Philosophy

Two of the big questions in life are:

• What is a life worth living?
• How do I live in peace and harmony with the world?

Philosophy, the pursuit of wisdom and truth, should help us answer those questions.

The Pursuit Of Happiness Or The Happiness Of The Pursuit

We all want it. Nobody knows exactly what it is or how to get it. Happiness is an ambiguous word that means many things to many people.

Is it something you feel? Is it a habit, a lifestyle kind of thing? Let’s analyze it.

A Recipe For Happiness

Happiness can be deconstructed into its component parts, which can then be deconstructed further into a set of behaviors.

Freedom

A lot of people feel miserable because they cannot do the things they are passionate about, spend time with their loved ones, spend time on their hobbies, and so on.

They are not owners of their own time.

Freedom means being able to choose what to do with your time and how to do it.

In order to make your own choices and have options, you need money. Money is not going to give you happiness. Money only solves your money problems.

The goal is not more money. The goal is:

• Taking three months off if you want to.
• Quitting a job that does not fulfill you.
• Helping your loved ones when needed.
• Owning your time and energy.
• Being free to choose what you want.
• More time with family and friends.

Freedom does not mean doing everything you want. How many people are enslaved to their pleasures? How many are enslaved to their own suffering and self-pity? How many are enslaved by their own success?

Ironically, you could choose to damage your own freedom. We should be wise enough to know the difference between freedom and debauchery. What is the difference?

Freedom comes through understanding reality. Understanding the consequences of our choices.

You cannot be free if you are not powerful.

Growth

Growth is related to learning. All learning is error correction. Alex Hormozi defines learning as “same situation, different behavior.”

If you are fighting a boss in a video game, and the boss keeps beating you, it is your fault. You are not learning.

Until you find the best behavior for a situation, you have to try different things. This is called iteration.

To master a skill, the 10,000 hours should be reframed as 10,000 iterations. 10,000 error corrections.

When you feel that you are improving at something you deeply care about, you experience happiness.

What do I care about how many people read my books in 100 years? What matters is whether I am doing my best right now.

Connection

One of our deepest needs is the sense of belonging to a group.

The worst punishment you could suffer in ancient times was being kicked out of the tribe. A single human in the wild does not survive for long.

Our species evolved to be hyper-social.

Our need for connection drives our need for contribution. We want to contribute to the group in order to be accepted by it.

Feeling connected to loved ones, to a group, and to God matters. The ultimate connection we can have is connection to God.

Peace

Peace is the absence of disturbance. Not external disturbance, since it will always be there. It is outside your control. Peace is the absence of internal disturbance.

If you want to stop suffering, start by stopping the unnecessary suffering you cause yourself with your thoughts and judgments.

For Naval, peace is happiness at rest and happiness is peace in motion.

Being at peace means you are not lacking something in the moment. You can get to that state in two ways:

• By getting what you want.
• By rejecting what you want.

If it does not fit, eventually it will hurt to wear it. If you want a calmer life, you need to address small problems while they are still small. The cost of dealing with an issue rarely gets cheaper with time. Procrastination turns uncomfortable things into unavoidable things.

The arrival fallacy is the false assumption that reaching some achievement or goal will create durable feelings of satisfaction and contentment in our lives.

We think:

• When I get to university, I will finally be happy.
• When I get my dream job, I will finally be happy.
• When I get a partner, I will finally be happy.

You have already achieved goals you said would make you happy.

If your past achievements did not make you meaningfully happier, do not expect your future achievements to make you happier.

Yes, you were excited for some time when you achieved your goal. But after that time, however long, you returned to baseline. And what once excited you is now part of your everyday life.

Perhaps happiness is always to be found in the journey uphill, not in the fleeting sense of satisfaction waiting at the next peak.

Perhaps happiness is to be found in giving everything you have to something you deeply care about. Because independent of the result, you will not have regrets. You emptied the tank.

Always reaching. Already enough.

The three big ones in life are wealth, health, and happiness. We pursue them in that order but their importance is in the reverse. - Naval Ravikant

Principles

One of the most amazing things about us is our ability to shape our identity. We can become many things, though not everything.

The most powerful story in the world is the one you tell yourself about yourself. We can shape our identity by changing the story we tell ourselves about who we are.

For example:

• I am easily attached emotionally because I was not loved in my childhood.

But you could also think:

• I am independent because I was not loved in my childhood.

In this example, the reality is that this person was not loved in childhood. What they do with that fact becomes their reality. And that is true for all of us. We cannot change what happened to us. But we can change what we do with it.

It might not be your fault. But it is your problem. And nobody is coming to save you.

You can use your past to justify yourself or to learn from it. The choice is yours, whether you make it consciously or not.

This connects to virtues, which are composed of many principles.

Be quiet, work hard, and stay healthy. It is not ambition or skill that is going to set you apart but sanity. - Ryan Holiday

Thoughts are not true. You are not your thoughts.

To change your life, change your surroundings.

You do not need to feel ready to start.

He who blames others has a long way to go on his journey. He who blames himself is halfway there. He who blames no one has arrived. - Chinese proverb

Everyone tries to change other people but wants to be accepted as they are. When really, you should try to change yourself and accept other people as they are.

Build Your Character

What is character? Why should I build it?

Becoming who you are supposed to be. What does it mean?

Be a pleasure to deal with. Not because you want a reward for your behavior, but because it is the correct thing to do. Being kind is the reward. Being the person you want to be is the reward.

On the contrary, the best revenge is not being like the person who hurt or wronged you.

• Kind when others are not.
• Calm when things go sideways.
• Reliable under pressure.

Intelligence is overrated when it comes without tact, timing, or emotional range.

You cannot have an easy life and a great character.

Be someone who lightens the load. People remember who brought clarity in chaos, who did not make everything about themselves, who made hard moments feel a little less heavy.

Your perception of me is a reflection of you. My reaction to you is an awareness of me.

Wisdom Makes You Compatible With Reality

Wisdom lets us distinguish between what is good and what is bad.

I know that I know nothing. - Socrates

You cannot learn what you think you already know, the same way you cannot fill a cup that is already full.

Avoiding stupidity is easier than seeking brilliance. Your first objective is to stay in the game. In sports, like padel, at amateur levels you win by making fewer unforced errors than your opponents.

What you are doing right now is a hypothesis to be tested, not an ideology to be proved.

If you are so smart, why are you not happy?

True knowledge makes you more compatible with reality.

All types of knowledge ultimately mean self-knowledge.

Alex Hormozi talks about “ignorance debt.” He claims ignorance is the most expensive debt. It is the price of not knowing what you should.

Desire Is The Root Of All Suffering

It does not make sense to continue wanting something if you are not willing to do what it takes to get it. If you do not want to live the lifestyle, then release yourself from the desire. - James Clear

How can we balance ambition with peace?

We are often enslaved by passions because we do not understand their causes.

Epicurus divides desires into:

Happiness is the state when nothing is missing. When nothing is missing, your mind shuts down and stops running into the past or future to regret something or to plan something. - Naval Ravikant

Being happy with what you have does not prevent you from pursuing what you want.

The obsession with being happy can be the reason you are not happy. There is always something else to achieve. Something else to learn.

If we are unduly absorbed in improving our lives we may forget altogether to live them. - Alan Watts

Happiness is the absence of striving for happiness. - Chuang Tzu