“Happiness” is the Default Setting: Logic of Happiness Told by Former Google X Executive

Are you happy now?

If you cannot answer “Yes” immediately, it is not because something is missing in your life. There might just be a bug in your “happiness calculation formula”.

Mo Gawdat, former Chief Business Officer of Google X, is known for his logical thinking as an engineer. He overcame the huge tragedy of losing his beloved son Ali due to a medical error, and thoroughly analyzed and elucidated “happiness”.

His message is shocking. “You don’t need to achieve anything to be happy. You just need to stop being unhappy.”

1. The Illusion Called Success

At the age of 29, Mo Gawdat had everything. The most beautiful wife in the world, wonderful children, a mansion with a pool, and a stock trading system that could print money with the push of a button.

However, he was “clinically depressed”.

I had 16 cars. 16 cars lined up in the garage. But I can only drive one of them at a time. The remaining 15 were just burdens. I had to manage so the battery wouldn’t die, get them inspected, and dust them off.

And when I was actually driving, what do you think I was looking at? The road. It was so meaningless that I forgot which car I was in.

We are made to believe that “if we get something, we can be happy”. We thought we would be happy if we earned 100 pounds a week, but the moment we got it, we thought “No, I need 200 pounds”. And mortgages, higher status, more expensive cars…

In this endless competition, we are wasting the most precious currency. That is the “heartbeat”.

2. Currency of Life: 2 Billion Heartbeats

It is said that the number of heartbeats a human can use in a lifetime is about 2 billion. We continue to use this finite asset at a pace of 60 times per second.

At one point, Mo was pointed out by a mathematician friend.

“I calculated it, and you spend 62% of your life alone.”

As a Google X executive, he flew around the world and faced spreadsheets and presentation materials alone in hotel rooms every day. He was selling his time with family, time with children, that is, “heartbeats”, in exchange for “success”.

Please look back on your memories. Is it the PowerPoint slide that remains in your heart? Or is it the moment you connected with someone?

At the end of life, no one thinks “I should have worked more”. They think “I should have used more heartbeats for time with loved ones”. Wasting heartbeats for success and leaving only emptiness. He says it feels like being scammed.

3. “Happiness” is the Default Setting

So how can we be happy? Mo’s answer is simple.

“You don’t need to do anything to be happy. Just stop being unhappy.”

Look at a newborn baby. They are happy by default. Peaceful and satisfied. They only cry when their diaper is wet, they are hungry, or something is wrong. It is an “alarm”, not their original state. If the diaper is changed, they immediately return to the default “happiness”.

We are the same. Happiness is there from the beginning. However, as we grow up, various “conditions” are implanted by society, education, and parents. “Must get good grades”, “Must go to a good university”, “Must get married”, “Must succeed”… These conditions cover up our default happiness.

And the mistake many people fall into is confusing “excitement” with happiness. Making noise at a party, riding a roller coaster. This is a temporary dopamine spike and is different from true happiness.

Happiness is a calm and peaceful sense of satisfaction.
The quiet state of feeling “I am fine as I am” and “I want this moment to continue” is true happiness.

4. Happiness Equation: H ≥ e – E

Engineer Mo Gawdat defined happiness with a mathematical formula.

Happiness ≥ Events – Expectations

We feel unhappy only when the “event” that actually happened falls below our “expectation”.

For example, suppose a friend didn’t celebrate your birthday. If you have an expectation that “they should celebrate”, you will be unhappy. However, if you don’t expect it, thinking “everyone is busy”, you won’t mind. Rather, if someone gives you a small message, your happiness level jumps up.

If you buy an Aston Martin expecting “it is a perfect car”, you will be unhappy just noticing a small fray in the seat stitching. However, if you think “it’s just a car, there is no perfect thing”, you can purely enjoy driving it.

The important thing is that the “event” itself is always neutral. When it rains, do you think “it’s the worst” or “it’s a blessing rain”? It is just a “meaning” that our brain arbitrarily makes.

5. Death of Beloved Son Ali and Ultimate Acceptance

How does this happiness equation work when faced with the greatest tragedy in life?

In 2014, Mo’s beloved son Ali lost his life due to 5 overlapping medical errors during a simple procedure of appendicitis surgery. He was 21 years old.

Ordinary parents would sue the doctor, hate the hospital, and mourn for a lifetime. Society also accepts it as a “natural reaction”. But Mo was different.

He returned to the equation.

• Event: Ali died. He will never return.
• Expectation: Should I have protected my child as a parent? Should the doctor have been perfect?

He asked himself. “If I sue the doctor, will Ali come back?” The answer is No. “If I spend my whole life crying, will the situation get better?” No.

He clearly distinguished between “Pain” and “Suffering”.

Pain is unavoidable. The feeling of loss of losing a loved one, physical pain. This is a natural reaction as a human and also training for growth. He still cries every day. The pain of missing his son does not disappear.

But Suffering is a choice. Continuing to replay past events in your head saying “Why did that happen”, “I can’t forgive”, “If only I had done this at that time”. This is suffering.

6. Cancel “Unhappiness Netflix”

According to brain scientist Jill Bolte Taylor, the time physiological emotions such as anger and sadness run through the body is only 90 seconds. Anger and sadness that last longer than that are all reproduced by your own brain.

Let’s say someone said something nasty to you at 4 pm on Friday. On Saturday morning, you wake up and are in a comfortable bed, but order in your brain: ‘Play the clip from 4 pm yesterday’.

I call this ‘Unhappiness Netflix’. It is a system where you can be unhappy on demand.

We try to live the past that has ended (Friday afternoon) at the expense of peace at this moment (Saturday morning). This is like watching a horror movie willingly and screaming “scary, painful”.

You have the remote control. If an unpleasant program is playing, you can pick up the remote control yourself and change it to another program.

7. Physics of Death and Perspective as an “Observer”

Mo also re-perceived his son Ali’s death from the perspective of physics. According to Einstein’s theory of relativity, time does not flow linearly from past to future, but already exists as a single block called “space-time”.

Just as we inside a studio cannot see the entire studio, we inside time cannot see the entire picture of time. Being able to recognize time means that our essence is “outside” time.

If our essence is outside of time, life and death are not conflicting things.

The opposite of death is not “life”, but “birth”.
Birth is the entrance, death is the exit. The process between them is “life”. And consciousness continues to exist before and after that.

The physical shape called Ali is gone, but the essence called Ali has not disappeared. Mo says. “I still talk to Ali. He has changed form and is still by my side now.”

8. “Meaning” and Control of “Attention”

From the story so far, one powerful truth becomes visible.
That positive or negative does not exist in reality (event) itself.

When stuck in traffic, we can give it a meaning as “cause of being late (bad thing)” or “time to listen to an audiobook (good thing)”.
The world changes its appearance freely depending on how you interpret it.

And the key to that is “control of attention”.

Your life is the sum of what you paid “attention” to.
Do you pay attention to dissatisfaction, lack, and evaluation of others and spend precious time?
Or do you pay attention to the abundance, beauty, and connection with loved ones that exist now?

What do you invest 2 billion heartbeats in? It is determined by the choice of each moment of “where to pay attention”.

9. Action Plan: Go to the Happiness Gym

Finally, a concrete action plan. Mo says. “If you want to be happy, go to the happiness gym.”

Just as you go to the gym to train your body, you need training to make your brain happy.

1. Notice: When a negative emotion wells up, notice “Ah, I am about to watch Unhappiness Netflix.”
2. Ask: Ask “Is that true?” to that unpleasant thought. The brain lies calmly. “He hates me”, “I am a useless person”. Is that a fact? Is there evidence?
3. Replace: Replace negative thoughts with more useful thoughts. Not “It’s the worst because of traffic jam”, but “I got time to listen to a podcast”.

Just by consciously doing this 3-4 times a week, the neural circuits of the brain are rewritten. Happiness is not “luck”, but “skill”.

Today is the first day of the rest of your life. Do you use precious heartbeats for hatred towards someone or regret of the past? Or do you use them for the scent of coffee in front of you or a hug with a loved one?

The right to choose is always with you.