--- title: "Why This Book" url: "https://books.mutin.life/7/choose-life-habits-that-feel-good-and-do-good/68/why-this-book" --- March 1st, 2025 Last updated: February 12th, 2026 (_AI and Education_) _"To those who love wisdom, and prefer evidence to fantasies."_ - Yuval Noah Harari ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- # Why This Book Feeling healthy, fitter, with more energy and clarity of mind, and spending more time with our loved ones — that is being happier. Living in coherence, respecting the Earth's resources that life on this planet depends on — that is feeling serenity. This book lays out the life habits worth adopting that do us good. For ourselves. And for the planet alike. Feeling, from within, the benefits of these lifestyle changes is the best reward. And the best motivation for adopting this new way of living. Why anchor all this in life habits? Because it is the only method that works. Because the effects then last over time, and because we no longer need to think about it. It has become automatic. Having these ways of living become habits — reflexes that no longer require thought or effort — is the only method that works. We act on autopilot. It even becomes pleasant, because we feel better in our bodies, in our minds, in inner coherence. Life habits are the only method that works. I am writing this book first and foremost to convince and motivate myself to change my own life habits. Even though a number of these actions have already been in place in my life for more than 10 years. Like eating food produced as close as possible to where I live, without chemicals, almost entirely unprocessed, with as little packaging as possible. Like no longer flying. Like living locally, hardly ever travelling outside the French department where I live. And I have always preferred pedalling to getting around by car. I nevertheless still have many life habits left to change, some of which are already underway. In everything I write in this book, I fully include myself. I still have so many changes to make in my daily life. Changing a habit takes time. It is hard at first; it requires reflection and concentration. But once the reflex is in place, it's won — no more time needs to be spent on it, it happens by itself, and it is pure happiness. Finally, many of the people close to me — family, friends, acquaintances — are even further behind me on this path, and continue to live a rather immoderate lifestyle. And yet I love them, unconditionally. And I will never stop loving them. I will never stop seeing them, communicating with them, undertaking projects with them, living with them. I know what it is to be a human being — this book is not written by an artificial intelligence — living as a human is far from easy every day, especially when we face suffering. In any case, it is certainly not by hating others that we will increase the chances of them changing their behaviour. On the contrary, hatred only breeds more opposition; hatred only generates yet more hatred in return. There is no chance that hating people pushed away in this manner will make them want to follow the injunctions of those who reject them. Let us stay united — we need cohesion to get through this. Important note: the written word can be misinterpreted or misunderstood. That is often the tragedy of writing. Indeed, 93% of the content of a message is conveyed through: - body language (55%) - tone of voice (38%) Only 7% of the message is conveyed through words. Nothing replaces face-to-face communication. Only face-to-face communication offers the best chances for a message to be understood and conveyed as closely as possible to what its author meant. These pages will, moreover, be updated over time. For who never makes mistakes over the course of their life? A human being learns and evolves continuously. I will correct errors of direction, I will add new ideas, new life habits that do us good. I will therefore adjust the content of these pages as I go along. Finally, the sooner we change our life habits, the sooner we will feel good and happy. More lives will also be saved in the future. Indeed, underground oil stocks exist in finite quantities, and world oil production already passed its peak in 2018. World oil production will be halved by 2050. Will oil-producing countries then decide to keep what remains for themselves, ending exports to countries with no oil under their soil, such as Europe? Without oil, there is, among other things, no more transport between the four corners of the world. Without the transport of the various ores scattered across the four corners of the Earth, we no longer build or manufacture much of anything. On top of which comes climate disruption, caused by greenhouse gas emissions and now irreversible, subjecting us every day to more storms, floods, droughts and fires. Without oil, and under climate conditions that ravage crops, how will we organise ourselves to produce and transport enough food to feed everyone? It seems vital to change our ways of living starting today, in order to be as ready as possible for the day when not a single drop of oil is imported into Europe anymore. Otherwise many of us risk dying of hunger and fighting to survive. This is all the more important because, by definition, democracy is a bottom-up system: elected officials move when the base moves. For the top of a democracy to change, the base must change — that is, each one of us must change. Living in a time of peace and democracy is a stroke of luck. If feeding ourselves becomes a daily struggle, what will remain of peace and democracy? The sooner we set a turn in our life habits in motion, the greater the number of lives saved in the future will be. The sooner, too, we will be happy to feel so healthy thanks to a wholesome diet, to devote more time to our loved ones by owning fewer material things to manage, and to feel the inner coherence brought about by this more measured way of life. Let us choose the life habits that do us good.