The Art of the Good Life Book Review
The Art of the Good Life by Rolf Dobelli is a set of mental models or a toolkit to answer the age old question ‘what it means to live a good life.’
The book outlines fifty-plus heuristics or mental models that will assist you in making better decisions and increase the probability of leading a good life.
The book is an easy read.
This is not a book to consume in one sitting. Each of the mental shortcuts has a chapter of its own that makes it easy dip into it every now and then, understand its applications in your life and implement them.
I enjoyed reading it and I am sure you will find it useful too.
The Art of the Good Life Book Summary
Note: This summary is made up of my notes, thoughts and highlights of important passages while reading the book. I keep updating the summary when I revisit it, and occasionally may edit it to reduce summary length. Don’t be surprised if it has changed between visits. The author’s words are in normal font, while my interpretations are in italics.
MENTAL ACCOUNTING – How to Turn a Loss into a Win
Living a good life has a lot to do with interpreting facts in a constructive way.
The Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman calls this the peak-end rule: you remember the high point and the end point of your holiday, but the rest is forgotten.
Precommitment, they call it in psychology: pay first, consume later. It’s a form of mental accounting that takes the sting out of payments like traffic fines, late fees and so on.
THE FINE ART OF CORRECTION – Why We Overestimate Set-Up
The most common misunderstanding I encounter is that the good life is a stable state or condition.
Wrong.
The good life is only achieved through constant readjustment.
Why are we so reluctant to correct and revise? Because we interpret every little piece of repair work as a flaw in the plan.
Dwight Eisenhower said, “Plans are nothing. Planning is everything.”
THE PLEDGE – Inflexibility as a Stratagem
When it comes to important issues, flexibility isn’t an advantage – it’s a trap.
Use radical inflexibility to reach long-term goals that would be unrealizable if their behavior were more flexible. How so?
Two reasons.
- First: constantly having to make new decisions situation by situation saps your willpower. Decision fatigue is the technical term for this.
- The second reason inflexibility is so valuable has to do with reputation. By being consistent on certain topics, you signal where you stand and establish the areas where there’s no room for negotiation. You communicate self-mastery, making yourself less vulnerable to attack.
Legendary investor Warren Buffett, for instance, refuses on principle to negotiate. If you want to sell him your company, you’ve got exactly one shot. You can make precisely one offer. Buffett will either buy the company at the price you suggest, or he won’t buy it at all.
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.
- It’s easier to stick to your pledges 100 percent of the time rather than 99 percent.
BLACK BOX THINKING – Reality Doesn’t Care About Your Feelings; or, Why Every False Step Improves Your Life
Captain Sullenberger wrote: “Everything we know in aviation, every rule in the rule book, every procedure we have, we know because someone somewhere died.”
With each crash, future flights become safer. This principle – let’s call it black box thinking – is an exquisite mental tool that can be applied to any other area of life.
Very few people simply accept reality and analyze their own flight recorders. This requires precisely two things:
- radical acceptance and
- black box thinking.
Accepting reality is easy when you like what you see, but you’ve got to accept it even when you don’t – especially when you don’t.
Alongside radical acceptance, you’ll need a black box. Build your own.
- Whenever you make a big decision, write down what’s going through your mind – assumptions, trains of thought, conclusions.
- If the decision turns out to be a dud, take a look at your flight data recorder (no need to make it crash-proof; a notebook will do just fine) and analyze precisely what it was that led to your mistake.
Charlie Munger has observed, “If you won’t attack a problem while it’s solvable and wait until it’s unfixable, you can argue that you’re so damn foolish that you deserve the problem.“
“If you don’t deal with reality, then reality will deal with you,” warns author Alex Haley.
COUNTERPRODUCTIVITY – Why Timesavers Are Often Timewasters
Counterproductivity refers to the fact that while many technologies seem at first glance to be saving us time and money, this saving vanishes into thin air as soon as you do a full cost analysis.
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.
THE NEGATIVE ART OF THE GOOD LIFE – Do Nothing Wrong and the Right Thing Will Happen
“There are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but there are no bold old pilots.“
So do your best to systematically eliminate the downside in your life – then you’ll have a real chance of achieving a good life.
Buffett observes: “Charlie and I have not learned how to solve difficult business problems. What we have learned is to avoid them.“
Charlie Munger has commented, “It is remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent.“
THE OVARIAN LOTTERY – Why You Didn’t Earn Your Successes
Six percent of all the people who have ever lived on Earth are alive at this moment.
What proportion of your success would you ascribe to your own achievement?
The logical answer is zero percent. Your successes are fundamentally based on things over which you have no control whatsoever. You haven’t really “earned” your achievements.
Two consequences.
- First: stay humble – especially if you’re successful. Remind yourself daily that everything you are, everything you have and can do, is the result of blind chance. For those of us blessed with good luck – i.e., for you and me – gratitude is the only appropriate response. One nice side effect is that grateful people are demonstrably happier people.
- Second: willingly and ungrudgingly surrender part of your (unearned) success to people who were born with the wrong genes into the wrong families, in the areas with the wrong postcodes. It’s not just noble; it’s commonsensical. Donations and taxes aren’t financial matters. First and foremost, they’re issues of morality.
THE INTROSPECTION ILLUSION – Take Feelings Seriously, Just Not Your Own
“The introspection of current conscious experience, far from being secure, nearly infallible, is faulty, untrustworthy, and misleading – not just possibly mistaken, but massively and pervasively. I don’t think it’s just me in the dark here, but most of us,” Stanford professor Eric Schwitzgebel
Don’t make your emotions your compass.
You won’t find the good life through introspection. Psychologists call it the introspection illusion – the mistaken belief that we can learn what we truly desire through sheer intellectual contemplation. That we can discover the purpose, the meaning of our lives, dig down to some golden, blissful core.
Introspection is nothing but a job interview with yourself – highly unreliable.
What you should be exploring is your past. What are the recurring themes in your life? Examine the evidence, not your subsequent interpretation of it.
Because our emotions are so unreliable, a good rule of thumb is to take them less seriously – especially the negative ones. The Greek philosophers called this ability to block things out ataraxia, a term meaning serenity, peace of mind, equanimity, composure or imperturbability.
Don’t trust your emotions.
THE AUTHENTICITY TRAP – Why You Need a Secretary of State
It’s safe to say you can have too much authenticity. We expect a certain degree of propriety, of manners, of self-control – of civilized misrepresentation.
We don’t really know who we are.
Our inner voice is anything but a reliable compass. It’s more like a hodgepodge of conflicting impulses.
Authenticity has a role to play in a romantic relationship or a very close friendship, but it’s out of place in a casual acquaintanceship, and certainly in public.
You’re making yourself look ridiculous.
People are respected because they deliver on their promises, not because they let us eavesdrop on their inner monologs.
Take a cue from Eisenhower and adopt a second self of your own. Restrict authenticity to keeping your promises and acting according to your principles. The rest is nobody else’s business.
A dog is authentic. You’re a human being.
THE FIVE-SECOND NO – Small Favors, Big Pitfalls
Roman philosopher Seneca wrote: “All those who summon you to themselves, turn you away from your own self.”
So give the five-second no a trial run. If you cannot say ‘Yes’ to something in five seconds, the answer is ‘No’.
It’s one of the best rules of thumb for a good life.
THE FOCUSING ILLUSION Why – You Wouldn’t Be Happier in the Caribbean
“Nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it,” as Daniel Kahneman explains.
The more narrowly we focus on a particular aspect of our lives, the greater its apparent influence.
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.
We’re especially vulnerable to the focusing illusion when it comes to money.
If you compare Buffett’s life minute for minute with yours, the effect of his wealth is negligible. One teeny-weeny difference: Buffett owns a private jet.
By focusing on trivialities, you’re wasting your good life.
THE THINGS YOU BUY LEAVE NO REAL TRACE – Why You Should Buy Less and Experience More
Does a luxurious car give more pleasure to the owner? How happy were you during your last car trip?
A car makes you happy when you’re thinking about it but not when you’re driving it. That’s the effect of the focusing illusion.
The two happiest days in a yacht-owner’s life are the day you buy it and the day you sell it.
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.
Your job is an experience too.
Your job monopolizes your thoughts; it demands constant, intensive engagement – which is great if you love it. But if you hate it, you’ve got a serious problem.
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.“
We overestimate the impact of purchases on our well-being and underestimate the impact of experiences.
FUCK-YOU MONEY – Saving Up Freedom
If you’re living in poverty, money plays a major role. Financial difficulties are sheer misery.
Easterlin paradox: once basic needs have been met, incremental financial gain contributes nothing to happiness.
Wealth is relative, not absolute. Your level of wealth – above the poverty line – is primarily a matter of interpretation.
Good news; it means it’s up to you whether money makes you happy or not.
- Fuck-you money refers to the savings that would allow you to quit your job at a moment’s notice without ending up in dire financial straits. One year’s salary, say. Fuck-you money is freedom. More important even than material independence is that fuck-you money allows you to see and think objectively. If you haven’t saved up your fuck-you money yet, keep your fixed costs low.
- Don’t react to minor fluctuations in your income or assets.
- Don’t compare yourself with the wealthy. It will make you unhappy. If you must, compare yourself with those who have less than you do – but it’s better not to compare yourself with anyone at all.
- Even if you’re filthy rich, live modestly.
Genuine success, as we’ll see in the final chapter, is anything but financial.
THE CIRCLE OF COMPETENCE – Why It’s Important to Know Your Limits
Buffett’s life motto: “Know your circle of competence, and stick within it. The size of that circle is not very important; knowing its boundaries, however, is vital.“
Be rigorous in organizing your professional life around this idea, because a radical focus on your circle of competence will bear more than monetary fruit.
Skills don’t transfer from one arena to another. In other words, skills are domain specific.
“Expect anything worthwhile to take a really long time.”
Within your circle of competence you’re protected to a certain extent against illusions and fallacies. You could even risk breaking with convention, because you have the necessary lie of the land and can predict roughly what’s going to happen.
The truth is that it’s completely irrelevant how many areas you’re average or below average in. What matters is that you’re far above average in at least one area – ideally, the best in the world.
A single outstanding skill trumps a thousand mediocre ones. Every hour invested into your circle of competence is worth a thousand spent elsewhere.
THE SECRET OF PERSISTENCE – Why Bores Are More Successful than Adventurers
Our brains love short-term, spasmodic developments. We react exaggeratedly to highs and lows, to rapid changes and jarring news – but continuous changes we barely notice. As a result, we systematically overemphasize doing above not-doing, zeal above deliberation, and action above waiting.
Long-term successes are like making cakes with baking powder. Slow, boring, long-winded processes lead to the best results. The same goes for your life.
Less busywork, more endurance. Once you’ve identified your circle of competence, stick at it as long as possible.
Perseverance, tenacity and long-term thinking are highly valuable yet underrated virtues.
“You don’t have to be brilliant,” as Charlie Munger says, “only a little bit wiser than the other guys, on average, for a long, long time.”
THE TYRANNY OF A CALLING – Do What You Can, Not What You Wish You Could
“How can I find my calling?” is one of the most common questions I hear from young people. Each time I have to bite my tongue, because “calling” is a relic of Christianity.
People in search of a calling these days aren’t interested in repudiating worldly concerns. On the contrary, they’re looking to engage with the world more closely, and they cherish the Romantic notion that deep inside every human being is a bud waiting to blossom into something profound.
The concept of a calling is one of the greatest illusions of our age.
“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.
The Romantic notion that a calling makes you happy is false.
Even if there were such a thing as a true calling, it certainly wouldn’t be advisable to pursue it come what may.
- Hackers, fraudsters and terrorists all believe they’ve found their calling, and are fulfilled by their work.
- Hitler doubtless felt the same, as did Napoleon, Stalin and Osama bin Laden. Clearly, a calling is no guarantee of a moral compass.
Don’t listen to your inner voice.
- A calling is nothing but a job you’d like to have.
- In the Romantic sense it doesn’t exist; there is only talent and preference.
- Build on the skills you actually have, not on some putative sense of vocation.
One important aside: other people have also got to value your talents.
THE PRISON OF A GOOD REPUTATION – How to Shift from External to Internal Validation
Public perception has little to do with the quality of my work. It makes my books no better or worse.
Which matters more to you: how you evaluate yourself, or how the outside world evaluates you?
Let go of liking and being liked. Don’t Google yourself, and don’t crave recognition. Instead, accomplish something. Live in such a way that you can still look at yourself in the mirror.
THE “END OF HISTORY” ILLUSION – You Can Change Yourself, but Not Other People
You can exercise some influence over changes in your personality.
You can’t change other people – no, not even your partner or your children. Motivation for personal change must come from within. Neither external pressure nor rational argument will work.
“Avoid situations in which you have to change other people.”
Southwest Airlines’ guiding principles since its inception has been “Hire for attitude, train for skill.” Attitudes cannot be altered, at least not in a reasonable amount of time, and certainly not by external pressures. Skills can.
“Only work with people you like and trust.”
THE SMALLER MEANING OF LIFE – Which Goals You Can Achieve – and Which You Can’t
The two questions are, ‘Who are you?’ and ‘What do you want?'”
If you’re trying to find the larger meaning of life, you’re looking for answers to questions like:
- Why are we on this Earth?
- Why does the universe exist?
- And what does it all mean?
Unlike the writers of mythology, science has found no answer to the “larger meaning of life” question. All it knows about life is that it will continue to develop aimlessly as long as there’s sufficient material and energy available.
There is no discernable overarching purpose – not for humanity, life or the universe.
The world is fundamentally meaningless.
The question of the “smaller meaning of life,” however, is crucial. It’s about your personal goals, your ambitions, your mission.
There can be no good life without personal goals.
There’s no guarantee of achieving your end, but if you don’t have one, you’re guaranteed to achieve nothing.
It’s not money that makes you happy or unhappy, it’s whether or not you realize your ambitions.
Why do goals work? Because goal-orientated people put more effort into accomplishing them.
“One recipe for a dissatisfied adulthood is setting goals that are especially difficult to attain,” as Daniel Kahneman has observed.
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). It doesn’t even have to be a conscious process. Your brain will do it for you automatically.
The path to a good life means adjusting the bar and setting achievable goals. What matters is to know where you’re going, not to get to any old place quickly.
YOUR TWO SELVES Why – Your Life Isn’t a Photo Album
Your experiencing self is the part of your conscious mind that experiences the present moment.
How long does a moment last? Psychologists estimate three seconds, give or take. That’s the span of time we perceive as the present.
Remembering self is the part of your conscious mind that gathers, evaluates and organizes the few things your experiencing self hasn’t thrown away.
We remember most clearly the peak of an episode, i.e., the moment of greatest intensity, and the end. Hardly anything else filters through into our memories.
Because of our remembering self’s miscalculations, we tend to prize brief, intense pleasures too highly and quiet, lasting, tranquil joys too little.
THE MEMORY BANK – Experience Trumps Memory
Experiences only count if you remember them. Let’s call this phenomenon the memory bank. The longer we live with a memory, the greater the value it accrues.
Without memory, the experience is perceived as entirely valueless.
Today, the 1960s “feeling of being in the moment” is back in fashion, now labeled as “mindfulness.”
Part of the good life is making provision for the future, recognizing dangers early and giving them a wide berth.
Our brains cope automatically with all three layers of time – past, present and future. The issue is which one we concentrate on.
My suggestion is not to avoid making long-term plans, but once they’re in place to focus wholly on the now. Make the most of your present experiences instead of worrying about future memories.
Savor the sunset instead of photographing it.
LIFE STORIES ARE LIES – Why We Go Through the World with a False Self-Image
Brains store not raw but processed data. Their preferred format is not the bit but the story.
The brain has developed a data-compression trick: the story.
Constructing stories is the primary task of your remembering self.
Your life story tells you who you are, where you come from, where you’re going, what matters to you. It’s also called your “self” or your “self-image.”
Your life story is compact: if somebody asks who you are:
- You’ll have a brief, succinct answer ready.
- It’s consistent: things that don’t fit are comfortably forgotten, and you plug gaps in your memory with astonishing inventive skill (a skill you don’t even know you have).
- It’s causal: your actions make sense – there’s a reason behind everything that happens in your life. Compact, consistent, causal.
First: we change more rapidly than we think. This is true not just of our likes and dislikes (hobbies, favorite music, favorite food) but also of such supposedly inalterable things as personality traits and values.
Second: our life seems more amenable to planning than it actually is. Chance plays a far greater role than we’d like to think.
Third: our fabricated life story makes it difficult to judge individual facts plainly – without interpretation, without context, without excuse. Excuses are brake pads that stop us learning from our mistakes.
Fourth: we see ourselves as better – more good-looking, more successful and more intelligent – than we really are. This self-serving bias leads us to run more risks than we would otherwise do.
Part of the good life is seeing yourself as realistically as possible – contradictions, shortcomings, dark sides and all. If you see yourself realistically, you’ve got a much better chance of becoming who you want to be.
THE “GOOD DEATH” FALLACY – Why Your Final Moments Shouldn’t Worry You
Duration neglect: the duration of an episode is not reflected in your memory of it.
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
THE SPIRAL OF SELF-PITY – Why It Makes No Sense to Wallow in the Past
Accept the wrongs of the past and try to either manage or endure the hardships of the present. Collective self-pity is as unproductive as the individual kind.
Blaming other people, especially your parents, has an expiry date. If you’re still holding your parents liable for your problems at the age of forty, then one can argue that you’re so immature you practically deserve them.
Studies show that even undeniably awful childhood events (the death of a parent, divorce, neglect, sexual abuse) are minimally correlated with success or satisfaction in adult life.
Not getting bogged down in self-pity is a golden rule of mental health.
What point is there in “being unhappy, just because once you were unhappy”?
Charlie Munger’s “iron prescription”: “Whenever you think that some situation or some person is ruining your life, it is actually you who are ruining your life. Feeling like a victim is a perfectly disastrous way to go through life.”
HEDONISM AND EUDEMONIA – How Meaning Can Compensate for Enjoyment – and the Other Way Around
Which activities contribute to a good life – the “enjoyable” ones or the “meaningful” ones?
Hedonists, believed that a good life consisted of consuming the maximum possible number of immediate pleasures.
Most philosophers, however, believed that instant gratification was base, decadent, even animalistic. A good life was made up of the “higher pleasures.” Striving for these was called eudemonia.
Plato and Aristotle both believed that people should be as temperate, courageous, just and prudent as possible.
Every experienced moment has two components: a pleasurable (or hedonistic) component and a meaningful component.
- The hedonistic component is the instant gratification.
- The meaningful component, on the other hand, refers to our perception of how purposeful a moment is.
Purpose and pleasure as the two cornerstones of happiness – it’s “a bold and original move,” as Daniel Kahneman has observed.
Meaningfulness also plays a role on the job market. Young employees, in particular, are willing to accept a salary below market standards to participate in “meaningful” projects.
It’s best to switch between meaningfulness and enjoyment. So if you’ve saved a small piece of the world, then I think you deserve a glass of fine red wine.
THE CIRCLE OF DIGNITY – PART I – But If Not
The Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, announces to three god-fearing Jews, “If ye worship not [the image of my god], ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace.”
The king gives the three men time to consider. They reply, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.“
I never do anything for money that I wouldn’t do for a tenth the offered sum; in other words, I never let money be the decisive factor.
The circle of dignity draws together your individual pledges and protects them from three forms of attack:
- better arguments;
- mortal danger; and
- deals with the Devil.
The size of your circle of dignity doesn’t really matter – what’s vital is that you know exactly where its boundaries lie.
A small, inviolable, clearly demarcated circle of dignity is essential to the good life.
It’s imperative the things within your circle aren’t rationally justifiable.
How do you establish a circle of dignity? Not through deliberation. Rather, it’s something that crystallizes with time – for most people, by middle age.
Keep your circle of dignity tight.
“Commitments are so sacred that by nature they should be rare,” warns Warren Buffett.
The circle of competence – that’s ten thousand hours. The circle of dignity – that’s ten thousand wounds.
THE CIRCLE OF DIGNITY – PART II – If You Break on the Outside
If you don’t make it clear on the outside what you believe deep down, you gradually turn into a puppet. Other people exploit you for their own purposes, and sooner or later, you give up.
There’s a whole genre of prison literature, from Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago to Elie Wiesel’s Song of the Dead, from to Primo Levi’s If This Is a Man to Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning.
We are assailed every day by attacks on our wills, our principles, our preferences – on our circle of dignity. These attacks aren’t as overt as torture. Rather, they’re so subtle that often we don’t even notice them: advertising, social pressure, unsolicited advice from all angles, soft propaganda, fashion trends, media hype and laws.
Society cares about cohesion, not about the private interests of a single member.
Society only leaves people in peace if they conform.
Your circle of dignity, the protective wall that surrounds your pledges, can only be tested under fire.
THE CIRCLE OF DIGNITY – PART III – The Devil’s Bargain
If you don’t outline your circle of dignity clearly enough, you’ll have to rethink every time a new deal or tempting offer comes along.
The monetary economy is expanding its assault on formerly sacred subjects.
THE BOOK OF WORRIES – How to Switch Off the Loudspeaker in Your Head
Over millions of years, constant anxiety has proved itself an excellent survival strategy.
Our level of anxiety is no longer proportional to the actual dangers of living. You’re not on the savannah any more, where there’s a saber-toothed tiger lurking around every waterhole. In fact, ninety percent of your worries are superfluous – either because the problems you’re turning over in your mind aren’t really dangerous or because you can’t do anything about them anyway.
Perpetual anxiety leads to chronic stress, which can take years off your life.
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.“
THE OPINION VOLCANO – Why You’re Better Off Without Opinions
The human brain is a volcano of opinions. It spews out viewpoints and ideas nonstop. No matter whether the questions are relevant or irrelevant, answerable or unanswerable, complex or simple – the brain tosses out answers like confetti.
Three mistakes.
- The first: we express opinions on topics in which we have no interest.
- The second mistake: we spew out opinions on unanswerable questions.
- The third mistake: we tend to give over-hasty answers to complex questions.
Not always feeling like you need to have an opinion calms the mind and makes you more relaxed – an ingredient vital to a good life.
It’s immensely liberating not having to hold an opinion on all and sundry.
Opinionlessness is an asset.
Writing is the ideal way to organize your thoughts. A diffuse thought automatically becomes clearer when you have to pour it into sentence form.
YOUR MENTAL FORTRESS – The Wheel of Fortune
Summary of Philosophy’s recommendations, which are of course Boethius’s.
- First: accept the existence of fate.
- Second: 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.
- Third: if you, like Boethius, have lost many things or even everything, remember that the positive has outweighed the negative in your life (or you wouldn’t be complaining) and that all sweet things are tinged with bitterness. Whining is misplaced.
- Four: what can’t be taken from you are your thoughts, your mental tools, the way you interpret bad luck, loss and setbacks. You can call this space your mental fortress – a piece of freedom that can never be assailed.
Stoicism is still the only branch of philosophy that offers practical answers to life’s everyday questions.
It’s more worthwhile than ever to invest in an intellectual toolkit that emotionally prepares you for loss.
The world is full of unrest and chance, and every so often your life will be upturned.
ENVY – Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall
Envy is not only a human emotion; it’s actually an animal instinct.
The interesting thing about envy: the more we compare ourselves with others, the greater the danger of jealousy. Above all, we envy those who are similar to us in terms of age, career, environment and lifestyle.
Stop comparing yourself to other people and you’ll enjoy an envy-free existence. Steer well clear of all comparisons.
Transparency has squashed happiness.
Choose a place to live, a city, a neighborhood where you’re in the “local elite.”
The greatest challenge of success is keeping quiet about it, as they say. If you’re going to be proud of anything, be proud of that.
PREVENTION – Avoid Problems Before You Have to Solve Them
Wisdom is a practical ability. It’s a measure of the skill with which we navigate life.
“Wisdom is prevention.“
Einstein put it this way: “A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it.“
The trouble is that avoidance isn’t sexy.
Successes achieved through prevention (i.e., failures successfully dodged) are invisible to the outside world.
Prevention requires more than just knowledge; it requires imagination.
Imagination means forcing yourself to think possibilities and consequences all the way through – until the last drops of juice have been squeezed out.
Wisdom is prevention. It’s invisible, so you can’t show it off.
MENTAL RELIEF WORK – Why You’re Not Responsible for the State of the World
We’re bothered by the injustices of the world. We need a personal strategy – a mental toolkit – to cope with its calamities without losing our inner equanimity.
There’s not much you can do personally.
If you want to help reduce suffering on the planet, donate money. Just money. Not time. Money.
Drastically restrict your news consumption.
Evil is all around us, always; it’s universal and cannot be stamped out. Since your personal resources are limited, you’ve got to focus.
You’re not responsible for the state of the world.
THE FOCUS TRAP – How to Manage Your Most Important Resource
Focus, time and money are our three most important resources.
There’s even a science devoted to time and money – referred to in that context as “work” and “capital.”
Focus, however, is little understood, although today it’s the most valuable of these three resources, the most crucial to our success and our wellbeing.
Don’t confuse what’s new with what’s relevant.
Avoid content or technology that’s “free.”
Give everything “multimedia” a wide berth.
Be aware that focus cannot be divided. It’s not like time and money.
Act from a position of strength, not weakness.
Epictetus came to a similar conclusion two thousand years ago: 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?
Focus must be learned.
“Your happiness is determined by how you allocate your attention,” wrote Paul Dolan.
Essentially, you always live where your focus is directed, no matter where the atoms of your body are located. Each moment comes only once. If you deliberately focus your attention, you’ll get more out of life.
READ LESS, BUT TWICE – ON PRINCIPLE – We’re Reading Wrong
Sometimes a sentence will drift by, like an abandoned rowboat in the silent fog.
I’m continually astonished by how much you can absorb during slow, focused reading, how many new things you discover on a second pass, and how greatly your understanding deepens through this measured approach.
Immersion – the opposite of surfing.
Once you hit thirty, life’s too short for bad books.
THE DOGMA TRAP – Why Ideologues Oversimplify Things
Any intervention into social structures has consequences infinitely more far-reaching than flushing the loo. It’s not enough to consider the first wave of effects. You’ve got to account for the effects of the effects of the effects.
Sadly we’re not the independent thinkers we’d like to imagine we are. Instead, we treat our opinions rather like our clothes. We’ll wear whatever’s in fashion – or, more specifically, whatever’s in fashion among our peers.
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.
Many people don’t notice that they’re falling for an ideology. How do you recognize one? Here are three red flags:
- they explain everything,
- they’re irrefutable, and
- they’re obscure.
Try to find your own words to express things. Don’t just mindlessly adopt the formulations and imagery of your peer group.
Think independently, don’t be too faithful to the party line, and above all give dogmas a wide berth. The quicker you understand that you don’t understand the world, the better you’ll understand the world.
MENTAL SUBTRACTION – How to Realize That You’re Happy
Because ninety-nine percent of the positive aspects of our lives didn’t just crop up today but are of long standing, the power of habituation has negated the joy we originally felt about them. Gratitude is an explicit attempt to fight this process by deliberately naming and emphasizing the positive things we have going for us.
Mental subtraction increases happiness significantly more markedly than simply focusing on the positives. The Stoics figured this out two thousand years ago: instead of thinking about all the things you don’t yet have, consider how much you’d miss the things you do have if you didn’t have them any longer.
Mental subtraction is an effective way of tricking your brain into valuing the positive aspects of your life more highly.
THE POINT OF MAXIMUM DELIBERATION – Thinking Is to Acting Like a Torch Is to a Floodlight
The biggest secret in writing: the best ideas come to you while you’re writing, not while you’re mulling things over.
Reality is never fully illuminated; even the most erudite among us can see only a few meters in a particular direction.
If we want to go beyond the limits of our knowledge, we’ve got to forge ahead instead of standing still – we’ve got to act, not agonize.
As long as you’re still weighing up your options, the risk of failure is nil; once you take action, however, that risk is always greater than zero.
Pablo Picasso knew how valuable it was to be bold, to experiment. “To know what you want to draw,” he said, “you must begin to draw.”
OTHER PEOPLE’S SHOES – Role Reversal
Thinking and doing are two fundamentally different ways of comprehending the world.
Business Studies is an ideal degree if you want to obtain a Business Studies professorship, but not if you want to work in business. Studying literature is perfect if you want to be a literature professor, but don’t imagine it’s going to make you a good writer.
Role reversal is by far the most efficient, quick and cost-effective way of building mutual understanding.
THE ILLUSION OF CHANGING THE WORLD – PART I – Don’t Fall for the “Great Men” Theory
Never before has such optimism about the influence of the individual been so widespread.
Under the intentional stance we assume an intention behind every change – regardless of whether or not it was actually intentional.
The intentional stance leads us to interpret the history of the world as the history of “great men” (sadly, they were predominantly men).
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.“
But if it wasn’t “great men” who wrote the story of the world, then who was it?
The answer: nobody. Events are the accidental by-product of an infinite number of trends and influences.
THE ILLUSION OF CHANGING THE WORLD – PART II – Why You Shouldn’t Put Anyone on a Pedestal – Least of All Yourself
“Technology will find its inventors,” argues Ridley, “not vice versa.”
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.“
Ridley is a little blunter: “Most CEOs are along for the ride, paid well to surf on the waves their employees create. The illusion that they are feudal kings is maintained by the media as much as anything. But it is an illusion.“
No matter how extraordinary your accomplishments might be, the truth is that they would have happened without you. Your personal impact on the world is minute.
The only place where you can really make a difference is in your own life. Focus on your own surroundings. You’ll soon see that getting to grips with that is ambitious enough.
Not believing too much in your own self-importance is one of the most valuable strategies for a good life.
THE “JUST WORLD” FALLACY – Why Our Lives Aren’t Like Classic Crime
Our desire for justice is so great that we can hardly bear the thought of injustice.
Most people are deeply convinced that the world is fundamentally just.
It’s my belief that you’ll have a better life if you simply accept the unfairness of the world as fact and endure it with stoicism.
There is no just plan for the world. There isn’t even an unjust plan. There’s no plan at all. The world is fundamentally amoral.
The things that happen to you across the course of your life, especially the more serious blows of fate, have little to do with whether you’re a good or a bad person. So accept unhappiness and misfortune with stoicism and calm. Treat incredible success and strokes of luck exactly the same.
CARGO CULTS – Don’t Build Planes out of Straw
The adherence to form without a real understanding of content.
Stay far away from any type of cargo cult. And be on your guard: the substanceless imitation of form is more common than we think.
Give a wide berth to people and organizations that have fallen for cargo cults. Avoid companies that reward pomp and ceremony instead of achievement.
Don’t mimic the behavior of successful people without truly understanding what made them successful in the first place.
IF YOU RUN YOUR OWN RACE, YOU CAN’T LOSE – Why General Knowledge Is Only Useful as a Hobby
As our expertise gradually increases, our general ignorance practically explodes.
It’s astounding how rapidly a general education has become unusable.
“There’s an infinite number of winners,” Kevin Kelly has said, “as long as you’re not trying to win somebody else’s race.“
Often we don’t specialize radically enough, then we react with surprise when other people overtake us.
The “winner takes it all” effect will help you out if you’re the best in your niche – and I mean worldwide. If that’s not the case, you’ll have to specialize further. You’ve got to run your own race if you want to emerge the victor.
Stop hoarding all the knowledge you possibly can in the hopes of improving your job prospects.
THE ARMS RACE – Why You Should Avoid the Field of Battle
“If almost everybody has a college degree, getting one doesn’t differentiate you from the pack. To get the job you want, you might have to go to a fancy (and expensive) college, or get a higher degree. Education turns into an arms race, which primarily benefits the arms manufacturers – in this case, colleges and universities,” wrote John Cassidy in the New Yorker.
If you find yourself in an arms race, get out of it. You won’t find the good life there.
If we compare ourselves to our hunter-gatherer forebears, we find that they worked between fifteen and twenty hours per week.
Try to escape the arms race dynamic.
- It’s difficult to recognize, because each individual step seems reasonable when considered on its own.
- So retreat every so often from the field of battle and observe it from above.
- Don’t fall victim to the madness.
An arms race is a succession of Pyrrhic victories, and your best bet is to steer clear.
MAKING FRIENDS WITH WEIRDOS – Get to Know Outsiders, but Don’t Be One Yourself
Outsiders tend to be quicker and therefore earlier to make an impact than insiders.
Outsiders enjoy a tactical advantage. They don’t have to adhere to establishment protocols, which would slow them down.
There’s a certain romance about the idea of living as an outsider – but don’t make the mistake of becoming one yourself.
- The forces of society will be arrayed against you.
- The headwinds will be pitiless and sharp.
- Virtually all outsiders are broken by the world, which opposes them with all its might.
- Only a few shine as bright as comets.
- No, the life of an outsider is the stuff of movies, not of the good life.
Keep one foot firmly planted in the establishment. That way you’ll secure all the advantages of club membership. But let your other foot wander.
Make friends with outsiders. It’s easier said than done. Here are the rules for getting along with them:
1) No flattery. Just be genuinely interested in their work.
2) Don’t stand on your dignity. Outsiders couldn’t care less whether you’ve got a PhD or are president of the Rotary Club.
3) Be tolerant. Outsiders are rarely on time. Sometimes they’re unwashed or wearing colorful shirts.
4) Reciprocity. Give them something back: ideas, money, connections.
At the end of the day, it’s better to have a Van Gogh on your wall than to be Van Gogh.
Best of all is to surround yourself with as many living Van Goghs as possible. Their fresh perspective will rub off on you – and help you on your way to the good life.
THE SECRETARY PROBLEM Why Our Sample Sizes Are Too Small
Why is the secretary problem still relevant?
Because it gives us some guidelines about how long we should spend testing things out before we make a final decision on important issues.
The world is much bigger, richer and more diverse than we imagine, so try to take as many samples as you can while you’re still young.
Your first years of adulthood aren’t about earning money or building a career. They’re about getting acquainted with the universe of possibility.
MANAGING EXPECTATIONS – The Less You Expect, the Happier You’ll Be
Research confirms that expectations have a profound impact on happiness, and that unrealistic expectations are among the most effective killjoys.
Constantly distinguish between “I have to have it,” “I want to have it” and “I expect it.”
The first phrase represents a necessity, the second a desire (a preference, a goal) and the third an expectation.
Seeing desires as musts will only make you a grumpy, unpleasant person to be around.
Be aware that not all your desires will be satisfied, because so much lies beyond your control.
Many of your unhappiest moments are down to sloppily managed expectations – particularly expectations of other people.
Our expectations possess very limited external force, but hold immense internal sway.
STURGEON’S LAW – How to Tune Your Bullshit Detector
Ninety percent of everything that’s published is crud, regardless of genre. His answer has gone down in history as Sturgeon’s law.
If you’re not sure whether something is bullshit, it’s bullshit.
IN PRAISE OF MODESTY – The Less Self-Important You Are, the Better Your Life Will Be
A fundamental part of the good life is not being too full of yourself. In fact, there’s an inverse correlation: the less you stand upon your ego, the better your life will be.
Self-importance requires energy.
The more self-important you are, the more speedily you’ll fall for the self-serving bias.
You’ll make enemies. If you stress your own importance, you do so at the expense of other people’s, because otherwise it would devalue your relative position.
INNER SUCCESS – Why Your Input Is More Important than Your Output
Society can control the way in which individual people spend their time through the way it measures success and bestows prestige.
Why are there lists of the richest people, but no lists of the most satisfied? Quite simply because economic growth keeps societies together. “The prospect of improvements in living standards, however remote, limits pressure for wealth redistribution,” writes former banker Satyajit Das.
“So long as there is growth there is hope, and that makes large income differential tolerable.”
Definitions of success are products of their time.
True success is inner success.
Once you’ve attained ataraxia – tranquility of the soul – you’ll be able to maintain your equanimity despite the slings and arrows of fate.
To be successful is to be imperturbable, regardless of whether you’re flying high or crash landing.
How can we achieve inner success? By focusing exclusively on the things we can influence and resolutely blocking out everything else. Input, not output. Our input we can control; our output we can’t, because chance keeps sticking its oar in.
Wooden insisted his players define success in radically different terms: “Success is peace of mind, which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to do your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.“
You don’t have to be the richest person in the cemetery – instead, be the most inwardly successful person in the here and now.
“Make each day your masterpiece.”
People desire external gain because it nets them internal gain.
AFTERWORD
Mental tools make it possible to see the world more objectively and act sensibly in the long-term. As we take possession of these tools through daily practice, we gradually change and improve the structure of our brain.
Three sources – modern psychology, Stoicism and the philosophy of value investing – complement each other perfectly. So perfectly that one might think they came from a single source.
“Nobody is immune from self-deception and self-delusion. We all have intricate, subliminal defense mechanisms that allow us to retain beliefs that are dear to us, despite contravening facts.” (Koch, Christof: Consciousness – Confessions of a Romantic Reductionist
Russell, Bertrand, The Conquest of Happiness. “If you won’t attack a problem while it’s solvable and wait until it’s unfixable, you can argue that you’re so damn foolish that you deserve the problem.”
The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.
One of the best definitions I know of the good life comes from Epictetus, the Stoic: “A life that flows gently and easily.“
“Why, my dear friend, do you do it all? If I had all your millions, I’d spend my time doing nothing but reading, thinking and writing.”
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