The notion that life is easy is a trap into which all of us stray from time to time. When we’re young, especially, but not only then. The good life is no trivial task. Even intelligent people don’t often manage it. Why not?
We’ve created a world we no longer understand. A world in which our intuition is no longer a reliable compass. A world full of complexity and instability. We attempt to navigate this opaque environment using a brain built for something else entirely—for the world of the Stone Age. Evolution hasn’t been able to keep pace with the rapid development of civilization. While our surroundings have altered dramatically over the past ten thousand years, the software and hardware of our inner world, the human brain, has remained unchanged since mammoths grazed the Earth. Viewed from that perspective, it’s not surprising we commit systematic errors in both abstract thought and in the concrete way we live our lives.
That’s why it’s essential to keep a box of mental tools close at hand, something you can turn to again and again. Mental tools make it possible to see the world more objectively and act sensibly in the long-term. As we take possession of these tools through daily practice, we gradually change and improve the structure of our brain. Often termed heuristics in the parlance of psychology, these models don’t guarantee you a good life. But, on average, they will help you to act better and make better decisions than if you were relying on your intuition alone. I’m convinced that intellectual tools are more important than money, more important than relationships, more important even than intelligence.
Since I started writing about the good life, people have been asking me: What exactly is it, then? What’s the definition? My answer: I don’t know. My approach resembles the negative theology of the Middle Ages. To the question of who or what is God, the theologians answered: it cannot be said precisely what God is, it can only be said what God isn’t. The same goes for the good life. You can’t say exactly what the good life is, but you can safely say what it’s not. If you’re not leading a good life, you’ll know it. If one of your friends doesn’t have a good life, you’ll know it. Many readers are bothered by the fact that although I’m writing about the good life I don’t offer a definition. But frankly, I don’t see the point. As Richard Feynman said, “You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you’re finished, you’ll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird… So let’s look at the bird and see what it’s doing—that’s what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.”
Where do the fifty-two mental tools in this book come from? I drew on three main sources. The first is psychological research from the last forty years. This includes mental psychology, social psychology, research into happiness, into heuristics and biases, behavioral economics, and a few approaches from clinical psychology, in particular cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which has proved successful.
My second source was Stoicism, a highly practical philosophy that originated in Ancient Greece and blossomed in the Roman Empire in the second century A.D. The biggest names among the Stoics are Zeno (the school’s founder), Chrysippus (the most important representative of Stoicism in Ancient Greece), Seneca (who strikes me as the Charlie Munger of ancient Rome), Musonius Rufus (a successful teacher periodically banished by Nero), Epictetus (Rufus’s pupil and a former slave), and the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius. Sadly, the influence of the Stoics vanished with the collapse of the Roman Empire, and Stoicism has never fully recovered. Over the last 1,800 years, it’s been insider’s knowledge for people seeking a philosophy for practical living.
The Stoics laid great emphasis on practical exercises, such as those I’ve suggested here, and on maxims. Maxims are valuable because they’re accessible, guarding us against carelessness like police tape. At the risk of appearing simplistic, I’ve allowed myself to add a few maxims of my own to the ones I’ve quoted here.
My third source was a long tradition of investment literature. Warren Buffett and his business partner, Charlie Munger, are two of the most successful value investors in the world and considered (not just by me) some of the greatest thinkers of our century. For this reason I’ve taken the liberty of quoting them often. Inventors are especially eager to comprehend the opaque world. Despite everything they don’t know, they feel compelled to guess the future as best they can, and the results are reflected in profit or loss. This is why investors since Benjamin Graham have been intent on viewing the world as objectively as possible, and finding intellectual approaches that protect them from impulsive decisions. Over the past hundred years, they have developed a highly workable set of mental tools that are relevant far beyond the world of money. It’s startling how much life wisdom can be gleaned from the maxims and approaches of value investors.
These three sources—modern psychology, Stoicism and the philosophy of value investing—complement each other perfectly. So perfectly that one might think they came from a single source. Yet they emerged totally independently. There aren’t many eureka moments in life, but that was one of my biggest: when I realized how seamlessly and smoothly these three cogs fit together.
Four final observations. First: there are more than fifty-two mental tools. I picked fifty-two because this book has much in common with my previous books The Art of Thinking Clearly and The Art of Acting Wisely, which (in the original German editions) both contain fifty-two chapters. Those were about cognitive errors; this is about tools. And you’ll be well served with these fifty-two. Depending on the situation, you’ll need two simultaneously, or three at the most.
Second: many of the foregoing chapters first appeared as newspaper columns in Switzerland and Germany. Columns are obliged to be brief and snappy. That’s why the notes and sources aren’t in the main text but in the Appendix.
Third: for the sake of simplicity, I’ve primarily used male pronouns throughout the book, although of course both men and women are intended. Underestimating women is definitely the wrong recipe for a good life.
Four: for all the mistakes and omissions in this book, I and I alone am responsible.
—Rolf Dobelli, Bern, Switzerland, 2017