What Really Makes Us “Happy” ? -A Galaxy Insight

"Imagination is the poor man’s wormhole. We can't do what we'd really like to do -- namely, travel through time, pay a visit to our future selves, and see how happy those selves are­ -- and so we imagine the future instead of actually going there. But if we cannot travel in the dimension of time, we can travel in the dimensions of space, and the chances are pretty good that somewhere in those other three dimensions there is another human being who is actually experiencing the event that we are merely thinking about."

Dan Gilbert -Harvard professor of Psychology and author of the bestseller, Stumbling on Happiness. (Chinese 'double happiness' Symbol).

Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert says that contrary to popular belief, getting what we want in life has very little to do with happiness. In fact, happiness may be much simple than most of us are making it out to be. Gilbert maintains that when we imagine what could make us happy, such as new clothes or an around the world trip our brains are simply wrong to suggest to us that those things will actually make us happy.

We tend to think that accomplishing worthwhile things, or obtaining desirable material possessions will make us happy. But Gilbert says studies simply don’t support that conclusion. So how do humans obtain happiness? It’s simple, advises Gilbert; we make ourselves happy by imagining that we are happy. So getting what we want doesn’t actually have much to do with feeling happy.

Another seemingly contradictory finding is that those who have multiple choices tend to be less happy than those who have limited choices—a concept that really flies in the face of freedom.

During a particular experiment conducted in Gilbert’s Harvard lab, he offered a photography course. Students were told to take pics on campus of anything that they wanted to preserve as a memory, but they could take twelve pictures.

Afterwards, students had to select the best two, which were then printed out and into large, high quality prints. Once these two favorites were selected the group was divided into two control groups. One group was allowed to select only one of the two pics with an option of being able to exchange this with the other picture within a four day “grace period”. The other study group was given only one choice; take your best picture, but you don’t get to exchange it no matter what. Out of the participants, the group that had no exchange option were happy with their final choice and believed they had chosen the best picture. However, the group with the freedom to exchange were unhappy with their choices. Why?

Dan Gilbert surmises that having too many choices inadvertently creates discontent. Whereas having to settle for something and having no further choices in the matter, actually seems to be a better recipe for happiness.

It’s interesting to consider that as modern conveniences grow, so do our suicide rates. Today’s youth have more choices than ever in what food the eat, what gadgets they buy, what clothing they wear, etc, and yet depression and suicide is a growing problem for developed nations.

“Suicide remains the third leading cause of death among young people in this country,” confirmed Dr. Ileana Arias, acting director of CDC’s Injury Center. “We must focus on the underlying reasons for suicide and a comprehensive strategy to prevent them.”

While the issues are multi-faceted and not easily explained, Dr Gilbert’s argument is certainly persuasive. You can watch a video of him explaining some of his interesting ideas at Ted.com. The link is listed below.

Posted by Rebecca Sato

Video link:

Related Galaxy posts:

Are Our Brains Hard-wired to Follow the “Golden Rule”?
Tomorrow's People

Comments

[ozy]

You are of course correct here. At any particular moment I am most likely thinking about sex and I would speculate there are few moments (if any) on this planet when there is about a billion or so folks getting it on...

[EvilCosmicMonkey From Knoxville]

A lot of people who have big bucks, fame & property still are miserable a lot of the time. Some people that have every right to be miserable are happier than you think. It defies logic.

Sometimes I'm very happy being a middle - class disabled guy on a budget. Why is this ? It's a personal, individual thing.

[EvilCosmicMonkey From Knoxville]

" Happy people do not build civilizations " - because a person / people who is / are overly content or complacent won't strive to improve their collective lot in life.