Chapters 14-17

 In chapter 14 he discusses work, and says that it can either be a cause of happiness or cause of unhappiness. She says that even the most boring of work would be less painful than boredom from idleness (doing nothing at all.) And that even work that is an interesting has advantages, by filling hours of our day with something to do without the stress of us having to decide what to do with that time. He says that when people have that time to do whatever they want they don't use it sufficiently in choosing something worthwhile. And then they dwell on the thing that they should have chosen something else more worthwhile. He basically says there's a art of choosing how to fill up leisure Time intellectually. And says that rich people suffer from the boredom caused from being in idle, however says that the most intelligent of them decide to work just as hard as if they were poor (in some way or another,) at least he says that men do. He says that rich women that are of high intelligence choose some involvement with a cause of Earth shaking importance that they can be a participant of. 

He says that the second advantage aside from preventing boredom is that working "gives people chances for success and opportunities for ambition." 

And says that "continuity of purpose is one of the most essential ingredients of happiness in the long run."

And that "when work is interesting it's capable of giving satisfaction of a far higher order."

He says the two elements that Network interesting are the exercise of skill and construction.

And construction he basically defines as work and which at the final state something was achieved or accomplished. I suppose this would mean that factory work etc would not have the element of construction in that even after you get through working on the line of products at the end of the day there is a new line piled up.

In chapter 15 he talks about impersonal interests. And he describes impersonal interests as smaller interest that are individual to the person, in contrary to major interests which our lives are built upon. He says that for instance a man of science could read about something that is separate that is separate from his line of work but still involves science and because he has a love for science he can read it with ease and relaxation. He says that this impersonal interest need to be unconnected with a person's responsibilities and bring about a form of relaxation. He says "the world is full of things that are tragic or comic heroic or bizarre or surprising and those who fail to be interested in the skeptical that it offers are forgoing one of the privileges that life has to offer." And basically that by having these interests that are separate then our work in our relationships, we create for ourselves a balance within our lives (or that our lives are proportioned rather in the way that they are supposed to be.)

And chapter 16 he discusses effort and resignation. I like how his son many things are believed because they're interesting even if they lack evidence in their favor. He says the effort and resignation are two separate doctrines that are often argued over but that each hold some truth. He says the reason that effort must play a role is because not everyone is born of fortunate situations like being good looking or being born into money for having a natural good nature or fortunate enough to have good health etc. And that efforts is even sometimes necessary to maintain a good marriage, and to successfully rear children. 

By resignation he means that when small things go wrong one should not waste a lot of energy that's unnecessary and being upset about it. I like how he says "the wise man though he will not sit down under preventable misfortunes will not waste time and emotion upon such as our unavoidable and even such as are in themselves avoidable he will submit to if the time and labor required to avoid them would interfere with the pursuit of some more important object." 

And in the last chapter chapter 17 which he titles the happy man, Bertrand concludes his book by summing up what he had attributed to making up unhappiness in a person and what he had attributed to what plays in to a person's happiness. He also says that he has written this book as a hit edonest and that he regards happiness as the good. He also says that of course being a hedonist he factors the happy life to the same extent as the good life. And then he goes on to talk about virtue and morality and basically is saying that they should be naturally a part of the individual to be really considered a virtue and gives the example of someone deciding whether to help a drowning child and basically says that if the person thinks to themselves that they should jump in because it's the right thing to do before they actually jump in then they're not actually virtuous in that act because they had to think about it but the person who instinctively jumps in out of their interests to save the child is the one who actually possesses the virtues. That says he differs from other moralists in that they would tell you that love should be unselfish but he feels as though love should contain a certain degree of selfishness, and that your own happiness is a part of its success.