Keep it simple' wasn't always the right response. Many things that boosted my happiness also added complexity to my life. Having children. Learning to post videos to my website. Going to an out-of-tow...
Of course it's not enough to sit around wanting to be happy; you must make the effort to take steps toward happiness by acting with more love, finding work you enjoy, and all the rest. But for me, ask...
Of the Four Tendencies, Obligers struggle most often against the temptations of loopholes. Rebels don’t make excuses to justify doing what they want; Upholders and Questioners feel a greater pressure...
Six obvious ways to make an activity less convenient: • Increase the amount of physical or mental energy required (leave the cell phone in another room, ban smoking inside or near a building). • Hid...
One study estimated that people spend about one-fourth of their waking time resisting some aspect of desire—most commonly, the urge to eat, to sleep, to grab some leisure, and to pursue some kind of s...
One-Coin Loophole: Whether we choose to focus on the single coin or the growing heap will shape our behavior.
Outer order isn’t a matter of having less or having more; it’s a matter of wanting what we have.
You have to do that kind of work for yourself. If you do it for other people, you end up wanting them to acknowledge it and to be grateful and to give you credit. If you do it for yourself, you don't...
Rather than striving for a particular level of possessions—minimal or otherwise—it’s helpful to think about getting rid of what’s superfluous. Even people who prefer to own many possessions enjoy thei...
The Strategy of Pairing, I couple two activities, one that I need or want to do, and one that I don’t particularly want to do, to get myself to accomplish them both. It’s not a reward, it’s not a trea...
The habit of the habit is more important than the habit itself. For this reason, it can be helpful to keep a habit symbolically, even if we can’t keep it literally, to keep a habit in place. Someone w...
Else. Self-measurement brings self-awareness, and self-awareness strengthens our self-control.
The very words we choose to characterize our habits can make them seem more or less appealing. Engagement time sounds more interesting than than email time; playing the piano sounds more fun than prac...
These small, everyday actions had their own value; the pressure of my daily habits would mold my future. These habits were little things on their own, but their combined weight was massive. I thought...
They’re perceived to be more friendly, warmer, and even more physically attractive. A study showed that students who were happy as college freshmen were earning more money in their midthirties—without...
This self-knowledge is crucial because we can build a happy life only on the foundation of our own nature, our own interests, and our own values.
Unlike a reward, which must be earned or justified, a treat is a small pleasure or indulgence that we give to ourselves just because we want it.
Upholders respond readily to both outer expectations and inner expectations. Questioners question all expectations, and will meet an expectation only if they believe it’s justified. Obligers respond r...
W. H. Auden articulated this tension beautifully: Between the ages of twenty and forty we are engaged in the process of discovering who we are, which involves learning the difference between accidenta...
Waldenlust. This longing takes several forms: fantasies of the freedom that dispossession would bring; nostalgia for earlier, supposedly simpler times; and reverence for the primitive, which is assume...
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