Let’s be happy
I am very proud that I have been asked to write the preamble to the German version of STEALING FIRE, an amazing book which tells the reader how to achieve peak performance, boost your creativity and most important: become TRULY HAPPY.
Here is the English translation of my foreword. Let’s be happy!
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Dear reader,
Try out the following test: ask 10 friends what is important to them in life. They will give you different answers. Friends, family, money, recognition, etc. However, do not be satisfied with their answers, but question them further. WHY are friends and family important to them? WHY money? WHY recognition? If you ask “why” for long enough, they will all say the same thing: “because they want to be happy”.
Being happy — and by that I don’t mean short-term, superficial happiness, but rather a deep, lasting feeling that everything within and around you is alright — is every person’s ultimate desire. However, unfortunately, most modern Western cultures have lost the ability to show people how to achieve this. And the major religions have stopped pursuing deep happiness — along with true spirituality — since a long time in this life and put true happiness into the afterlife — mainly for power-political reasons in order to be able to control their followers in this life.
The number-one requirement for finding happiness is self-exploration and self-reflection. For only when you know what you truly want in life and what is truly important to you, can you adjust your life accordingly. But here too, our culture is failing us: instead of providing young people with the tools they need to help them explore what they truly desire deep within, most people learn from an early age what OTHERS want and expect from them.
The key to self-awareness in all spiritual cultures and religions is “ecstasy” — stepping out of yourself, leaving your ego behind so that your view is finally clear and you can focus on the big picture.
“Stealing Fire” provides the reader with different tools to achieve this “ecstasy”. Some of them may sound bold, but I can promise you from my own experience: they will do more than enrich your life and open the way to true happiness.
Christian Angermayer