Stumbling on Happiness

Contributed by Steve Goldberg

Of the multitude of books written about happiness, Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert (Random House, 2006) is one of my favourites and, in literary circles, one of the most respected. Gilbert combines incredible wit with powerful and compelling research.

Gilbert is a professor of social psychology at Harvard University who himself makes for a great Upside story. According to his bio, at age 19 he was a high school dropout with dreams of writing science fiction. When a creative writing class at his community college was full, he enrolled in the only available course: psychology. He found his passion there, went on to earn a doctorate in social psychology in 1985 at Princeton, and has since won a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Phi Beta Kappa teaching prize for his work at Harvard.

His major premise in the book is that we as humans are very poor predictors of what will bring us future happiness.

The cover description of the book points out that:

“in our ardent, lifelong pursuit of happiness, most of us have the wrong map. In the same way that optical illusions fool our eyes—and fool everyone’s eyes in the same way—Gilbert argues that our brains systematically misjudge what will make us happy. And these quirks in our cognition make humans very poor predictors of our own bliss.”

Gilbert recently did a brilliant talk for Ted.com about his ideas:

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/97

At one point he cites research on lottery winners as well as people who became wheel chair bound due to a traumatic accident.  Not surprisingly, the lottery winners expressed a higher level of initial enthusiasm.  However, as little as a year later both groups statistically self-reported equal measures of overall happiness and appreciation for life.

It made me wonder, is it possible that we overestimate the satisfaction and happiness that money, acquisitions, and status will bring to our life and at the same time underestimate the learning and insights that often occur when we take the time — or are forced to take the time — to reflect and learn from challenging circumstances?

I personally agree with psychotherapist and author Thomas Moore’s premise in his 1992 book Care of the Soul: that perhaps our most opportune times to cultivate depth and genuineness in our lives—to grow and develop soul—are those when we are out of balance, shaken out of the comfort of our usual day-to-day patterns and the sleepy reverie they induce. It is at times like these that we are brought back to basics, including a fresh and searching look at what really matters to us and what brings meaning to our lives.

Questions:

1. What currently brings you happiness in your life? Do you have a sense of what will bring you happiness in the future?
2. Daniel Gilbert believes that because we are such poor predictors of our future happiness the best way to predict our future happiness is to speak to others who have accomplished or possess something that we desire. Have you had experience with this method? What did you learn about yourself?