Some Insight into Happiness
I recently heard a radio interview of Daniel Gilbert, a professor of psychology at Harvard University who has written Stumbling on Happiness. Stumbling has been getting favorable attention. I have not read it yet, but I think some of the observations made by Prof. Gilbert during the interview are worth pondering. Based on his research, he believes that:
1. Most people are made happier by multiple moderately happy events than by one extremely happy event.
2. Most of us tend to exaggerate in our imaginations how bad bad events will be and how good good events will be.
3. Most people are surprisingly resilient in the face of bad events. Therefore, if we assume (as is likely to be the case) that we're not very different from other people, then we can have confidence in our ability to handle bad events.
I recently heard a radio interview of Daniel Gilbert, a professor of psychology at Harvard University who has written Stumbling on Happiness. Stumbling has been getting favorable attention. I have not read it yet, but I think some of the observations made by Prof. Gilbert during the interview are worth pondering. Based on his research, he believes that:
1. Most people are made happier by multiple moderately happy events than by one extremely happy event.
2. Most of us tend to exaggerate in our imaginations how bad bad events will be and how good good events will be.
3. Most people are surprisingly resilient in the face of bad events. Therefore, if we assume (as is likely to be the case) that we're not very different from other people, then we can have confidence in our ability to handle bad events.
posted by iohannes | 8:39 AM
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