There are so many great books to read and from each one I have a favorite Idea. In “Solving For Happiness, by Mo Gawdat includes many bookish weapons so I am going to go e you two here. They are powerful.

First, let’s look at what you control and what you don’t control in life. That would be nice to know wouldn’t it. Then you could forget about later and focus on the former.

Solve for Happy, review by Bill Montgomery

You Don’t Control Anything, Except

Gawdat says that, “Between Black Swans and butterfly effects, nothing is under your control,” He says the only thing under your control is your actions and your attitude.

So think about that for a minute. Nothing is under your control! For some of you this is a scary thought and you will give yourself all sots of reasons why it isn’t true. Maybe you’re right, but give this some consideration. I think it is a serious weapon to have in your arsenal. It helps you focus on your attitude and your actions. Remember, nothing happens until you take action.

This morning I was climbing a mountain, as usual and I was able to get some fantastic photos. If I had not taken the action to get myself out of bed at 1:30 AM and off to the mountain there would be no outside adventure or photos.

The Interrogation – Bookish Weapon Number Three

This is really a weapon that could stand alone, but You are getting this as a bonus today. The interrogation is to be used when things are not looking so good and your mind is churning out the “what if” questions. So instead of those, ask yourself these:

What is the worst thing that can happen?
So what?
How likely is it?
Is there anything I can do now to improve this scenario?
Can I recover?
What will happen if I do nothing?
What is the best case scenario?

This is a solid way to access any potential adversity!

We have all said we were committed to something. Maybe it was to get up earlier, lose weight or even more serious, stay married to someone. Keeping commitments is another story, even the ones that are more formalized like marriage. Things get in the way, like our feelings. We just don’t feel like it. We are tired so we don’t want to get up. We just get too hungry to stay on that diet. Maybe we fell out of love so ow we don’t want to be in the marriage. Bookish weapon number two is real commitment.

Real Commitment

In his great book “The Spartan Way,” Joe DeSena gives the best explanation of real commitment I have ever read when he tells the story of Japanese Tendai Monks that in order to become a monk must walk around a mountain 200 times. A higher order has to walk it 1000 times. They have been doing this for a thousand years and the monks would carry a knife with them. If they didn’t make it they would kill themselves. There were 450 monks that attempted this and only 45 did it. The rest died. That is real commitment!

Joe says, “Commitment means that you will do what you said you were going to do, even when you don’t feel like doing it. Anything less is pointless.”

What could you accomplish if you grasped this concept and made it a part of your identity so that when you made a commitment it was in stone? I bet you would not make them so lightly. You would give them serious thought, but once you committed it would happen.

The Daily Grind

Now that you understand what real commitment is all about you can apply it every day. If you say you will meet someone at a certain time, you will be there at that time. It is a commitment. If you say you are going to put in eight hours on the job, you do it. You don’t spend half of the time scrolling Instagram.

If you decide you are going to lose weight you do it. Simple! If you decide you will exercise every day, you do it. Simple! However, as you probably already know it might be simple, but it is not easy. As Jerzy Gregory says, “Hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life.”