"The Road to Happiness" - reading notes guide to share

This text number is 4593 and the estimated reading time is 12 minutes.

The book shared today is The Road to Happiness.

The author, Bertrand Russell, graduated from Cambridge University in the United Kingdom, one of the most prominent philosophers of the 20th century, winner of the 1950 Nobel Prize in Literature, a social activist and pacifist. Representative works: "The Road to Happiness", "History of Western Philosophy", "Philosophical Problems", etc.

The Road to Happiness is Russell's classic philosophy of life exploring the problem of happiness in modern society. The whole book is concisely divided into two parts: "Causes of Unhappiness" and "Causes of Happiness", not to talk about profound philosophies and boring preaching, but to directly reflect on the negative psychological factors that most often destroy happiness in life, such as competition, fatigue, jealousy, guilt, victim delusions, etc., and directly give specific life suggestions for obtaining and enhancing happiness, such as through interest, love, family, work, leisure, etc.

1

Why aren't we happy?

For us who are office workers, we often feel anxious, we do not have extra time to carry out recreational activities, and we work either overtime or overtime every day. Getting up in the morning is also rushing to work, how to talk about happiness?

Drinking and cunning are enshrined as the method of happiness, so people drink more quickly and try to ignore their disgusting companions. After the alcohol worked, the man began to cry, complaining that he was immoral and unworthy of his mother's devotion. Alcohol helped them vent the guilt that ordinary reason had suppressed. All this unhappiness stems partly from the social system and partly from the individual psychology— of course, the individual psychology itself is largely a product of the social system. So why are we not happy?

1. Exhaustion

Our current society is developing rapidly, and there are many opportunities, but for many white-collar workers, the pressure will also become greater. Therefore, their mental stress will make them feel very tired.

For example, we used to live in the agricultural era, and the people we met were familiar to us, and with acquaintances, we would not feel nervous, we would not feel tired. But in today's industrial society, we will always meet strange people, and then our hearts will be pounding, do not know what attitude to use to deal with such strange people, we have been living in this anxiety.

For example, now we all use WeChat. The boss can find you with a WeChat and let you either do it. There are also customers will also look for you from time to time to do something, this time we will feel so tired, anxiety, fatigue ensued.

2. Annoyance

When we get a car, we want a better car, which is called "looking at the bowl and thinking about the pot." You obviously have a little benefit now, but you are not willing, you feel that you have to take more benefits, you need to pursue greater pleasure and pleasure, desire dissatisfaction, this state will make you annoyed.

People who are in a state of boredom will look for excitement, because only excitement and stimulation can fill the emptiness in their souls. There is no way for a man to develop pleasure on his own in the depths of his soul, he needs external stimulation to bring him some proper pleasure, and this is the essence of boredom.

We have entered a fast age in which all information is intended to stimulate your senses and there is no way to reach the depths of your soul. When your soul adapts to this pattern of stimulation, once these new stimuli enter your brain, your soul will enter a state of irritability.

3. Fear

Young people are always demanding innovation, and public opinion is controlled by older people. Therefore, there are always all kinds of differences of opinion between young people and older people, and young people are very afraid of being suppressed by older people, but at the same time they are afraid that because of their opinions for a long time, they will become the same people as them.

Russell believes that we live in a modern society with a high degree of production and life, so the career choice direction of young people should be much broader than that of their elders. This means that we have more opportunities to choose, for example, you can go to the outside city to work hard, find a new career, and change the small environment of your life.

When young people are looking for a job, they can't just stare at the salary, you also need to find the right one for yourself. If you just want to do a job that you don't like very much for money, the amount of happiness in your life will be greatly reduced. Conversely, if you can work with more of your peers, your happiness will rise dramatically.

The other is morbid fear. It is a masochistic mentality, or persecution paranoia, always feeling that the world is sorry for themselves, others are always ungrateful, and they are victims. This kind of thinking can greatly damage the happiness in life, so how to overcome this perverted paranoia?

First, don't overestimate your moral motives; second, don't overestimate your talents too much. This keeps your mindset balanced; third, don't expect others to pay attention to you and care about you all day long. Fourth, don't think that everyone is secretly watching you, and that you are not the focus of the world.

4. Comparison

The author describes the mental state of a white-collar worker working in a modern office. On the surface, this man was well-dressed, well-paid, had a lovely wife and lovely children, and could afford to buy a house in a big city like London. But the problem is that after he finishes eating, he still has to participate in various workplace socializing. Then I got home and took another call. After going to bed, I am still thinking about how to deal with various customers tomorrow, how to cope with the new requirements put forward by the boss, and how to complete the company's various assessment goals this year... His spirit has always been in a state of 100-meter racing, and he has no way to stop.

Why didn't he stop? Because he's in The Ratio. He was compared to his colleagues in the company. Who is the company comparing to? The company is compared to other companies. Everyone feels physically and mentally exhausted in such an inward-rolled comparison. So he's not happy. He didn't have extra time to live his life and couldn't relax. He did not live a real family life, but a purely mechanical life.

We need to aim for harmony, and if we regard the pursuit of happiness as the ultimate goal of our lives, we can even give up a lot of material pursuits and spend more time and energy to pursue spiritual fulfillment.

In fact, the root of the comparison lies in jealousy. Jealousy is a human nature. And it originated from the Western democracy of ancient Greece. For example, in ancient Greece there was the so-called "pottery banishment method". According to the pottery banishment method, if you see any person in the city-state whose intelligence, oratory power, and appeal are very outstanding, then you can write his name on a pottery tablet. If a sufficient number of such pottery pieces could be assembled, the man could be expelled from the city-state.

Why? Because people who feel that they are particularly superior in intellect and ability are naturally likely to become dictators. On the surface, this is a defense of democracy, but it is like a group of people with mediocre intelligence who pervert the law to persecute those who are more intelligent than them. Therefore, there is an intrinsic connection between the functioning of democracy and the jealousy of the wise.

Many advocates of the Western system say that the Western system is good, a free and democratic system. But the egalitarianism that democracy brings is a stifle against freedom. For egalitarianism brings jealousy, and jealousy is a great obstacle to the freedom of people with higher levels of intelligence. Jealousy is a very bad thing, so how should jealousy be treated as a disease?

First, be kind to the child, that is to say, in the education of the child, let him be less deceived by jealousy, so how to do it? For example, in families with many children, all parents have to do is not favor one over the other. If you favor one over the other, it is likely to cause psychological distortions in the less cared for child.

Second, compare less, look more. For adults, it is to see if the money you earn now can meet your current needs, and if you think more about whether the money you have on hand is enough, then your happiness will be enhanced a lot.

The author says: If you desire glory, then there is Napoleon above you, because Napoleon has more glory than you. But what is Napoleon's glory? Even if you are Napoleon, Napoleon can still be jealous of Caesar. But what about you even Caesar? Caesar was also jealous of Alexander, who felt that the ancient Alexander the Great had achieved great things in his thirties, and was more fortunate than his late self. So, let's go to Alexandria! But Alexander was not happy either, and the object of his jealousy was Hercules. Lo and behold, the object of his jealousy is completely non-existent and fictitious – there is always a jealousy for you! Is it necessary?

Third, don't be too humble. That is, people who are jealous are often too humble, and jealousy is a manifestation of inferiority. Confident people gain support points for their lives by affirming themselves. But if someone can't find a point of support for life in himself, he can only affirm himself in an aggressive way, that is, to deny others. But if we spend more effort on being kind to ourselves, be nice to ourselves, and find our own strengths. In this way, happiness can be improved for both others and for yourself, so why not enjoy it?

2

How to get happiness

What is happiness? The secret of happiness is to make your interests as wide-ranging as possible and to express more kindness, rather than hostility, to the people and things you care about. The author says that you have to cultivate interest and make your life interesting.

1. Interest

What is excitement? The best way to understand the so-called interest is to think about the different manifestations of people when they sit down to eat. Some people find eating a hassle, and no matter how beautiful the food is, they have little interest.

The author says that if we compare the various enjoyments of life to the ingredients of a dinner party, then it is obvious that different people will adopt different attitudes. You see that some people are gluttonous guests, and it is not okay not to eat until they vomit, and they eat desperately and eat desperately. What kind of person does this kind of person correspond to in the philosophy of life? They are indulgents, hedonists.

Can indulgence and hedonism make us happy? Does eating desperately at dinner make you happy? Not happy, why? For example, Tokugawa Ieyasu, who unified Japan, died because he ate too much grilled fish at one time, causing acute protein poisoning. The biggest problem with indulgents is that they invest too much in the joy of one thing, which affects the overall joy of their lives, so they may not be considered happy.

However, there are still some people who come to eat with a sense of responsibility, seeing eating as a scientific experiment, and they have to calculate how many grams of calories, how many grams of carbs, and then accidentally overdose before each meal... It's annoying.

This attitude can correspond to the ascetics in the philosophy of life. Ascetics are wary of all human desires, examining mathematically whether their actions are beyond what textbooks allow. This attitude can put you in a constant state of tension and no way to get real pleasure.

So what does the author think of happiness? It is a true foodie's pleasure. A foodie is about taking a bite of food, and then he chews the food fully and slowly, so that the food can be in close contact with his taste buds, produce rich feelings, and stimulate his brain. What are the main points of working as a foodie? He is not seeking that indulgent pleasure, he is seeking a divine pleasure. When foodies eat, they have a reverence for food, and they don't just think of food as calories like ascetics, and foodies respect food like gods.

Therefore, we need to cultivate our own interests and hobbies, if you have a variety of different hobbies, then in the face of life changes, you can activate the happiness potential of these hobbies to supplement your life energy.

Cultivating interest is very helpful in improving your happiness. What are the characteristics of interest, from a philosophical point of view, this interest is often directed at outsiders. For example, I'm interested in sports, I'm interested in collecting old money, and so on.

2. Love

Feeling that there is a lack of love is the most important reason for a person to lose interest, and in turn, having the feeling of being loved can greatly stimulate interest. In this modern era of involution, love is also a highly marginalized thing.

What is the nature of love? It is a haven to find safety. A safe haven is a place of spiritual sustenance, which is to a considerable extent the same as the cultivation of a small, harmless hobby. If my hobby is singing, then when I encounter some unsatisfactory times in my life, as soon as I start singing, my soul is laid, and this is my harbor of love.

If we forget the basic principle that love itself is a safe haven, then the meaning of love as a breeding ground for happiness is completely lost.

3. Work

We know how important it is to find a job we love. If the work is not satisfactory, the workplace is not satisfactory, the unhappiness brought to you by this will be proportionally overcame the unhappiness brought to you by the family, so you must pay attention when choosing a job.

So, how do we have fun at work? First, your work must give your skills room to play. The second is to be constructive. It's this job that makes you feel fulfilled, you can make it, and then you're happy.

So, the most annoying situation in the work is that the work you do is a small part of a very large link, you don't know what you make, and what you do makes you unable to get a sense of accomplishment, then you will feel very frustrated.

But if you can see that your work brings benefits to the company and creates value for society, then you will be grateful for happiness. Therefore, a means to improve the happiness at work is to let everyone see the finished product, and let everyone see how the finished product serves the society.