'The Happy Mind' is a self-help book written by Kevin Horsley and Louis Fourie. It's a great book. It has nuggets of wonderful thoughts, in a condensed form. So, you could quickly read through. Many of those may not be new, but while reading the book, you would also realize that these are the obvious mistakes, which results in compromising one's overall happiness and well-being.
The book is structured into 5 sections, starting with definition of happiness and ending with a short summary on practical guidelines. Only criticism I have is that it is written in the form of bullets and/or summary, without any story-line, so it becomes difficult to remember and/or internalize. So, the best way to gain out of this book is to take notes and identify 2-3 things that you would want to follow, after reading this book. Otherwise, you may not gain much out of it.
My takeaways from this book are,
- Enjoy simple things more => Celebrate small success and enjoy smaller joys to the fullest.
- Clear priority on whom we are optimizing for => At times, we seem to flatter the strangers/ acquaintances and become short tempered with kith and kin.
- Clear plan and focus => Yearly plan, monthly review and daily focus on all aspects of life- personal wellness, family sturdiness, professional progress and wider community joy.
- Courage to make changes to the job and our life, to achieve the sweet-spot.
- Don't play judge and/or take grudges => Energy spent worrying about inequality is less rewarding than cutting losses and moving forward, especially in smaller aspects of day to day life.
- Focus on things in the present and doing things now. Grass is always greener. We have seen people who wanted to retire when they work, and wanted to work when they retire.
- Multi-tasking doesn't work. Focus on one thing fully. Even when on holiday, be fully there.
The book covers a lot more aspects that affect one's happiness. I picked-up a few that I wanted to follow. The list could be a lot different for you. Happy reading.
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