Stumbling on Happiness | Daniel Gilbert | An Entire Different Look at Happiness

Stumbling on Happiness | Daniel Gilbert | Insightful, Informative & Entertaining

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Stumbling on Happi...

	Stumbling on Happiness Daniel Gilbert Vintage, 2007 - 336 pages average customer review:based on 222 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

An Entire Different Look at Happiness

Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert opens a view of happiness that is not in the normal range. Anticipation, imagination and rationalization are each responsible for much of our happiness. Mr. Gilbert disects the reasons we are happy, the times we are happy, and how we visualize our happiness. Great book - makes a person think about what they really have, want to have or don't really need.
Prudent Pam

Insightful, Informative & Entertaining

Dan Gilbert provides a fun, informative, and intriguing read in "Stumbling on Happiness." He uses anecdotes, research studies, visuals, charts, analysis, and humor to enlighten and entertain the reader about this common yet misunderstood phenomenon called....happiness. Most of us want it, strive to attain it, compare our current state of happiness with the past, and hope for it in the future.

Happiness: so....what is it? What IS happiness? How do we define it? Achieve it? And perhaps more importantly, perceive it? We humans often fool ourselves into thinking some "thing" or set of "circumstances" will passively allow us to achieve this state, that we label as happiness. But what makes this book so worthy is that it's not a "how to find happiness" book.

Part I: Prospection.

"The act of looking forward in time or considering the future."

Alas, this seems to be the foundation of this thing called "Happiness," and more significantly what we *think* will make us happy in the *future.*

Which leads to ---> THE CONCEPT OF "THE LATER:"

One significant thing that differentiates humans from the animal world is the concept of the future. The "Later." Part of this evolutionary concept in how it related to happiness is that we expect the next car, next house, next girlfriend/boyfriend or next promotion to make us happy, even though the last time we got these things we didn't didn't get "happy" for more than a very brief period of time. Studies conclude this. And this, according to Gilbert, is why there are "plenty of mistakes that we highly experienced folks, seem to make over and over again" (p. 217, Chapter 10).

The biological aspect of the future, or the "later," is a very recent concept in human evolution. Human brains appeared on Earth 500 million years ago, but the ability to think of "later" came approximately 3 million years ago. This is when the frontal lobe of the proto-humans expanded and grew in size and the entire brain got bigger and heavier.

Many things elucidated in this book are concepts we implicitly know, but Gilbert provides more details and empirical numbers for us. Wonderful things are especially wonderful at first when they happen, but their wonderfulness wanes with repetition. Psychologists call this "habituation." Economists call it "Marginal Utility" (p. 143-144).

OUR RECOLLECTIONS OF THE PAST:

Our Recollections of the Past: "The tendency to recall and rely on unusual instances is one of the reasons we so often repeat mistakes" (p. 221). It reminds me of Pavlov's dogs: We try to repeat those experiences that we remember with pleasure and pride, and we try to avoid repeating those that we remember with embarrassment and regret. The trouble is that we often don't remember these past experiences correctly. Our "feelings" about some event in the past is one of the brain's most sophisticated illusions (p. 217).

Gilbert states that there are three related concepts: emotional happiness, moral happiness, and judgmental happiness. Emotional happiness is the most basic.

I focused on Prospection, part one, the "future" part, but the rest of the book is also equally fun and informative.

Additional parts of the book that are relevant, but won't be noted because there isn't enough space:

Part II: Subjectivity
Part III: Realism
Part IV: Presentism
Part V: Rationalization

Dan Gilbert has a knack for entertaining and enjoyable writing. This book is not about what it takes to be "happy" but is about human concept of happiness. It's not a "how to be happy" book, thankfully. But the principles can be applied to you, individually. Enjoy the book - and your life.

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Our lack of power to predict emotions

Ever said to yourself that if something happened you'd be devastated? Whether its you or a loved one getting cancer, or becoming paralyzed or going bankrupt or anything else that you think would strip you of your happiness you might want to think again.

Gilbert, a Harvard professor, examines how unable we are to predict our emotions, and presents a book that will surely help you control your happiness levels and maybe even have a better outlook on life, even when the bad happens.

Descriptive (not prescriptive) - helps you deal with other people's (un)happiness

The book is witty, interesting, and an overall fun read. It takes a more-or-less scientific approach towards how the brain perceives its current reality, how and of what it constructs memories, and how it attempts to construct possible futures. Throughout the book, Gilbert references scientific studies that appear to support his hypotheses.

The book gave many opportunities for introspection, was easy to make relevant to my own life, and gave me some useful ideas for dealing with other people. It's less prescriptive, as other reviewers note, but it does a good job of being descriptive: why is a person happy or unhappy? Just knowing the answer to that question opens a lot of good doors when dealing with a spouse, child, parent, colleague, or friend. Know why they are sad, why they are happy, with different events.

You see? It's not my fault I can't remember our first dance...I just remember that I LIKED it!

I'd recommend the book. Best if you can share the anecdotes with someone!

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