The New Inspirer

And then read this research. We came across some interesting research by Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert who has made it his life’s work to understand why people make errors predicting what will make them happy and why they do so over and over again. The Washington Post draws up his conclusions thus far:

• Bingeing is bad, except when it isn’t

” Breaking two cookies into quarters and eating one piece on each of eight days is likely to produce no happiness at all. Better to eat two cookies at once, and then wait a week before grabbing another two.”

• Happiness often comes from what you don’t know

“When you don’t understand why a bad thing happened, it is worse. When you don’t understand why a good thing happened, it’s better.”

• Keeping your options open won’t necessarily make you happier

“When you lock yourself in something you cannot get out of, you will find ways to be happier. . . . I do love my wife more than I loved my girlfriend, and they are the same person.”

• The things you fear are not as bad as you think.

“For as long as anyone can remember,” Gilbert once noted, “people have hungered for information about their personal futures, confident that if they knew their fates, they would also know their fortunes. Alas, knowing the future is not the same as knowing how much one will like it when one gets there.”

So, take it from an academic: there’s no reason you shouldn’t be happy >:)

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