefulness to you. - You only need a few - #### 7 Work that is love made visible - Here is a paradox again, focusing on the purpose of your work without becoming a single identity person. - [[Identity]] should be multiples, avoid the single identity around work, cultivate multiple identities to end up with a [[diversity of identity]] - #### 8 Find your amazing grace - lean into the divine, unexplained, and mysterious - cultivate a sense of awe - go outside ## What is the other side of the argument? What do you mean happiness is not the goal? If I'm unhappy, I'm going to do what I can to avoid more unhappiness and get happy. ## What else do I wonder about? But I get reviled by organized religion? I experience a form of visceral reaction to things that represent organized religion to me. How do I overcome? ## Action - Focus on friends - keep faith on the back burner because it's the hardest part of this for me ## When do I want to stumble across this? #on/faith #on/friends #on/life #on/blindspot #on/believing #on/happiness #on/love ## Source: Brooks, A. C., & Winfrey, O. (2023). _Build the life you want: The art and science of getting happier_. Portfolio/Penguin. ## References, Quotes, Ideas ![[🐓 Idea Farm/Deadfall/For myself only/Readwise/Books/Build the Life You Want|Build the Life You Want]]