欲望是你与自己签订的不快乐契约Desire Is a Contract You Make to Be Unhappy
Naval：欲望是你和自己签订的一份合约：在得到想要的东西之前，你要一直不快乐。你因为想要某样东西而心神不宁；然后为了得到它拼命工作，过程苦不堪言；最后真得到了，你又回到拥有它之前的状态。并不是说你抵达了某个幸福的巅峰，从此就永远待在那里。
没有任何一样东西能让你永远幸福
人们抱着一种幻觉，以为外面存在着某样东西，能让他们永远幸福、永远满足。其实没有任何一样东西能做到。
开悟是另一回事。它看起来是一种一劳永逸的解法；但我们暂时不去探讨它。我们谈的只是常识意义上的幸福。
幸福是一个理解与自我发现的过程
幸福没有单一的、一劳永逸的解法。相反，获得幸福需要一个理解与自我发现的过程。这是一个训练自己去看见某些真相的过程。
如果获取东西就能让我们永远幸福，那么穴居人应该过得苦不堪言，而我们个个都应该欣喜若狂。然而，每个人的净幸福水平并没有上升，甚至可能还在下降。现代生活带来的不幸福，恐怕比过去还要多。
所以，幸福就是回归到这样一种状态：此刻，什么都不缺。
Naval: Desire’s a contract you make to be unhappy until you get what you want. You become disturbed because you want something. Then you work really hard to get it and are miserable in the meantime. Finally, when you get it, you revert to the state you were in before you had it. It’s not like you achieve some peak level of bliss that you stay on forever.
No single thing will make you happy forever
People hold onto a delusion that there’s something out there that will make them happy and fulfilled forever. No single thing can do that.
Enlightenment is something different. It seems to be a permanent solution; but we’re not going to explore that just yet. We’re just talking about common sense happiness.
Happiness is a process of understanding and self-discovery
There’s no single permanent solution to happiness. Rather, achieving happiness requires a process of understanding and self-discovery. It is a process of training yourself to see certain truths.
If obtaining things made us permanently happy, then the cavemen would have been miserable, and we would all be deliriously happy. Yet, net happiness per person is not going up and might even be going down. Modernity probably brings more unhappiness than the past.
So happiness is returning to the state where nothing is missing in this moment.