Suman Saha's Key Ideas from The Happiness Equation
by Neil Pasricha

To be happy now - 

1. Three Walk: half an hour walk three times a week.
2. The 20-minute replay: Imagine a past happy moment, revisit the event.
3. Random Acts of Kindness
4. A complete Unplug (from the digital world)
5. Hit Flow: Set your work in such a way that the difficulty of it just exceeds your current skill level.
6. 2 minutes Meditations: Just observe your breath for 2 minutes
7. Five Gratitudes

Everything that you do, you should do it for you or for your happiness (sometimes helping others also give happiness to us)

Don't set goals. Because if you set goals and then achieve them you again set another one and you fall into a trap of endless goals.

So, try to do the small things which will improve your life and find happiness in each moment.

"Our problem-scanning machine spends its day looking for worries. It’s helpful when you’re in serious trouble but stressful when you’re not. On top of that, we’re living in a Culture of More versus a Culture of Enough. Everywhere we look, we are reminded of what else we need. You can move to a shack in the woods to get away from it all! But we’d miss you too much there. Please don’t do that."

Always remember how lucky you are to be where you are. Remember you have enough! Remember more isn’t always better.

Remember the lottery.

Remember that retirement is not always the key to happiness. It's more important that you remember your IKIGAY (the reason for waking up in the morning) and remain active for the rest of your life.

In a week you have a total of 168 hours - divide it into 3 buckets - 56 hours each. 1st bucket is for sleep (8 hours/ day), the next 56 hours is for your work life, and the remaining time is your purpose full work which will make you happy.  

The way you spend your time is more important than how much money you earn in a week or month.

Money is not the key to happiness, but it is needed to going through life just like you need fuel for your car to go from one destination to another... money is just that fuel in life.

In order to reduce stress in your life and enjoy the things that really matter you have to give yourself enough time and ensure that you have less to choose from.

• Automate the tasks which have low importance and take less time. 
• The tasks which have high importance but take less time - just do those tasks then! 
• Regulate or set time for those tasks which are less important but take more time.
• That tasks which have high importance and take much time - discuss it with someone.

It's important that you break the barriers to do the things you love most but it seems scary to you.

Just try this cycle: Just Do that task --> then it feels you can do --> then you will feel to do that again --> do the task...

Be yourself! The Authentic YOU! The most important thing in life is the relationship with yourself - not with another person.

You can’t be yourself until you hold a high opinion of yourself and others.

What do you do on a Saturday morning when you have nothing to do?

Your authentic self should go toward that . . .

Be confident in your thoughts and emotions - ensuring that you don't live a life of others' opinions.

“You make up your own mind. My advice is to become creatively indifferent to all advice. Hear it, but decide what to do yourself.” ...."Don’t take advice."