Solve for Happy: Engineer Your Path to Joy

Solve for Happy: Engineer Your Path to Joy

In this “powerful personal story woven with a rich analysis of what we all seek” (Sergey Brin, cofounder of Google), Mo Gawdat, Chief Business Officer at Google’s [X], applies his superior logic and problem solving skills to understand how the brain processes joy and sadness—and then he solves for happy with a practical happiness formula rooted in logic and personal growth. In 2001, Mo Gawdat realized that despite his incredible success, he was desperately unhappy. A lifelong learner, he attacked the problem as an engineer would: examining all the provable facts and scrupulously applying logic. Eventually, his countless hours of research and science proved successful, and he discovered the equation for permanent happiness—a unique engineering approach to happiness that blends neuroscience and positive psychology. Thirteen years later, Mo’s algorithm would be put to the ultimate test. After the sudden death of his son, Ali, Mo and his family turned to his equation—and it saved them from despair. In coping with tragedy and loss, Mo found his mission: he would pull off the type of “moonshot” goal that he and his colleagues were always aiming for—he would share his equation with the world and help as many people as possible find joy after loss and embrace emotional resilience. In Solve for Happy , Mo questions some of the most fundamental aspects of our existence, shares the underlying reasons for suffering, and plots out a step-by-step process for achieving lifelong happiness, mindful living, and enduring contentment. He shows us how to view life through a clear lens, teaching us how to dispel the illusions that cloud our thinking; overcome the brain’s blind spots; and embrace five ultimate truths for lasting inner peace. No matter what obstacles we face, what burdens we bear, what trials we’ve experienced, we can all be content with our present situation and optimistic about the future. This inspiring self-help book offers readers a guide to emotional healing and a philosophy for living with joy. Mo Gawdat is the Chief Business Officer at Google’s [X]. In the last ten years he has made happiness his primary topic of research, diving deeply into literature and conversing on the topic with thousands of people in more than a hundred countries. He is also a serial entrepreneur who has cofounded more than twenty businesses. He speaks Arabic, English, and German. In 2014, motivated by the tragic loss of his son, Ali, Mo began pouring his findings into his first book, Solve for Happy . Solve for Happy Chapter One Setting Up the Equation It doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor, tall or short, male or female, young or old. It doesn’t matter where you come from, what you do for a living, what language you speak, or what tragedies you’ve endured. Wherever you are, whoever you are, you want to be happy. It’s a human desire about as basic as the drive to take the next breath. Happiness is that glorious feeling when everything seems right, when all of life’s twists and turns and jagged edges seem to fit together perfectly. In those often all-too-brief flickers of genuine happiness, every thought in your head is agreeable, and you wouldn’t mind if time stood still and the present moment extended forever. Whatever we choose to do in life is ultimately an attempt to find this feeling and make it last. Some people look for it in romance, while others seek it in wealth or fame, and still others through some form of accomplishment. Yet we all know of people who are deeply loved, achieve great things, travel the world, snap up all the toys money can buy, indulge in every luxury, and still long for the elusive goal of satisfaction, contentment, and peace—also known as happiness. Why should something so basic be so hard to find? The truth is, it isn’t. We’re just looking for it in the wrong places. We think of it as a destination to reach, when in fact it’s where we all began. Have you ever searched for your keys only to realize they were in your pocket all along? Remember how you removed everything from your desk, searched beneath the couch, and got more and more frustrated the longer they went missing? We do the same thing when we struggle to find happiness “out there,” when, in fact, happiness is right where it’s always been: inside us, a basic design feature of our species. Our Default State Look at your computer, smartphone, or other gadgets. They all come with preferences preset by the designers and programmers. There’s a certain level of screen brightness, say, or a localized user interface language. A device fresh from the factory, set up the way its creators think best, is said to be in its “default state.” For human beings, simply put, the default state is happiness. If you don’t believe me, spend a little time with a human fresh from the factory, an infant or toddler. Obviously, there’s a lot of crying and fussing associated with the start-up phase of little humans, but the fact is, as long