There is a right and a wrong way of thinking about happiness. We are currently thinking about it wrongly. We believe that happiness comes from control, that, if only we get everything in our lives just right – the perfect job, relationship, family, home, body, mind, and so on – then we’d be happy. In Part I of this book – Chapters One, Two and Three – we will see why this is not true.

In Part II – Chapters Four, Five and Six – we will look at a better way of thinking about happiness. Instead of control, we will see how happiness comes from an unlikely source: understanding. Through curiosity and compassion, we can discover what we most care about and are truly capable of. We may not get everything we want, but we will remain flexible to the challenges that life throws at us and have a deeper understanding of the things that really matter.

The difference between these two ways of thinking about happiness is not arbitrary – they reflect different ways of seeing the world. The control strategy begins by seeing what is wrong with the world, how we can change it and how we can be happy as a result. In contrast, the understanding strategy begins by trying to see the world more clearly and only then acting to change it, knowing that, whatever changes we make, we are unlikely to stay happy for long.

The control strategy is about going to war with reality. According to this strategy, we know what we need to be happy – it is only reality that stands in our way. In contrast, the understanding strategy is about striving for peace with reality. According to this strategy, the world is too complex to always know what to do – with a better understanding of reality, we can respond to it more flexibly.

These different ways of viewing the world can be broken down into three parts: the outcome, the process, and the mindset. The outcome is about what we want the world to be like: how can things be different? What do we need and care about?