Very interesting book, as per the title, it is about happiness and how to get there. There is a significant focus in Buddhism and Stoicism, as these philosophies started to look at this “problem” a long time a go and can help us to understand it. Both are focus in the individual and mainly in your interior. You only control your opinions and actions. You can’t control anything outside your skin, and if you try, you are doomed. Stoicism is something that really resonates with me and is giving me a lot of support.
The core of the book is the concept of the elephant and the rider inside your mind. We think the rider is in charge, but it is the elephant. The goal is how to guide the elephant for the correct path. The elephant is our “animal” past and it was been there for a long time so it requires a lot of touch to dominate it.
But the author says that not all happiness is in the individual. Human beings are social creatures so we that connection too as par of the happiness. And we need also espiritual happiness.
At the end, he says this is ying-yang and there is no perfect solution, it is just finding the balance.
To be honest, I think I have done a shitty summary of the book. It needs more credit.