Mo
Gawdat, an executive and software engineer at Google, has been
curious about happiness
for years. When his son died suddenly, he took inspiration from the happy young
man he lost to get his thought together on the subject and produce Solve for Happy.
To Gawdat, happiness isn’t something we gain, it’s something we lose or
bury. Happiness his how we would normally feel, what he calls our “default
state,” but we let all manner of thoughts make us unhappy.
What buries our native happiness? It’s the suffering we
experience when the events of our life do not meet expectations. Gawdat
illustrates this in his book with a balance with the events on one side and
expectations on the other.
Donte be quick to blame unhappiness on the events of life. Gawdat
points the finger at expectations.
Our expectations are often out of touch with reality. We suffer under
misperceptions, illusions, blind spots and lies we tell ourselves. Gawdat
identifies 13 such issues and challenges them. As long as you cling to beliefs
and biases that lead to false expectations, you’ll suffer.
Experiencing the greatest joy involves embracing the truth. Gawdat describes
five things he believes to be true that lead to joy.
I’m reminded of The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck.
Dr. Peck
calls for a devotion to truth. Like Gawdat, Peck believed that every life has
some pain, but a lot of additional, unnecessary pain is caused when we refuse
to deal with reality.
I think there is a lot to be said for Gawdat’s overall concept. I can
see in myself and others a lot of pain and disappointment that has its roots in
false expectations, refusal to deal with reality and the avoidance of the hard
(but rewarding) work of living and growing as a person. I don’t agree with
every detail of Gawdat’s book, but don’t think you have to in order to gain
useful insights from it.
If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
Gawdat, Mo. Solve for Happy:
Engineering Your Path to Joy. New York: North Star
Way, 2017.
No comments:
Post a Comment