February 6, 2024
Essential Happiness
This Greg McKeown podcast with Mo Gawdat is amazing, particularly starting at the 27:00 mark. Seriously, you need to check it out – so powerful. Here are some ideas from it that don’t do the listening experience justice:
– The only thing that matters is what you do next. What you do in this moment. What you did before has little bearing.
– When nothing is certain, you might as well choose what makes you happy.
– In this ‘moment,’ you choose – the moment either has meaning or its just suffering.
– Near the end of his life, Maslow changed the highest aspiration in his “hierarchy of needs” so that it is self-transcendence (ie. spirtuality) rather than self-actualization. The best chance for a sound relationship are two whole people who come together to create an interdependent unit.
– Manage your time by spending it on the things you love. Those people in your Top 10% are likely 1000x, 100x more important than the others in your life.
– The definition of “gratitude” doesn’t include just things that make you feel good – it includes being grateful for everything including the things that make you suffer.
– ‘If I won the level but missed the game while playing, what was the point?’
– Social media is a dark playground. Those thoughts you’re trying to avoid will be sitting there waiting after you finish pursuing that activity that has a low likelihood of creating happiness.