Solve For Happy: Engineer Your Path to Joy

People will disapprove of you not because they are evaluating you but because they are valuing themselves. There’s no way to win. It’s sad but true.

Trying constantly to get approval for your chosen image is a losing battle because the real you isn’t what the ego pretends to be. This makes us unhappy since we’re always searching for the next thing to make the image complete in the hope that people will believe that’s who we are. This will never work, for two reasons.

Arabic folk culture tells the story of an old teacher who’s visited by many of his students years after they left his class. They talk about how successful they’ve become in life and shower gratitude on their beloved teacher. Then they all start to talk of the pressures they’re facing, the stress they go through to keep up with expectations. Succes

While the ego of a professional is built on making the job look hard, often the best results are achieved by doing very little. The best managers, for example, hire talented people and manage sparingly. As the need to pretend is removed, the best professionals often turn out to be those who don’t play the role at all.

Once we start wearing masks to reinforce our egos, we spend the rest of our lives playing roles. There is the role of a powerful executive: professional, well-dressed, composed, heartless. The role of a mom: using baby talk with her kids, dressed in sneakers, and going to coffee mornings with other moms. The role of an artist: eccentric style, rebe

You just need to take charge and act like the boss. Correct

◆ Rise above the clutter of thought, grasp life for what it truly is, and you’ll perpetually live in a state of joy.

Think positive thoughts and agree with the events of life and you’ll reach the state of happiness.

All the thinking in the world, until converted into action, has no impact on the reality of our lives.