Title The Conquest of Happiness

Author Bertrand Russell

Year Published 1930

Kind of Book Philosophy/Psychology/Self-help

How strongly I recommend it 8/10 

My Impressions The closest thing an analytical philosopher ever got to writing a self-help book. Russell has a rational approach to happiness—focus on others, have a purpose, pursue relationships etc. There are certainly a few nuggets in here!

Date Read September 2019

What question is the author trying to answer?

  • What can a man or woman do to achieve happiness for himself or herself?

  • What is the cure for the ordinary day-to-day unhappiness that most people in civilized countries suffer?

 

Practical Takeaways

  • Become indifferent to yourself and your deficiencies and instead center your attention on external objects such as the state of the world, various branches of knowledge, and other individuals for whom you feel affection

  • Be without some of the things you want to be happy

  • Experience a loving intimate relationship with a partner

  • If you have become Nihilistic; Give up trying to write, and, instead, try not to write.; give yourself an existence in which the satisfaction of elementary physical needs will occupy almost all of your energies (eg.Go out into the world; become a pirate, a king in Borneo, a laborer in Soviet Russia)

  • Don't sacrifice all of your other values to obtain success

  • Have some ingredient of boredom in your life

  • Include boring passages in your novel

  • Make sure your children have consistency from day to day

  • Rarely engage in pleasures that are exciting and at the same time involve no physical activity (eg. Going to the theatre)

  • Treat your child like a young plant left undisturbed in in the same soil

  • Only think about your troubles when there is some purpose in doing so

  • Shut out the ordinary troubles of ordinary days, except while they have to be dealt with

  • Think about a matter adequately at the right time rather than inadequately at all times

  • Don't think about anything at all at night

  • Give the matter your best thought and make a decision; having made the decision, do not revise it unless some new fact comes to your knowledge

  • First; Think about the problem you are working on with greatest intensity you are capable of for a few hours or days. Then leave it and don't think about it or spend anymore time on it for a few months. Then return consciously to the topic and find that the work has been done [underground].

  • When some misfortunes threatens, consider seriously and deliberately what is the very worst that could possibly happen

  • Look at your fear rationally and calmly and with great concentration until it becomes completely familiar

  • Anytime you're brooding on something think about it even more than you naturally would until its morbid fascination has worn off

  • Be careful not to favor one child over the other

  • Increase admiration of others to diminish envy of others

  • Don't cease to enjoy what you have just because of what someone else has

  • Enjoy the pleasure that come your way

  • Bring up your boy to think of himself as a fine fellow

  • Don't be morally weak when you are weakened or fatigued by illness, drink, lack of sleep

  • Make up your mind with what you rationally believe and never allow contrary irrational beliefs to pass unchallenged or obtain a hold over you

  • Remember that your motives are not always as altruistic as they seem to yourself

  • Don't overestimate your own merits

  • Don't expect others to take as much interest in you as you do yourself-

  • Don't imagine that most people give enough thought to you to have any desire to persecute you

  • Ask yourself if you produce because you feel an urgent compulsion to express certain ideas or feelings, or because you desire applause

  • If you find that others do not rate your abilities as highly as you do yourself, do not be too sure that it is they who are mistaken

  • Face unpleasant truths

  • Whenever you feel out of harmony with your surroundings endeavor in the choice of a profession to select a career which will give you a chance of congenial companionship, even if it entails a considerable loss of income

  • As a beginner treat public opinion with respect

  • Apart from experts, Don't give others opinions too much respect

  • Be natural and follow your unique tastes in so far as they are not anitsocial

  • Believe in a cause

  • Have a trivial hobby (like watching sports) that creates a healthy distraction for you *as long as they're not harmful to you

  • Let your interests be as wide as possible

  • Let your reactions to things and people be friendly rather than hostile

  • Be interested in the world

  • Have zest for life

  • Practice moderation

  • Don't be cautious of love (to love or to be loved)

  • Don't let a children over 9months old interfere with their mother's career

  • Be able to fill leisure time intelligently

  • Have a purpose in life (usually involves your work)

  • Don't believe something is true just because it is interesting

  • Admit to yourself every day at least one painful truth

  • Teach yourself that life would be worth living even if you were not superior to all your friends

  • Stop obsessing about yourself and your own virtues

  • Desire the happiness of the ones you love, but not as an alternative to your own happiness

 

Big Ideas

  • The happiness someone feels when they get drunk is only a negative happiness ie. They only feel a momentary cessation of unhappiness they don't feel any positive happiness

 

  • People who sleep badly like to tell everyone else how badly they sleep

Similarly

  • People who are unhappy like to tell everyone else how unhappy they are

 

  • It is impossible to achieve something great without working persistently at it

 

  • Social Justice is motived by envy not compassion

 

  • Caution in love is a great destroyer of a person's happiness

 

  • Whatever we were deprived of in youth is what we come to value more than anything else

  • We build our entire life in adulthood around trying to attain whatever it was we didn't receive enough of in childhood

  • Many people who are Unhappy feel that they are (rationaly) superior to happy people

But

  • Being unhappy is not a rationally superior position to being happy

  • When you do something with someone you love it magnifies the experience of whatever you're doing

 

  • Most of the western world isn't stressed out about having enough food to eat, Most of the western world is stressed about whether or not they will outshine their neighbors

  • Success is only one of many ingredients to success

  • It is not worth sacrificing every other ingredient to happiness in order to be successful

 

  • All the best novels contain boring passages

  • If a novel is exciting the whole way through it is not likely to be a great book

Similarly

  • Even the lives of the greatest men in history have not been exciting all the time (they are mostly boring aside from a few great moments)

 

  • A happy life must be to a great extend a quiet life

Because

  • True joy can only live in a quiet atmosphere

 

  • Workaholism is usually a consequence of someone trying to escape from emotional trouble

 

  • What you have shouldn't stop making you happy just because someone else ALSO has it

 

  • You can't escape envy just by becoming more successful

Because

  • There will always be someone more successful than you

  • Even if you become the most successful person in the world, you will still envy the Gods

  • Even people like Alexander (who there is arguably no one more successful than) envy the Gods (like Hercules)

 

  • The more you fear a dog meaner it will be towards you

Similarly

  • The more you fear public opinion the harsher it is towards you

Because

  • If you show that you are afraid of people's opinion, people think that you will be a good person to attack

Whereas

  • If you show that you are NOT afraid of people's opinion, people will begin to doubt their power to say nasty things about you

 

  • Many men seek unconditional love from wife their wives

But

  • Wives should not show their husbands love if they haven't done anything to deserve it

 

  • The greatest happiness can be found in being a parent

  • Men and women have a deep need to have a legacy (either work or children)

  • When men or woman don't have children (or a legacy) they will feel dissatisfied and listless and not know why

 

  • A person with exceptional gifts can pass on their legacy through a remarkable achievement which is appreciated by future ages

  • Everyone else needs to have children to leave their legacy

 

  • Most people enjoy be told what to do/where to be at each hour of the day

  • A rare few people who have strong initiative don't find it agreeable to be told what to do/where to be at each hour of the day

 

  • Hard work makes holidays that much more enjoyable when they come

 

  • Purpose is necessary condition for happiness, but not a sufficient cause (ie: you need to have a purpose to be happy, but purpose alone does not necessarily cause one to be happy)

 

  • The way to cure Nihilism is to stop writing and go and do manual labor that is physically demanding and will occupy all of your energy