Book review of Mo Gawdat’s“Solve For Happy”
Or how to return your life to the path of joy
Happiness is your default state. This bold affirmation is just one of the many in “Solve for Happy.”
When you read a lot, sometimes you come across a book so touching that it moves your core. A story so profound that as you read it, it pulls you from the deepest sorrow to a wishful state of happiness and hope.
As writers, the only way we have to learn from other authors, who might have died, is to read their work, searching for hidden gems or some advice to help us master the craft.
On rare occasions, you find such an inspiring and uplifting book.
Mo Gawdat, the former Chief Business Officer of Google, tells the story of his path to recovery from the sudden death of his son to create an organization aimed to recruit one billion happy members.
A Parent’s Worst Nightmare
While living in Dubai with his wife Nibal and teenage daughter Aya. Gawdat received a call from his son Ali, who was studying in Boston, telling him he was coming home to spend a few days with them.
After his arrival, Ali suffered acute belly pain and was admitted for an appendectomy. Doctors use a syringe with carbon dioxide to expand the abdominal cavity as a routine procedure. But the needle punctured Ali’s femoral artery without the medical staff noticing, and he died a few hours later.
Going through different stages of grief, the author one day had an epiphany, as he explains:
“Seventeen days after the death of my wonderful son, Ali, I began to write and couldn’t stop. My topic was happiness — an unlikely subject, given the circumstances.”
From those pages, Solve for Happy came to life. Explain where happiness comes from, when it starts, and why it is so important.
Furthermore, why we drift away from it, a formula to define it, and how we can recover the joy in our lives.
The Formula for Happiness
Two days before Ali died, he sat with his family to deliver a heartfelt message to each and thank them for what they had contributed to his life.
His request to his father was, “Papa, you should never stop working. Keep making a difference, and rely on your heart more often. Your work here is not done.” And finished with, “But now my work here is done. That’s it. I have nothing more to say.”
Gawdat spent time deconstructing the world’s literature on what makes us happy. He found that not only success doesn’t bring happiness (it’s the other way around), but happiness is controllable. It’s a choice. His happiness equation is a never-ending tussle between our expectations and reality.
What Did Solve for Happy Teach Me
We Are Meant to Be Happy
“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. They are perfectly happy as long as their most basic needs are met.” — Mo Gawdat
Since we are born, our only mission is to be happy. Babies cry when they are tired, hungry, or with dirty diapers. Once their needs are covered, they turn to their default happy state.
But as we grow up, we delve into negative thoughts, denying our born right to happiness. However, not everything is lost. We can change our thoughts, so choose to be happy.
The Road to Happiness
The author warns about our brain’s mind traps in what he describes as the 6–7–5 formula to reach happiness. Explaining there are “Six Grand Illusions,” keeping you confused, and “Seven Blind Spots,” deceiving your judgment of the reality of life and making you unhappy. Hence, to return to the correct path, you must eliminate the six illusions, fix the seven blind spots, and escape to reach happiness again. Nevertheless, if you want it to last, you must hang on to the “Five Ultimate Trues.”
But what are they?
The Six Grand Illusions
1.- Thoughts 🤔
The voice in your head is not your own.
2.- Self 🤗
You are not your body, your thoughts, or your feelings.
3.- Knowledge 🧐
To know the wrong thing is worse than not knowing at all.
4.- Time ⏲
Time isn’t moving; you’re the one who is moving through time.
5.- Control 🎛🕹
Control is just a false sense of security.
6.- Fear 😨
There is nothing to fear but fear itself.
The Seven Blind Spots
1.- Filters 🚫
We perceive everything filtered, leaving us only a tiny sliver of the truth.
2.- Assumptions 😏
Oscar Wilde said: “When you assume, you make an ass out of u and me.”
3.- Predictions 🧙♂️
Your predictions are brain-generated future possibilities. They’re not the truth!
4.- Memories 🙄
Memories are only descriptions of what we think happened.
5.- Labels 🏷
In the absence of context, labels very often cover up the truth.
6.- Emotions 🤩
Our perception of the truth is often distracted by our irrational emotions.
7.- Exaggerations 🤭
If the truth isn’t enough to convince us to take action and run for cover, our brains will exaggerate perception to grab our attention.
Five Ultimate Trues
Now that you know what the “Six Grand Illusions” and the “Seven Blind Spots” are, you can find the path to happiness. Nevertheless, remember that if you want it to last, you must hang on to the “Five Ultimate Trues.”
1.- Now 📆
Your biggest power in life is to be present.
Change ♻
There is nothing permanent except change.
Love 💘
All we need is love. The true joy of love is in giving it.
Death 💀
There’s no cheating death. We’ll all go someday. Live this moment as if it were your last.
Design 🖋
Is God an idea we created, or are we the creation of God? The results of our acts shouldn’t be blamed on the design.
The Happiness Equation
Gawdat calls his formula to be happy the Happiness Equation, or the perfect balance between your perception of the events in your life versus your expectations.
Therefore, you must remember that it is not the event that makes you unhappy; it’s how you perceive it.
Moreover, consider the fact that:
- Happiness is always your choice. Since you are in charge, it does not depend on your circumstances.
- The best way to be happy is to accept every event in your life as it is and not as you would like it to be.
- If you want to find the path to happiness and leave a state of confusion (unhappiness), you must first eradicate the “Six Grand Illusions” and the “Seven Blind Spots” from your life.
- And once you find your way, if you want it to last, you must hang on to the “Five Ultimate Trues.”
Take Away
Solve for Happy is a book about transcending from survival to thriving, from worry and anxiety to living with passion and meaning. It’s about how life changes when we decide to put happiness first.
A must-read for anyone who wants to find happiness in their lives. It will make you think. It will encourage you to initiate a conversation with your inner self and provide you with the tools to be happy.
“All I want when I get to the other side is to go to the highest place and see the face of the one who made this awesome universe.” — Mo Gawdat
© Copyright Jose Luis Ontanon, 2022
