This book sits at the intersection of psychology and philosophy and is a gem of non-fiction, wrapped in humor and written with a delightful twinkle of the eye. If you enjoy audiobooks as much as I do, the version narrated by the author himself is a treat – his self-ironic tone adds an extra layer of enjoyment.

What will you find inside? Multiple perspectives on how we define and perceive happiness. Reasons to question your assumptions about what you think you need to be happy. Reflections on whether that’s even the right question to ask (do we even need a spoiler alert here?). And, as a bonus, all the jokes only psychologists tell – rare enough to treasure according to the author, so let’s cherish all the two of them!

Several insights in particular keep drawing me back:

It’ll be just fine! Or The Psychological Immune System.
We are far better at recovering from setbacks than we think. When negative events happen, our minds get to work: we rationalize, we reframe, we adapt, we invent explanations – we essentially “backward-engineer” our way into making sense of what happened. The net effect? When the rubber meets the road, things are almost never as devastating as we had feared, and I often keep reminding myself of this before taking a left or right turn at metaphorical crossroads.

There’s a quote often attributed to Mark Twain that captures it perfectly:
“My life has been full of terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened.”

Look outside! Or Surrogation.
We often hear advice like “trust your feelings” – as if tuning into our inner voice is the most reliable guide to future happiness. But Gilbert brings this into a different perspective. One of the best predictors of how you will actually feel about a choice is not your imagination, but the real experiences of people who have already walked that path. Their lived reality is often more accurate than your mental simulation, which is inevitably biased by presentism (overvaluing your current circumstances) and the blind spots of memory and imagination.

It’s a humbling reminder: sometimes the wisest move is simply to look around and learn from those who are already living the future you’re trying to picture. To make it very tangible: we don’t need to step out of the window to test gravity, the examples starting with Icarus are plenty enough.

Time travel does exist! Or Future Selves.
One of Gilbert’s central ideas is that our present self is constantly trying to predict what our future self will want – and often getting it wrong. Our future selves end up solving the problems our past selves created. Think of the 40-year-old paying to undo the tattoos their 20-year-old once paid a lot of money to get.

That thought reminded me of a Tim Ferriss podcast episode with the incredible Elizabeth Gilbert (no relation, but there might be some magic in the name), who also speaks about the conversation between our present and future selves in the context of creativity. Sometimes it means doing something mundane today – like tidying up notes or checking citations – so that your future self will thank you. At the moment, it feels tedious and even makes you wish to crave doing taxes instead or pray “Dear God, let me watch some paint dry!”, but later you realize it was a gift. More to the point, not just a gift, but a gift you gave yourself.

For me, this is a great question to bring perspective: “Will my future self be happier with me making this choice?” And when it is, I’m happy to engage in this intertemporal communication and shout out: “Hey buddy, thanks for taking care! High five!”