(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
The Swiss self-help book Rolf Dobelli's third self-help book has just been published by the German publisher Piper. Previously, he has written bestsellers on the art of thinking clearly (2011) and the art of acting wisely (2012). This year's book has been named The Art of Good Life - "The Art of Having a Good Life" – with the subtitle "52 Surprising Paths to Happiness".
Dobelli's method is negative: It is far easier to say what makes us unhappy than to positively decide what happiness is. Wisdom consists of avoiding difficulties, and the book's 52 chapters present just as many mental exercises that will steer us away from the dead ends.
To be happy, we need to develop an immune system where the economic virus does not penetrate – a "circle of values".
Happiness does not exist in relying on emotions, the author believes – because by studying one's own inner states one only ends up in a hammock of moods, thoughts and mood swings. Other people's feelings should be taken more seriously, according to the Swiss. Decisions made on an emotional basis often lead one astray. Psychologist and Nobel Prize winner in economics Daniel Kahneman has argued that we are subject to a "focus illusion" when we overestimate the aspect we are currently concerned with and disregard for everyone else. We dream of the South when it is winter and cold at home in Norway: Life had been better in Florida, we think, and forget the similarities between the two places. Dobelli himself lived in Miami for ten years without being happier there than in winter-cold Switzerland; in Miami, too, he had to shop for food, drive to work and wash clothes. Complicated questions cannot be decided on the basis of one-dimensional affect. Life is not easy.
We are deceived. The memory has no concept of time – therefore we must distrust our positive notions of the past. You experienced something nice many years ago and want to repeat the experience – but are disappointed. The reason lies structurally in the way we remember: We are systematically improved. Here Dobelli builds on both Kahneman and recent brain research.
Modern man is trying to navigate an incomprehensible world with a Stone Age brain. Back then, it was important to notice changes in the environment: spotting a snake could mean life or death. Now, however, we must be just as careful with the intake of information as with the intake of food and drugs, according to Dobelli. Most things are irrelevant to a happy life: 90 percent of what you and others come up with is bull-
shit.
In adolescence, one must admittedly test out different possibilities, and one should read a lot, scattered and varied. But then there should be a stop: the time has come to bet where one is best. Even the literature should be set aside. Dobelli, now 50, is limited to reading ten books a year. On the other hand, he reads these twice – and with far more dividends the second time.
The Swiss encourage us to create our own circle of dignity – where we hold on to some inviolable values. It now trades in everything from body parts to surrogate mothers, and is increasingly being subject to the commodity market. Dobelli mentions a woman who received 10 dollars for tattooing an advertisement on her forehead – this is how she financed her child's education. But to be happy, we must develop an immune system where the economic virus does not penetrate – a "circle of dignity".
Dobelli himself was offered a million euros by a wealthy businessman to write the latter's biography. He refused because he thought it was outside his area of competence. Abilities cannot be transferred from one field to another, they are area-specific, the author believes. A surgeon does not necessarily become a good hospital director, or a businessman a good head of state. But Dobelli's discussion of the transfer value of competence is poor. The wisdom of life he wants to share must also apply outside the business environment he himself comes from.
Long-term value investors such as Warren Buffet and Charles Munger, recent cognitive psychology and stoic philosophy are among Dobelli's most important sources of inspiration. The Stoic tradition from Seneca, Epictetus and Markus Aurelius is the only philosophical direction that provides practical answers to everyday life questions, the author believes.
What we are good at. One problem Dobelli does not take into account is that much of the art of living is embodied in rules that may apply in one particular situation, but not in others. "Do not postpone until tomorrow what you can do today" – sometimes this may be true, but like John Perry's little book The art of procrastination shows, many problems can be solved precisely by postponing them: then they tend to disappear by themselves. The problem is knowing which women's advice to help in each case. Maybe Dobelli had actually written a good biography? When you are both a self-help essayist and a novelist – why not try a genre that is similar?
Dobelli believes we should spend our time on what we are good at, rather than what we master poorly. "You should invest within your area of expertise, everything else is a wrong investment," he writes. The term circle of competence has Botelli from Warren Buffet, to whom the author refers a lot. One should therefore stick to one's reading, and not underestimate the long-term perspective. Perseverance and perseverance are values Dobelli sets against contemporary restlessness.
We should be just as careful with the intake of information as with the intake of food and medication.
Above a certain income, the quality of life does not increase with a higher salary – but envy drives the irrational economic race forward: There is always someone who has a nicer apartment or earns more than oneself. In order to be happy, one must consequently stop comparing oneself with others. This is difficult in our time, where we have more to measure ourselves against than ever before. The author warns against click tyranny on social media and advises us not to google ourselves.
To learn gratitude, it is important to "think away" what you have, Dobelli believes. Such an ascetic thought experiment prepares one for the worst. All external goods are perishable, and mental exercises make one independent of the world. The social is not considered a real source of happiness. Examples of the good life are paradoxically taken from people who have been in prison, concentration camps or captivity. The only thing you can not be deprived of is the awareness and attitude you have. Happiness does not exist in the social status or size of the bank account, but in our "mental fortress".
Stoicism. In Dobelli, the individual appears as detached from the rest of society, surrounded by evil forces that must be freed from. In such individualism, collective forces are somewhat negative. Admittedly, the individual must also combat his self-obsession and the tendency to overestimate his own significance. In a historical context, we are nothing. And most of what we take credit for is due to heritage, environment and coincidences.
Stoicism was founded by Zeno around the year 300 BC, and was the prevailing ideology for the next 500 years. People in the Roman Empire sought refuge in the teachings of the Stoics from a hostile and indifferent world where local affiliation was weakened. In this sense, the ideology also fits into the confusing and globalized world of today, and this book is indirectly an important state report on how things are in today's Europe and the United States.
A common critique of Stoicism is that it ignores Aristotle's understanding of man as a social being. Stoic morality is based on the fact that man has become so isolated from society that he does not understand what holds this together. Instead of fighting injustice, one must reconcile with it – for such is life. Dobelli consequently lands on Voltaire's advice from the end Candid: Grow your garden.
We must accept changes such as the change in the seasons of nature, the Stoics believed. Stay away from what you can do nothing with! The moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre has described Stoicism as the result of a society that no longer strives for any common good; thus one returns to the will of the individual.
Secularized Swiss Protestant. Dobelli lacks critical perspectives on the stoicism he professes. He does emphasize that Stoicism arose before "Christianity obscured the European spirit and delegated responsibility for its own life to a fiction (God)". But this is also where his historical reflections on ideas stop.
Doing politics is like drilling hard, wrote Max Weber in one of his latest essays. Of course, life must be lived regardless of political systems and priorities. Society can be difficult to change, and one often sees little effect of one's own efforts. Dobelli's main problem in The Art of Good Life is that he becomes political against his will: Happiness through withdrawal from society combined with Warren Buffett's financial investment ideals applied to private life gives in many ways an unappetizing image of a secularized Swiss Protestant writer with Zwingli and Calvin in the backbone without him even realizing it.
