Mo Gawdat Quotes Page 2

“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 as their most basic needs are met — no immediate hunger, no immediate fear, no scary isolation, no physical pain or enduring sleeplessness — they live in the moment, perfectly happy.”

“Get real. You are not the star of the movie. Most of what happens around you isn’t about you at all. There are infinite numbers of other movies.

In those, if you feature at all, you’re just a supporting actor. It would really help your happiness if you started to look at your life that way.”

“Happiness ≥ your perception of the events of your life MINUS your expectations of how life should behave.”

“Happiness depends entirely on how we control every thought.”

“Happiness is the absence of unhappiness.”

“If the triggers for happy moments are so ordinary and so accessible, why does 'finding' happiness remain such a big challenge for so many people? And why, when we 'find' it, does it so easily slip away?”

“If you take exactly the same steps, you will always reach exactly the same outcome regardless of your expectations, frustrations, pressures, or joy.

The quality of your actions should not vary, and neither should your persistence in the face of challenges.”

“In the 1930s, the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky observed that inner speech is accompanied by tiny muscular movements in the larynx. Based on this, he argued that inner speech developed through the internalization of out-loud speech.

In the 1990s, neuroscientists confirmed his view; they used neuroimaging to demonstrate that areas of the brain such as the left inferior frontal gyrus, which are active when we speak out loud, are also active during inner speech.

That voice inside your head truly is your brain talking, even though you’re the only one who can hear it.”

“Is there anything ever under our total control? Yes, two things are: your actions and your attitude.”

“It all begins when you accept the thought passing through your head as absolute truth. The longer you hold on to this thought, the more you prolong the pain.”

“It begins when you believe that you are the center of the universe, that good things happen because you’ve earned them and bad things happen just to annoy you. And that’s the furthest thing from the truth.”

“Life is bound to deal you a few bad hands now and then. You don’t need to make a big deal out of every unexpected turn of events.

Your path may be rerouted, but nothing is lost unless you decide to quit. Through it all, arm yourself with the right attitude.”

“Life sometimes needs to give you a nudge in order to alter your path. It uses a bit of hardship to lead you to something good.”

“Many successful athletes, musicians, and entrepreneurs have achieved their success because they love what they do so much they become experts at it just because the activity itself makes them happy.”

“Ninety percent of your long-term happiness is predicted not by the external world but by the way your brain processes the world.”

“Now go ahead and tell me how the real you looks. Can you? Like the depth of the ocean, the real you is something you’ve never seen. Like radio waves, you don’t have the instrument to perceive it.

More importantly, because of its nonphysical nature, it is not to be seen. Being seen is a characteristic only of the physical world.”

“Now please consider the following: How different is your life on this earth from a video game?

If your physical form — the avatar you use to navigate the physical world — is not the real you, then what difference does it make if you face a few challenges on the way?”

“Once the thought goes, the suffering disappears!

When a rude person offends you, he can’t really make you unhappy, unless you turn the event into a thought, then allow it to linger in your brain, and then allow it to distress you.

It’s the thought, not the actual event, that’s making you unhappy.”

“Once when Aya was around five, she was crying while I was deeply engaged trying to explain to her why she shouldn’t cry about the issue that had upset her.

In the cutest way she looked at me with tears in her eyes and said: Papa, when I’m crying don’t talk to me about the things that make me cry. If you want to make me happy, just tickle me.”

“One day I realized that control is not to be gained at the micro level of every detail. It is not to be found in what I need to do, but rather in how I need to do every little thing I do.”

“Others will rarely ever approve of your ego because they are more concerned with their own ego than with yours.”

“Our brains replay every painful memory from the past and every possible scary scenario from the future over and over, just like a complex computer simulation, in an attempt to scare us away from threats before they can happen and regardless of the probability of their happening at all.”

“Our expectation that others will buy into our fake image is never satisfied – and we feel unhappy.”

“Our universe is the product of masterful design. The designer doesn’t run the show; the equations he designed do.”

“Parental or societal pressure, belief systems, and unwarranted expectations come along and overwrite some of the original programming. The 'you' who started out happily cooing in your crib, playing with your toes, gets caught up in a flurry of misconceptions and illusions.

Happiness becomes a mysterious goal you seek but can’t quite grasp, rather than something simply there for you each morning when you open your eyes.”

“Please stop looking at what you don’t have. What you don’t have is infinite. Making that your reference point is a sure recipe for disappointment.”

“Strive to achieve your goals knowing that the results are impossible to predict. When something unexpected happens, the detachment concept tells us to accept the new direction and try again.”

“Success is not an essential prerequisite to happiness.”

“The “mo’ money” I made, the more miserable I became. Which led me to simply work harder and buy more toys on the misguided assumption that, sooner or later, all this effort was going to pay off and I’d find the pot of gold—happiness—thought to lie at the end of the high-achievement rainbow.

I’d become a hamster on what psychologists call the 'hedonic treadmill'. The more you get, the more you want. The more you strive, the more reasons you discover for striving.”

“The egoless child is still calmly sitting inside each of us. Buried in layers over layers of lies, egos, and personas. Happy nonetheless. Waiting to be found.”