Better's Blinkist

For enduring happiness, choose experiences that add to your own heroic story.

By placing yourself in the hero’s role, you can not only recognize what your particular call to action is, but can also begin to be more adventurous and understand that difficulties and struggles are crucial to our stories and shouldn’t be avoided. It is through these challenging experiences that we acquire the tools that allow us to reach our goals and slay our own metaphorical dragons.

2 August, 2019 09:23 Share

Events that provide change and transformation are key to finding fulfillment.

The go and become approach, however, offers a real chance for transformation. In this scenario, your vacation would come with a purposeful intent to learn inspirational things about different cultures and customs, or new skills like painting, boating or traditional sushi techniques. Or it might involve a spiritual retreat of some kind.

2 August, 2019 09:24 Share

Let’s take vacationing, for instance. There are basically three ways you can approach a vacation: fly and flop, find and seek, or go and become.

2 August, 2019 09:24 Share

Being outside and offline has been shown to improve people’s moods directly.

There’s a biological factor at work here. Scientists believe we’re simply predisposed, from an evolutionary perspective, to enjoy the calming sights, sounds and smells of nature and water.

2 August, 2019 09:25 Share

Researchers have long known that humans are susceptible to conditioning. You may be familiar with the psychologist Ivan Pavlov, who over a century ago conditioned dogs to salivate with hunger – not in the presence of food, but at the sound of a metronome that signified the arrival of food.

2 August, 2019 09:25 Share

The problem is that, as multiple studies in the US and Europe show, too much time online leads to feelings of isolation, stress, depression and insomnia. Fortunately, however, if you start spending less time online now, your mood can improve immediately

2 August, 2019 09:26 Share

Engage in activities that connect you with others to avoid the potentially fatal effects of loneliness.

While solitude and some time alone can be a nice change of pace from time to time, no one enjoys feeling lonely. This might sound obvious enough, but what you may not know is just how dangerous loneliness can be.

2 August, 2019 09:26 Share

What’s more, in compiling seven years’ worth of data from nearly three and a half million people, researchers found that loneliness increased a person’s chances of death by 29 percent. Meanwhile, social isolation increased that chance by 26 percent, and living alone by 32 percent. Remarkably, these statistics show that loneliness is deadlier than type 2 diabetes or smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

2 August, 2019 09:26 Share

Basically, the way to be less lonely is to do something interesting – anything, really. Most experiences involve other people in some way, whether you’re outside playing sports or indoors playing a board game.

2 August, 2019 09:27 Share

And remember, whenever you have an interesting experience, it gives you a good story to tell, and sharing stories is one of the best ways to form bonds with others.

2 August, 2019 09:27 Share

We’re at our happiest when engaged in intense, immersive activities that allow for good flow.

A handy, simple rule of thumb for telling the difference between good and bad flow – or, as the author calls it, real flow and fake flow – is to know that good flow requires you to put in true, intense effort in order to receive the reward at the end

2 August, 2019 09:28 Share

In fact, the progression of a real flow experience is not unlike the hero’s journey: there’s an initial struggle, followed by a release in which you enter the zone and the flow begins, and then, at the end, you feel physically, emotionally and mentally drained, yet also ecstatic at having slain your metaphorical dragons.

2 August, 2019 09:29 Share

And where can you find such experiences? Well, sports are great for adding flow to your life, but you can also get it from performing in front of an audience, writing, carpentry and any number of other activities that require skill and attention.

2 August, 2019 09:29 Share

How we remember activities has a lot to do with beginnings, peaks and ends.

It’s also worth noting that you can inject a seemingly ordinary moment with extraordinary significance just by appreciating the inherent wonder in nature and human existence. Therefore, while it makes sense to add new and exciting experiences to your everyday life, you can also have a happier life by recognizing the everyday as already pretty special. Consider a cup of tea, for example. On its own it may be ordinary, but if you make each brew part of a daily calming ritual, it can be pretty extraordinary.

2 August, 2019 09:31 Share

Activities that boost our status can lead to happier lives.

All societies contain hierarchies of some sort, and wherever there’s a hierarchy, there are people of different status. In the workplace, for example, we have clerks, supervisors, managers and directors. But there are also two other primary ways for gaining status: there are the experts who gain status through their education, and successful people who’ve earned theirs through money.

2 August, 2019 09:32 Share

The final path to higher status is to turn off the TV. According to the author, it’s no coincidence that the lower someone’s status is, the more TV he or she watches. The more you watch, the fewer story-worthy experiences you’re having. So start thinking of TV as a last resort to turn to when all other options are unavailable.

2 August, 2019 09:32 Share