Introduction

• <!--[if !supportLists]--> <!--[endif]-->Aristotle, more than anything else, men and women seek happiness
• <!--[if !supportLists]--> <!--[endif]-->In spite of all advancement, people often end up feeling that their lives have been wasted, that instead of being filled with happiness their years were spent in anxiety and boredom
• <!--[if !supportLists]--> <!--[endif]-->Happiness, in fact, is a condition that must be prepared for, cultivated, and defended privately by each person. People who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their live, which is as close as any of us can come to being happy.
• <!--[if !supportLists]--> <!--[endif]-->“Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so” – J. S. Mill
• <!--[if !supportLists]--> <!--[endif]-->“Don’t aim at success – the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue… as the unintended side-effect of one’s personal dedication to a course greater than oneself” – Viktor Frankl (Austrian psychologist), Man’s search for meaning
• <!--[if !supportLists]--> <!--[endif]-->Flow – the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.
• <!--[if !supportLists]--> <!--[endif]-->Optimal experience – the feeling when we are in control of our own actions that produces a deep sense of enjoyment that is long cherished and that becomes a landmark in memory for what life should be like.

Overview

• <!--[if !supportLists]--> <!--[endif]-->The primary reason why happiness is difficult is the myth that the universe was created to answer our needs. Frustration is deeply woven into the fabric of life.
• <!--[if !supportLists]--> <!--[endif]-->The second reason why happiness is difficult is chronic dissatisfaction.
• <!--[if !supportLists]--> <!--[endif]-->All cultures develop protective devices like religion, philosophy, arts and comforts. Those that seek happiness without faith take the paths of wealth, power and sex. Only direct control of experience, the ability to derive moment-by-moment enjoyment from everything we do, can overcome the obstacles to fulfillment.

The roots of discontent

• <!--[if !supportLists]--> <!--[endif]-->universe wasn’t built for human comfort
• <!--[if !supportLists]--> <!--[endif]-->“The universe is not hostile, nor yet is it friendly, it is simply indifferent” – J. H. Holmes
• <!--[if !supportLists]--> <!--[endif]-->“No great improvements in the lot of mankind are possible, until a great change takes place in the fundamental constitution of their modes of thought.” – J. S. Mill
• <!--[if !supportLists]--> <!--[endif]-->People forfeit their chance for contentment when they fixate themselves on the goal and stop deriving pleasure from its pursuit.
• <!--[if !supportLists]--> <!--[endif]-->Happy people are in control of their lives.

The shields of culture

• <!--[if !supportLists]--> <!--[endif]-->A shield is needed because of the awareness of human isolation in the universe and of the precariousness o fits hold on survival.
• <!--[if !supportLists]--> <!--[endif]-->The lack of inner order manifests itself in the subjective condition that some call ontological anxiety, or existential dread.
• <!--[if !supportLists]--> <!--[endif]-->The shields that have worked in that past – the order that religion, patriotism, ethnic traditions, and habits instilled by social classes used to provide – are no longer effective for increasing numbers of people who feel exposed to the harsh winds of chaos
• <!--[if !supportLists]--> <!--[endif]-->In the meantime, those who seek consolation in existing churches often pay for their peace of mind with a tacit agreement to ignore a great deal of what is known about the way the world works.
• <!--[if !supportLists]--> <!--[endif]-->While humankind collectively has increased its material powers a thousand fold, it has not advanced very far in terms of improving the content of experience.

Reclaiming experience

• <!--[if !supportLists]--> <!--[endif]-->There is no way out of this predicament except for an individual to take things in hand personally.
• <!--[if !supportLists]--> <!--[endif]-->To overcome the anxieties and depressions of contemporary life, individuals must become independent of the social environment to the degree that they no longer respond exclusively in terms of its rewards and punishments.
• <!--[if !supportLists]--> <!--[endif]-->Civilization is built on the repression of individual desires.
• <!--[if !supportLists]--> <!--[endif]-->A person who cannot override genetic instructions when necessary is always vulnerable.
• <!--[if !supportLists]--> <!--[endif]-->A thoroughly socialized person is one who desires only the rewards that others around him have agreed he should long for – rewards often grafted onto genetically programmed desires.
• <!--[if !supportLists]--> There is no question that to survive, and especially to survive in a complex society, it is necessary to work for external goals and to postpone immediate gratifications.
•  The solution is to gradually become free of societal rewards and learn how to substitute for them rewards that are under one's own powers.
•  The most important step in emancipating oneself from social controls is the ability to find rewards in the events of each moment.
•  We must also become independent from the dictates of the body, and learn to take charge of what happens in the mind.
•  "Men are not afriad of things, but of how they view them" - Epictetus
•  "If you are pained by external things, it is not they that disturb you, but your own judgement of them. And it is in your power to wipe out that judgement now." - Marcus Aurelius

Paths of liberation

• This simple truth - that the control of sonscioiusness determines the quality of life - has been known for a long time; in fact, for as long as human records exist.
• But the intended result is identical: to free inner life from the threat of chaos, on the one hand, and from the rigid conditioning, of biological urges, on the other, and hence to become independent from the social controls that exploit both.
• The kind of knoweledge - or wisdom - one needs for emancipating consciousness is not cumulative.
• the knowledge of how to control consciousness must be reformulated every time the cultural context changes.
• Control over consciousness cannot be institutionalized. As soon as it becomes part of a set of social rules and norms, it seases to be effective in the way it was originally intended to be.