Stumbling on Happiness

Thu, 19 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

You are a poor predictor of your own future feelings, and Daniel Gilbert’s book is a tour of exactly why. The human frontal lobe, a relatively recent evolutionary addition, gives us something no other animal has: the ability to mentally simulate tomorrow, plan for it, and preview how it will feel. We use that power constantly, spending roughly 12% of our thoughts imagining future events, largely because we crave control over what happens to us. The catch is that the simulator is systematically buggy. When you picture how happy the promotion, the move, or the breakup will make you, you’re running a preview riddled with predictable errors — and the errors all pull in ways you don’t notice.

Daniel Todd Gilbert on SummaryShelf

Stumbling on Happiness