Happier - No Matter What

By Tal Ben-Shahar

Last Read: December 2023

Reading the Almanak of Naval Ravikant clued me in that we can actually work to be happier people through regular effort. This led me to read Happier - No Matter what by Tal Ben-Shahar - an expert on happiness. These are my take-aways.

Key Take-Aways

  1. Our happiness matters
    • Our moments and lives are better as a happy person.
    • Happiness leads to success. Many people think that success will lead them to happiness. But the reverse is actually true. More success as a parent, partner an employee, coach and as a friend comes from the upward spiral of being happy
    • Happy people are healthier & have better immune systems for warding off disease. This is because our mind and bodies are linked.
    • Happy people are more creative, more innovative, productive and engaged.
    • Happy people are kinder and more generous.
    • Happiness improves our relationships.
    • Happiness is contagious. By improving our own happiness - we help those around us become happier → contributing to a happier world.
  2. Everyone can become happier though working on it
    • Happiness aka “wholebeingness” can be improved each week, each month, each year.
    • You don’t become happier by wishing it away or just saying to be “happy” - you do it by doing the actions and practices that lead people to being actually happier.
    • Tal’s suggestion to improve happiness is to regularly do a SPIRE check in & grade yourself 1-10 in each SPIRE area & try to come up with 1 thing you can do to increase your score by just 1 point (not 5).
    • The 5 dimensions to happiness are SPIRE - spiritual wellbeing, physical wellbeing, intellectual wellbeing, relational wellbeing and emotional wellbeing.
  3. Start doing these things:
    • Meditate: Practice mindfulness meditation every day in periods of 3-5 min of meditation sessions
    • Be present: Live with your thoughts experiencing what’s in front of you. Only focus on the future or the past in defined periods
    • Watch your thoughts: Be mindful of your thoughts. The ones focussed on gratitude, praise etc, make you happier. Let the other ones go.
    • Take Breaks: every 2 hours for 15 min or so. Close your eyes, focus on your breathe.
    • Cultivate Gratitude Regularly: Create a gratitude journal & write things down in it each night.
    • Write a Gratitude Letters: Write a gratitude letter periodically to the people that you love. They will appreciate it & it’ll do good things for you to do it.
    • Establish an Evening Routine: Establish an evening routine with gratitude built in
    • Exercise regularly: 4X a week. Regular exercise is as powerful as our most powerful drugs.
    • Read Biographies: Read biographies of people who have done extra-ordinary things (eg. Ghandi)
    • Journal: about negative emotions, negative experiences.
    • Spend money on experiences & on presents for others: Outside of use for basic necessities → it’s what increases your happiness the most
    • SPIRE Checkins: Grade yourself on 1-10 on different dimensions, then ask yourself what’s 1 thing you can do to improve on it next session
  4. Stop / minimize these things:
    • Minimize smart phone use - it’s associated with a rise in suicide & depression.
    • Stop using social media - it’s associated with a rise in suicide & depression in teens.
    • Multi-tasking - it’s associated with being distracted which makes people miserable.
  5. Don’t focus on things that don’t bring happiness:
    • Success - there are numerous studies that demonstrate that people think some major success will provide them happiness but after it happens, life just goes on. eg. getting into a college, tenure, selling a company, winning the lottery, etc, etc.
    • Money - “man is not a financial creature”. money helps our happiness just to fulfill our basic needs. After having the means to fulfill our basic needs are met (food, clothing, shelter), having more wealth doesn’t contribute much to our whole-being.
    • Fame & Prestige
    • Living in the Future
    • Living in the Past
    • Comparing your past self to current self
  6. Work On Being Present - The Best Moments Are Those That We are Present.
    • Any moment can be amazing if we fully experience it. This involves not thinking about the past or the future
    • Reflection & Planning are good but they shouldn’t occupy our thoughts.
  7. Work on Observing & Controlling your Thoughts
    • Best way to do in this is through meditation, which is good for clearing your thoughts & also helpful to learning to control your thoughts. Since the practice is to keep on bringing your thoughts back to the exercise of the meditation.
  8. Close Relationships = Health & Happiness (#1 Predictor of Happiness)
    • Happiest countries are those with strong social ties.
    • Loneliness is linked with depression & suicide. “No Man is an Island”. Reject urges and thoughts that have you not investing in engaging with others.
    • Invest time in building family relationships & friendships that are deep & not just superficial.
  9. Allow Yourself To Fully Experience Negative Emotions
    • “Those who don’t know how to weep with their whole heart don’t know how to laugh either”
    • In order to experience true happiness, we must first allow in unhappiness. This is the permission to be human & is the foundation of building a happier life.
    • Experience all emotions, no matter how painful they may be. Rejecting emotions - only makes them stronger.
    • If you reject painful emotions, if you try to restrain them, then you obstruct the free flow of pleasurable ones as well.
    • When experiencing negative emotions - do some of the following:
      1. Cry: It’s self-soothing. It releases chemicals that actually make you feel better.
      2. Talk about your painful emotions: talk to a friend or therapist about the difficulties or challenges that you’re experiencing. This helps us to release tension and feel better.
      3. Journal about your painful emotions: For 10 - 20 min, journal about a difficult experience that you went through or are still going through. Write about what you felt, what you’re feeling, what you thought about, and what’s going through your mind right now. Don’t worry about grammer, etc - just get it out on paper.
    • Writing about difficult experiences initially is hard & produces anxiety but the effects wear off over time & help us to better deal with our feelings on a subject a year later.
  10. Pay Attention To Your Emotions & Accept them as human:
    • Active Acceptance: Embracing your emotions and then choosing the most appropriate course of action.
    • By paying attention to your emotions → you’re cultivating your nature to see your emotions as temporary (impermanent). ie “This feeling will not last forever”
    • Impermanence of emotions is central to buddhist thought → learning to see your emotions as temporary makes us better able to deal with them.
      • Every emotion has a beginning and an end. An ebb, a rising and a falling.
      • The difference between a depressed person and a happier person often comes down to how they perceive painful emotions. The depressed person thinks the feeling is here to stay. The happier person, knows that the feeling will pass.
      • Meditation is a practice to observing our emotions.
    • People are more likely to chose a positive course of action when they identify the emotion that they are feeling than reject it outright.
      • Eg. I feel fearful but I am still going to go I do this. vs. I’m not scared, this is no big deal & i’m still going to do it. You’re not that convincing! 🙂
    • Use language which expresses that you are not your emotion to create a separation with the emotion.
      • Yes: I have envy; No: I am envious.
      • Yes: I feel scared, No: I am scared.

Further reading: