Happiness... and stumbling on it...

I just noticed TED published two talks by Dan Gilbert (the author of Stumbling on Happiness) and Barry Schwartz (author of The Paradox of Choice). Coincidently, I just finished reading Gilbert's book Stumbling on Happiness.

I think both are Must see talks (they are very complementary) - an amusing way to get insights into how our mind fools us.

BTW - Stumbling is a great book! I won't summarize it (here is a good summary) - but some thoughts:

We constantly strive to reach more (new cars, houses, lives), in hope that it will bring us greater happiness... And are usually disappointed when this doesn't meet our expectations... It has to do with a number of things - Namely, that we are very bad at predicting how we will feel in the future -

• We expect too much (and get disappointed)
• We project the present onto the future, and fill in / leave out key information
• We do not take action (and live to regret it)
• And we never learn, and keep making the same prediction mistakes...

The solution? Well no one good solution is presented. But one method is intriguing - Conducting Due Diligence.

In a similar way to how us VCs try to predict the future success of a venture - by asking around... we should in our personal lives "ask around" and see how people feel in given situations... sort of an "emotional Due Diligence".

So next time I ask you to rate your happiness from a certain situation... Don't look too surprised

Tags: Stumbling on Happiness, TED Talks, Daniel Gilbert, Barry Schwartz