The Happiness Equation summary

There’s no escaping negative thoughts; they’ll turn up no matter how positive your outlook on life is.

When trying to fight these thoughts, you may have felt like a battle is raging in your head. Well, that’s because a battle is raging, one between two parts of your brain: the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex.

Are you looking forward to hitting retirement age, sitting back and enjoying the fruits of your labor? If you want to stay happy and healthy, the answer to that question should be, “No!”

Retirement is a concept the Germans invented in 1889. The idea was to open up the job market to younger people and let people over the age of 65 enjoy their final years.

It’s a good feeling to be paid well for the work you do, but the dollar amount on your paycheck doesn’t tell the whole story.

For instance, a Harvard graduate makes an average of $120,000 per year, but they also receive a maximum two weeks of vacation while working 85 hours per week during those remaining 50 weeks. That adds up to 4,250 hours per year and only $28 per hour.

Making decisions can be stressful. And it doesn’t help that most people’s average day is chock-full of them. When the author counted all of his daily decisions, he found 285 of them. And most of these weren’t even very important – things such as deciding when to check his mailbox.

Yet every decision requires mental energy, which means it causes some level of stress. You can reduce this stress, however, as well as save time and increase productivity, by eliminating your choices.

When’s the last time you ticked something off your bucket list? If it’s been a while, what’s stopping you from doing so? It’s usually not money or resources that prevent us from doing something; we actually set up our own barriers and fool ourselves into staying away from things that would make us happy.

Typically, the two barriers that keep us from happiness are the Can’t Do and the Don’t Want To barriers.

If you’ve ever tried to be friendly with someone who is being rude and hurtful, then you’re probably familiar with the pain and discomfort that comes with not honoring your true emotions.

Which brings us to the eighth secret of happiness: be yourself!