Fortunately, if we look at all the best social science research together, just four big happiness pillars stand out far above all others. These are the most important things to pay attention to in order to build the happiest life each of us can, and thus they deserve the lion’s share of our attention as we invest in ourselves and our loved ones.

These idols all stand in the way of enjoyment, satisfaction, and purpose. They substitute pleasure for enjoyment, set our hedonic treadmill on “extra high” to make satisfaction harder to attain and keep, and focus us on things that obviously are trivial, not meaningful. The four idols make getting happier harder.

As we learned in chapter 1, happiness consists of the macronutrients of enjoyment, satisfaction, and purpose. To build happiness we need to grow in all three of these elements, consistently and consciously. Before we learn the skills of emotional self-management—metacognition, emotional substitution, and adopting an outward focus—we tend to spend a

Scholars in 2018 studied eighteen thousand randomly selected individuals and found that their experience of envy was a powerful predictor of worse mental health and lower well-being in the future.[30] Ordinarily, people become psychologically healthier as they age; envy can stunt this trend.

You might add a complementary verse to Lao Tzu’s original: “Disregard what others think and the prison door will swing open.” If you are stuck in the prison of shame and judgment, take heart: you hold the key to your own freedom.[23]

In the Tao Te Ching, the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu wrote, “Care about people’s approval and you will be their prisoner.”[22]

incompetent, dishonorable, or immoral—and thus, given the weight we place on others’ opinions, we begin feeling this way about ourselves. Fearing shame makes sense, because research clearly shows that feeling it is both a symptom of and a trigger for depression and anxiety.[21]

One reason you may fear others’ opinions is because negative assessments can lead to shame, which is the feeling of being deemed worthless,

One last exercise you might try if you have a free day: use it to wander. In one famous Zen koan (a story that requires philosophical interpretation), a junior monk sees an older monk walking and asks him where he is going.[12] “I am on pilgrimage,” the senior monk says. “Where is pilgrimage taking you?” the junior monk asks. “I don’t know,” the