Unlock Happiness: 12 Life Lessons from Naval Ravikant's Almanack
Peace is happiness at rest. Photo by Patrick Schneider on Unsplash.
Reading time: 7 minutes
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Introduction
In today’s post, we continue to explore Eric Jorgenson’s bestselling book “The Almanack of Naval Ravikant”. Naval Ravikant, the visionary founder of AngelList and renowned startup expert, is a leading figure in Silicon Valley. The initial section of the book focuses on achieving financial independence, which we covered in a previous post already. The second part discusses happiness and Naval’s philosophy of life. Naval Ravikant emphasizes the balance between wealth creation and long-lasting happiness, focusing on personal fulfillment over material gains. As you can see, the two topics fit like a glove to our mission at The Good Life Journey. This post explores key takeaways for living a fulfilled and happy life, based on Naval Ravikant's teachings.
12 lessons from The Almanack of Naval Ravikant
1. Happiness is peace.
Happiness is quite an overloaded term, and its definition differs from person to person. For many, happiness is often defined by joy, positivity, and emotional well-beings; for others it may even be a state of flow. In contrast, Naval Ravikant believes true happiness is rooted in cultivating a deep sense of inner peace. A genuinely happy person is someone who can effortlessly interpret events in a way that doesn’t disturb their inherent tranquility. This perspective shifts the focus from seeking fleeting moments of joy to cultivating a deep, enduring sense of peace.
Quote: “Peace is happiness at rest, and happiness is peace in motion”
2. Happiness is learned.
Naval is very clear on this. In the same way that you can choose to acquire the right tools and build wealth, you can also choose to be a happy person. It is something that can be learned, and starts by believing you can do it. True happiness comes from within and becomes a sustainable state of being by developing self-awareness, practicing mindfulness, and fostering a positive outlook. At the end of the day it is about habits—about making a commitment to be happier and gradually replace bad habits for good ones.
Quote: “You choose to be happy, and then you work on it”.
3. Happiness is our default state.
Naval Ravikant asserts that happiness is our natural state when we remove desires. When nothing is missing, your mind shuts down and stops bouncing back and forth from regretting something in the past to being anxious about something in the future. The fewer desires we can form for external things and the more we accept the current state of things, the more present we are, and the happier we will be. As we can see, there is a lot of influence of Buddhism in Naval’s philosophy of life.
Quote: “Happiness is what’s there when you remove the sense of something missing in your life”.
4. Get rid of expectations.
Embrace the belief in the complete insignificance of the self. If you think you are the most important thing in the universe, then of course you will be upset when reality does not bend and conform to each of your desires. Remember your insignificance in the broader universe to maintain peace and avoid as much as possible your expectations of how life “should” unfold. Everything is perfect just the way it is. Happiness comes as a side-effect of peace, and peace comes mostly from acceptance, not from trying to change your external environment.
Quote: “Expectations are a form of self-imposed slavery”.
5. Cultivate indifference to things outside of your control.
Again, here we are reminded of Buddhist and Stoic wisdom. Many of our anxieties and frustrations arise from trying to control external circumstances, many of which are unpredictable and often beyond our reach. By practicing detachment and accepting that certain aspects of life are outside our control, we can achieve a greater sense of peace and clarity. Adopting this mindset helps focus energy on personal actions and mindful decision-making, fostering personal growth and resilience.
Quote: “Focus on what you can control, and ignore the rest”.
6. The mind is just as malleable as the body.
Naval Ravikant believes that the mind, much like the body, is highly malleable and can be shaped and developed with intention and effort. People frequently aim to change external aspects like society, others, or physical looks—but they tend to overlook the potential for transforming their own minds. By recognizing that our mental state and thought patterns can be consciously altered, we can choose to cultivate happiness and develop it as a skill.
Quote: “Memory and identity are burdens from the past preventing us from living freely in the present”.
Photo by Joshua Sortino on Unsplash.
7. Rid yourself of anxiety.
Many of us feel like our head is running from one thought to the next. Perhaps you experience “nexting”, where you are incapable of being present—always thinking of what comes next. Whatever the source, Naval recommends not to fight it, but to try to understand it and to ask ourselves: would I rather be having this thought right now or would I rather have my peace? Because as long as I have these thoughts I can’t have my peace.
Quote: “Anxiety is experiencing failure in advance”.
8. Desires are chosen unhappiness.
The idea that by changing something in the outside world will bring you everlasting peace, joy, and happiness is a fundamental delusion most of us suffer from. Over and over, we keep saying to ourselves that we will be happy when we get that thing or when this happens. Desiring something creates a self-imposed dissatisfaction until that desire is fulfilled. By constantly wanting more, we trap ourselves in a cycle of perpetual unhappiness. Reducing our wants and desires leads to contentment and inner peace, since happiness is found by appreciating what we already have.
Quote: “Desire is a contract that you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want”.
9. Success does not earn happiness.
Confucius said we have two lives, and the second one begins when you realize you only have one. Younger Naval was obsessed with achieving material and social success, but when he did achieve it, he realized two things. Firstly, that he experienced hedonic adaptation, the process by which individuals return to a baseline level of happiness after experiencing positive or negative events, reducing the long-term impact of these events on overall happiness. But more importantly, he saw that “successful” people around him were always wanting more and didn’t seem to be very happy.
Quote: “Happiness comes from being satisfied with what you have, while success comes from dissatisfaction. Choose”.
10. Practice acceptance.
You always have three ways to respond to any given event: you can change it, you can accept it, or you can leave it. What doesn’t make sense is to sit around wishing you could change it but doing nothing about it, or wishing you could leave it but not being able to let go. According to Naval, this struggle is responsible for a lot of our suffering. Often, you can shift your perspective to find positive angles in any situation—always ask yourself what is the positive angle of any given situation.
Quote: “True freedom lies in accepting the present moment as it is, without attachment to the past or anxiety about the future”.
11. Embrace death.
Here we are reminded of Seneca. Naval believes that death is the most important thing that will ever happen to you. Looking at death in the eye and refusing to hide from its reality will bring meaning to your life. We are here for such a short time and all that matters is how you experience reality as you go through life—why not interpret it in the best possible way?
Quote: “To live fully is to embrace death. When you accept the inevitability of your own mortality, you free yourself to truly live”.
12. Embrace meditation.
Naval Ravikant advocates meditation as essential for gaining mental clarity, inner peace, and emotional well-being. He recommends that we spend time undistracted alone, in self-examination to better understand the nature of our thoughts and emotions. It is not about making decisions or about judging, but about accepting the mind as it is. Our mind is like a giant inbox of unanswered emails that goes back to our childhood. These thoughts will come up during meditation, one by one, and you will be forced to observe them. The good news is you can deal with many of them now as an adult, with more objectivity and with some time and distance from any given past event. According to Naval, eventually, you can reach a place where your inbox is at zero, experiencing blissful peace.
Quote: “Meditation is intermittent fasting for the mind”.
Enjoyed this post? Don’t miss Naval Ravikant’s 10 wealth-building lessons or our post on the 10 shared principles from Buddhism and Stoicism to achieve inner peace.
