book summary of ” The Art of The Good Life ” by Rolf Dobelli

i-dev Software Group
6 min readJan 3, 2022

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3 January 2022

book summary of “ The Art of The Good Life ” by Rolf Dobelli

Rolf Dobelli also wrote this book in a style and framework similar to his previous book ”The Art of Clear Thinking”, which is short and fluent in the psychology of everyday life. In many ways, the book looks like the first book, The Art of Clear Thinking. In the first book, the author has tried to show cognitive errors and in the second book, solutions for a good life.

Rolf Dobelli says:

After writing “The Art of Clear Thinking”, I realized that our brains do not work properly. When it comes to good life, we often make mistakes, and I wanted to do more research.

“ The Art of The Good Life” is full of shocking and memorable sentences and anecdotes, and you can start reading anywhere. In The Art of Living Well, we come across summaries of a number of popular books on psychology, decision making, and behavioral economics that have become more readable and engaging, along with some examples of the day. The book recounts the careers of Daniel Kahneman, Richard Tyler, David Brooks, and Paul Dolan. This book is one of the relics that you can understand the general meaning and concept of the book from any part you start reading and you will not feel the need to start reading from the first chapter of the book and its beginning.

Why should we read this book?

The strategies in this book for improving the quality of life are not surprising and strange. merely reading them will not change your life and you will not become someone else. You may be aware of these shortcuts yourself. But the problem is that you decide to use these shortcuts consciously. The author says that the human brain has developed at a slower pace than the modernization of human life, and this has led to countless errors in human life. Living well has a deep and broad meaning that varies from culture to culture. Various factors affect human happiness, having good friends, successful social relationships, good income, setting goals in life and achieving it, and can make people feel happy and joyful.

We are constantly striving for a single principle, a single belief and a single law. While such an easy path to happiness does not exist externally. According to the author, in this book, he does not tell us what a good life is, but tries to tell us what a good life is not. In The Art of The Good Life, Rolf Dobelli helps the reader come to the realization that what is needed for a good life, in the term living well, is within us.

Who is the author?

Who is the author?

Rolf Dobelli is one of the founders of getAbstract. A company that bases its revenue model on summary presentation, and by the way, you can feel the spirit of book review providers well wherever Dubli writes. Born in 1966, he is a Swiss writer, novelist and entrepreneur. He holds an MBA and a PhD in Philosophy in Economics from St. Gallen University in Switzerland.

He achieved great fame by writing the book The Art of Clear Thinking. With this work, he is at the top of the best-selling table of works on psychology and life management in the global book market. Rolf Dobelli has the extraordinary ability to present new scientific perspectives in an inspiring and exciting way.

Rolf Dobelli was invited to an informal exchange of views in Munich in the fall of 2004. In this meeting, he got acquainted with the famous statistician and analyst, Nasim Nicholas Talib. Nasim Talib is the author of the famous book Black Strong, whose work focuses on the issues of randomness, probability and uncertainty. Dobelli says meeting the Taliban and learning about his views made him eager to discover and learn about the issue of mistakes and initiatives. As a student of psychology and social sciences, he began to study and research, which resulted in writing “The Art of Clear Thinking”. However, many authors around the world believe that Rolf Dobelli used their works in his book without mentioning the source.

What are the most important points of the book?

What are the most important points of the book?

In the following, we will briefly review some of the most important key points that the book emphasizes and is the main focus of the book:

  • Changes in beliefs and views on topics in life are seen in most sections of the book, and perhaps this is the most important goal of the book.
  • Correction is a permanent part of life and the key to survival. Instead of dwelling on the basics of life and taking the time to find a perfect starting point, make just a few minor adjustments to where you are.
  • Lack of flexibility and rigor towards the principles and do’s and don’ts, which in itself has the important concept of not saying and leaving out unnecessary things, is one of the important concepts of the book, which the author emphasizes at the beginning of the book, which seeks to Tell us what a good life is not!
  • The recording of analyzes and reasons for decisions facilitates the processing of results after the decision.
  • Spend enough time on technology and eliminate it when it just wastes time. Many of the tools at our disposal are more troublesome than helpful. We have to be careful of things that are supposed to buy us time but waste our time.
  • Not all results are 100% based on your efforts, the role of external factors, luck and genes should not be ignored. Many of your possessions have not been obtained through your efforts. Know that not all your desires are going to be satisfied because there are so many things happening that are out of your control.
  • The important point that was made in the book Clear Thinking is that the importance of talents in the path you choose is very great, you may like many things that you do not have the talent and ability to do, and this It is a great obstacle to failure.
  • The good news is that you can change yourself, and the bad news is that you can not make the slightest change in others. Avoid situations where you have to change others.
  • Define your goals quantitatively, clearly and achievably. And take the next step, the important point the author emphasizes is that many valuable experiences are gained while acting, and over-thinking and researching to the point where it prevents you from acting is wrong.
  • Success depends on your thoughts, not your assets. Do not underestimate yourself and know that a strong mind has the ability to overcome many difficult situations, if there are bad things today that you have not experienced, it means that one day you were the one who caused them not to happen. What needs to happen to live well is in our minds.

The following points show that the author is increasingly seeking to achieve the main title of the book, “living well” and the quality of life of the reader is important along with the points mentioned earlier, these points may They can not guarantee a good life, but at least they give you a better chance of achieving it:

  • Live in the moment and do not think about death and the moment of death.
  • In life, do not care about the satisfaction and pleasure of others, what matters is your own satisfaction.
  • Skip a lot of things because the world is not a world of justice and accept many inequalities.
  • The importance of allocating material costs to gain experience is much higher than the cost of objects.
  • Emphasize the strengths and focus on them instead of focusing on the weaknesses.
  • Steadfastness brings far different and more effective results than constant change.

The book is full of points and details that every human being has with them in their daily life and it is not possible to provide a comprehensive and practical summary to the extent that it is a substitute for reading a book. He considered the book to be one of those books that if you start reading it, you will not be able to get rid of it for a while, and you may need to refer to it several times and remind yourself of its points, without a doubt reading the book that all Its purpose is to improve the life of the reader and it has a completely practical aspect. It is different from a story book and it is expected to accompany the reader for a longer period of time and to have far more effects in the life of the reader.

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