
Enjoy fast, free delivery, exclusive deals, and award-winning movies & TV shows with Prime
Try Prime
and start saving today with fast, free delivery
Amazon Prime includes:
Fast, FREE Delivery is available to Prime members. To join, select "Try Amazon Prime and start saving today with Fast, FREE Delivery" below the Add to Cart button.
Amazon Prime members enjoy:- Cardmembers earn 5% Back at Amazon.com with a Prime Credit Card.
- Unlimited Free Two-Day Delivery
- Streaming of thousands of movies and TV shows with limited ads on Prime Video.
- A Kindle book to borrow for free each month - with no due dates
- Listen to over 2 million songs and hundreds of playlists
- Unlimited photo storage with anywhere access
Important: Your credit card will NOT be charged when you start your free trial or if you cancel during the trial period. If you're happy with Amazon Prime, do nothing. At the end of the free trial, your membership will automatically upgrade to a monthly membership.
Buy new:
-45% $9.90$9.90
Ships from: Amazon.com Sold by: Amazon.com
Save with Used - Good
$6.74$6.74
Ships from: Amazon Sold by: ZBK Books

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
Image Unavailable
Color:
-
-
-
- To view this video download Flash Player
Follow the author
OK
Stumbling on Happiness Paperback – March 20, 2007
Purchase options and add-ons
• Why are lovers quicker to forgive their partners for infidelity than for leaving dirty dishes in the sink?
• Why will sighted people pay more to avoid going blind than blind people will pay to regain their sight?
• Why do dining companions insist on ordering different meals instead of getting what they really want?
• Why do pigeons seem to have such excellent aim; why can’t we remember one song while listening to another; and why does the line at the grocery store always slow down the moment we join it?
In this brilliant book, renowned Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert describes the foibles of imagination and illusions of foresight that cause each of us to misconceive our tomorrows and misestimate our satisfactions. With penetrating insight and sparkling prose, Gilbert explains why we seem to know so little about the hearts and minds of the people we are about to become.
- Print length336 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherVintage
- Publication dateMarch 20, 2007
- Dimensions5.18 x 0.71 x 7.98 inches
- ISBN-109781400077427
- ISBN-13978-1400077427
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.
Frequently bought together

Customers who viewed this item also viewed
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Guest Reviewer: Malcolm Gladwell
Malcolm Gladwell is the author of bestselling books Blink and The Tipping Point, and is a staff writer for The New Yorker.
Several years ago, on a flight from New York to California, I had the good fortune to sit next to a psychologist named Dan Gilbert. He had a shiny bald head, an irrepressible good humor, and we talked (or, more accurately, he talked) from at least the Hudson to the Rockies--and I was completely charmed. He had the wonderful quality many academics have--which is that he was interested in the kinds of questions that all of us care about but never have the time or opportunity to explore. He had also had a quality that is rare among academics. He had the ability to translate his work for people who were outside his world.
Now Gilbert has written a book about his psychological research. It is called Stumbling on Happiness, and reading it reminded me of that plane ride long ago. It is a delight to read. Gilbert is charming and funny and has a rare gift for making very complicated ideas come alive.
Stumbling on Happiness is a book about a very simple but powerful idea. What distinguishes us as human beings from other animals is our ability to predict the future--or rather, our interest in predicting the future. We spend a great deal of our waking life imagining what it would be like to be this way or that way, or to do this or that, or taste or buy or experience some state or feeling or thing. We do that for good reasons: it is what allows us to shape our life. And it is by trying to exert some control over our futures that we attempt to be happy. But by any objective measure, we are really bad at that predictive function. We're terrible at knowing how we will feel a day or a month or year from now, and even worse at knowing what will and will not bring us that cherished happiness. Gilbert sets out to figure what that's so: why we are so terrible at something that would seem to be so extraordinarily important?
In making his case, Gilbert walks us through a series of fascinating--and in some ways troubling--facts about the way our minds work. In particular, Gilbert is interested in delineating the shortcomings of imagination. We're far too accepting of the conclusions of our imaginations. Our imaginations aren't particularly imaginative. Our imaginations are really bad at telling us how we will think when the future finally comes. And our personal experiences aren't nearly as good at correcting these errors as we might think.
I suppose that I really should go on at this point, and talk in more detail about what Gilbert means by that--and how his argument unfolds. But I feel like that might ruin the experience of reading Stumbling on Happiness. This is a psychological detective story about one of the great mysteries of our lives. If you have even the slightest curiosity about the human condition, you ought to read it. Trust me. --Malcolm Gladwell
Review
“A psychological detective story about one of the great mysteries of our lives.... You ought to read it. Trust me.” —Malcolm Gladwell, author of Blink
“A fascinating new book that explores our sometimes misguided attempts to find happiness.” —Time
“A witty, insightful and superbly entertaining trek through the foibles of human imagination.” —New Scientist
“Gilbert’s book has no subtitle, allowing you to invent your own. I’d call it ‘The Only Truly Useful Book on Psychology I’ve Ever Read.’” —James Pressley, Bloomberg News
About the Author
DANIEL GILBERT is Professor of Psychology at Harvard University and Director of the Social Cognition and Emotion Lab. He is generally considered the world's foremost authority in the fields of affective forecasting and the fundamental attribution error. He has published numerous scientific articles and chapters, several short works of fiction, and is the editor of The Handbook of Social Psychology. He has been awarded the Distinguished Scientific Award for an Early Career Contribution to Psychology by the American Psychological Association, fellowships from both the Guggenheim Foundation and the American Philosophical Society, and has been a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Research in the Behavioral Sciences. In 2002, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin listed Gilbert as one of the fifty most influential social psychologists of the decade, and in 2003 one of his research papers was chosen by the editors of P sychological Inquiry as one of four "modern classics" in social psychology.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
O, that a man might know The end of this day’s business ere it come! Shakespeare, Julius Caesar Priests vow to remain celibate, physicians vow to do no harm, and letter carriers vow to swiftly complete their appointed rounds despite snow, sleet, and split infinitives. Few people realize that psychologists also take a vow, promising that at some point in their professional lives they will publish a book, a chapter, or at least an article that contains this sentence: “The human being is the only animal that . . .” We are allowed to finish the sentence any way we like, of course, but it has to start with those eight words. Most of us wait until relatively late in our careers to fulfill this solemn obligation because we know that successive generations of psychologists will ignore all the other words that we managed to pack into a lifetime of well-intentioned scholarship and remem- ber us mainly for how we finished The Sentence. We also know that the worse we do, the better we will be remembered. For instance, those psychologists who finished The Sentence with “can use language” were particularly well remembered when chimpanzees were taught to communicate with hand signs. And when researchers discovered that chimps in the wild use sticks to extract tasty ter- mites from their mounds (and to bash one another over the head now and then), the world suddenly remembered the full name and mailing address of every psychologist who had ever finished The Sentence with “uses tools.” So it is for good reason that most psychologists put off completing The Sentence for as long as they can, hoping that if they wait long enough, they just might die in time to avoid being publicly humiliated by a monkey.
I have never before written The Sentence, but I’d like to do so now, with you as my witness. The human being is the only animal that thinks about the future. Now, let me say up front that I’ve had cats, I’ve had dogs, I’ve had gerbils, mice, goldfish, and crabs (no, not that kind), and I do recognize that nonhuman animals often act as though they have the capacity to think about the future. But as bald men with cheap hairpieces always seem to forget, act- ing as though you have something and actually having it are not the same thing, and anyone who looks closely can tell the difference. For example, I live in an urban neighborhood, and every autumn the squirrels in my yard (which is approximately the size of two squirrels) act as though they know that they will be unable to eat later unless they bury some food now. My city has a relatively well-educated citizenry, but as far as anyone can tell its squirrels are not particularly distinguished. Rather, they have regular squirrel brains that run food-burying programs when the amount of sun- light that enters their regular squirrel eyes decreases by a critical amount. Shortened days trigger burying behavior with no intervening contemplation of tomorrow, and the squirrel that stashes a nut in my yard “knows” about the future in approximately the same way that a falling rock “knows” about the law of gravity—which is to say, not really. Until a chimp weeps at the thought of growing old alone, or smiles as it contemplates its summer vacation, or turns down a taffy apple because it already looks too fat in shorts, I will stand by my version of The Sentence. We think about the future in a way that no other animal can, does, or ever has, and this simple, ubiquitous, ordinary act is a defining feature of our humanity.
The Joy of Next
If you were asked to name the human brain’s greatest achievement, you might think first of the impressive artifacts it has produced—the Great Pyramid of Giza, the International Space Station, or perhaps the Golden Gate Bridge. These are great achievements indeed, and our brains deserve their very own ticker-tape parade for producing them. But they are not the greatest. A sophisticated machine could design and build any one of these things because designing and building require knowledge, logic, and patience, of which sophisticated machines have plenty. In fact, there’s really only one achievement so remarkable that even the most sophisticated machine cannot pretend to have accomplished it, and that achievement is conscious experience. Seeing the Great Pyramid or remembering the Golden Gate or imagining the Space Station are far more remarkable acts than is building any one of them. What’s more, one of these remarkable acts is even more remarkable than the others. To see is to experience the world as it is, to remember is to experience the world as it was, but to imagine—ah, to imagine is to experience the world as it isn’t and has never been, but as it might be. The greatest achievement of the human brain is its ability to imagine objects and episodes that do not exist in the realm of the real, and it is this ability that allows us to think about the future. As one philosopher noted, the human brain is an “anticipation machine,” and “making future” is the most important thing it does.
But what exactly does “making future” mean? There are at least two ways in which brains might be said to make future, one of which we share with many other animals, the other of which we share with none. All brains—human brains, chimpanzee brains, even regular food-burying squirrel brains—make predictions about the immediate, local, personal, future. They do this by using information about current events (“I smell something”) and past events (“Last time I smelled this smell, a big thing tried to eat me”) to anticipate the event that is most likely to happen to them next (“A big thing is about to ———”). ut notice two features of this so-called prediction. First, despite the comic quips inside the parentheses, predictions such as these do not require the brain making them to have anything even remotely resembling a conscious thought. Just as an abacus can put two and two together to produce four without having thoughts about arithmetic, so brains can add past to present to make future without ever thinking about any of them. In fact, it doesn’t even require a brain to make predictions such as these. With just a little bit of training, the giant sea slug known as Aplysia parvula can learn to predict and avoid an electric shock to its gill, and as anyone with a scalpel can easily demonstrate, sea slugs are inarguably brainless. Computers are also brainless, but they use precisely the same trick the sea slug does when they turn down your credit card because you were trying to buy dinner in Paris after buying lunch in Hoboken. In short, machines and invertebrates prove that it doesn’t take a smart, self-aware, conscious, brain to make simple predictions about the future.
The second thing to notice is that predictions such as these are not particularly far-reaching. They are not predictions in the same sense that we might predict the annual rate of inflation, the intellectual impact of postmodernism, the heat death of the universe, or Madonna’s next hair color. Rather, these are predictions about what will happen in precisely this spot, precisely next, to precisely me, and we call them predictions only because there is no better word for them in the English language. But the use of that term—with its inescapable connotations of calculated, thoughtful reflection about events that may occur anywhere, to anyone, at any time—risks ob- scuring the fact that brains are continuously making predictions about the immediate, local, personal, future of their owners without their owners’ awareness. Rather than saying that such brains are predicting, let’s say that they are nexting.
Yours is nexting right now. For example, at this moment you may be consciously thinking about the sentence you just read, or about the key ring in your pocket that is jammed uncomfortably against your thigh, or about whether the War of 1812 really deserves its own overture. Whatever you are thinking, your thoughts are surely about something other than the word with which this sentence will end. But even as you hear these very words echoing in your very head, and think whatever thoughts they inspire, your brain is using the word it is reading right now and the words it read just before to make a reasonable guess about the identity of the word it will read next, which is what allows you to read so fluently. Any brain that has been raised on a steady diet of film noir and cheap detective novels fully expects the word night to follow the phrase It was a dark and stormy, and thus when it does encounter the word night, it is especially well prepared to digest it. As long as your brain’s guess about the next word turns out to be right, you cruise along happily, left to right, left to right, turning black squiggles into ideas, scenes, characters, and concepts, blissfully unaware that your nexting brain is predicting the future of the sentence at a fantastic rate. It is only when your brain predicts badly that you suddenly feel avocado.
That is, surprised. See?
Now, consider the meaning of that brief moment of surprise. Surprise is an emotion we feel when we encounter the unexpected—for example, thirty-four acquaintances in paper hats standing in our living room yelling “Happy birthday!” as we walk through the front door with a bag of groceries and a full bladder—and thus the occurrence of surprise reveals the nature of our expectations. The surprise you felt at the end of the last paragraph reveals that as you were reading the phrase it is only when your brain predicts badly that you suddenly feel . . . , your brain was simultaneously making a reasonable prediction about what would happen next. It predicted that sometime in the next few milliseconds your eyes would come across a set of black squiggles that encoded an English word that described a feeling, such as sad or nauseous or even surprised. Instead, it encountered a fruit, which woke you from your dogmatic slumbers and revealed the nature of your expectations to anyone who was watching. Surprise tells us that we were expecting something other than what we got, even when we didn’t know we were expecting anything at all.
Because feelings of surprise are generally accompanied by reactions that can be observed and measured—such as eyebrow arch- ing, eye widening, jaw dropping, and noises followed by a series of exclamation marks—psychologists can use surprise to tell them when a brain is nexting. For example, when monkeys see a researcher drop a ball down one of several chutes, they quickly look to the bottom of that chute and wait for the ball to reemerge. When some experimental trickery causes the ball to emerge from a different chute than the one in which it was deposited, the monkeys display surprise, presumably because their brains were nexting. Human babies have similar responses to weird physics. For example, when babies are shown a video of a big red block smashing into a little yellow block, they react with indifference when the little yellow block instantly goes careening off the screen. But when the little yellow block hesitates for just a moment or two before careening away, babies stare like bystanders at a train wreck—as though the delayed careening had violated some prediction made by their nexting brains. Studies such as these tell us that monkey brains “know” about gravity (objects fall down, not sideways) and that baby human brains “know” about kinetics (moving objects transfer energy to stationary objects at precisely the moment they contact them and not a few seconds later). But more important, they tell us that monkey brains and baby human brains add what they already know (the past) to what they currently see (the present) to predict what will happen next (the future). When the actual next thing is different from the predicted next thing, monkeys and babies experience surprise.
Our brains were made for nexting, and that’s just what they’ll do. When we take a stroll on the beach, our brains predict how stable the sand will be when our foot hits it, and then adjust the tension in our knee accordingly. When we leap to catch a Frisbee, our brains predict where the disc will be when we cross its flight path, and then bring our hands to precisely that point. When we see a sand crab scurry behind a bit of driftwood on its way to the water, our brains predict when and where the critter will reappear, and then direct our eyes to the precise point of its reemergence. These predictions are remarkable in both the speed and accuracy with which they are made, and it is difficult to imagine what our lives would be like if our brains quit making them, leaving us completely “in the moment” and unable to take our next step. But while these automatic, continuous, nonconscious predictions of the immediate, local, personal, future are both amazing and ubiquitous, they are not the sorts of predictions that got our species out of the trees and into dress slacks. In fact, these are the kinds of predictions that frogs make without ever leaving their lily pads, and hence not the sort that The Sentence was meant to describe. No, the variety of future that we human beings manufacture—and that only we manufacture—is of another sort entirely.
Product details
- ASIN : 1400077427
- Publisher : Vintage (March 20, 2007)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 336 pages
- ISBN-10 : 9781400077427
- ISBN-13 : 978-1400077427
- Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
- Dimensions : 5.18 x 0.71 x 7.98 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #17,125 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #43 in Emotional Mental Health
- #323 in Happiness Self-Help
- #540 in Personal Transformation Self-Help
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Daniel Gilbert is Harvard College Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. He has won numerous awards for his teaching and research, including the American Psychological Association's Distinguished Scientific Award for an Early Career Contribution to Psychology. His research has been covered by The New York Times Magazine, Forbes, Money, CNN, U.S. News & World Report, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, Scientific American, Self, Men's Health, Redbook, Glamour, Psychology Today, and many others. His short stories have appeared in Amazing Stories and Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, as well as other magazines and anthologies. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the book thought-provoking and engaging, weaving together facts and theories from psychology and cognitive neuroscience. They describe it as an enjoyable read with witty humor and clever phrasing. The book helps readers understand how their emotions work and makes them feel better about themselves. Readers appreciate the well-presented material and the creative presentation style. Overall, they consider it a worthwhile read that provides good value for money.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers find the book provides insightful and relevant topics from psychology and neuroscience. They appreciate the author's skill in combining scientific facts and theories to make sense. The book covers relevant subjects like human psychology and how we make decisions. Readers appreciate the compelling scientific facts and research backing up the arguments.
"...Daniel Gilbert is however a keen observer of the world and he knows a lot about human nature. So from that angle this book is very intriguing...." Read more
"...much appreciated the way Gilbert builds his case systematically and thoroughly, providing us with a wide array of intellectual fringe benefits in..." Read more
"...However, towards the end of a mostly interesting and insightful book, Gilbert's focus turns strangely sociopolitical when he attempts to apply his..." Read more
"Thought provoking about how we evaluate and predict the way choices make us feel. Humbling to see how flawed our imaginations are." Read more
Customers find the book easy to read and enjoyable. They describe it as intelligent, entertaining, and well-written. The prose is precise and flows smoothly, punctuated by wit and surprising self-deprecation.
"...Maybe I just got his humor and his writing had high creative appeal. I also learned a few new words like panglossian...." Read more
"...Overall, this is a superb book and I highly recommend it if you want to be happier, or even if you're just interested in what makes people tick...." Read more
"...For that, it's worth the read...." Read more
"This book is a very enjoyable read, written in a funny, witty, conversational style...." Read more
Customers find the book entertaining and witty. They appreciate the clever phrasing, intriguing analogies, and memorable one-liners. The writing is described as engaging and casual, with a good balance of humor and casual tone.
"This book is a very enjoyable read, written in a funny, witty, conversational style...." Read more
"...Read this now. The book it thought-provoking, easy-to-read, very witty, and funny too. You'll love it...." Read more
"...Gilbert is a truly extraordinary writer. The writing zings along, punctuated by wit and surprising self-deprecation...." Read more
"...And to his credit, he has brought in substantial humour , may be at time morbid, into his writing...." Read more
Customers find the book interesting and instructive. It helps them understand how their emotions work, making them feel better about themselves. They appreciate that it considers time when considering happiness, and that the author explains a number of psychological processes in an entertaining and easy-to-understand way.
"...annoying, but I gradually came to appreciate it, since it lightens the book's atmosphere and thereby helps to sustain the reader's stamina...." Read more
"...of these principles can help anyone make better decisions and live a richer life. For that, it's worth the read...." Read more
"...One aspect of this book I enjoyed is that it thoroughly considered time in its consideration of happiness...." Read more
"...That same wet blanket, though, dampens the intensity of our greatest fears and reassures us that our emotional immune systems will allow us to find..." Read more
Customers find the book's presentation style engaging and informative. They describe it as witty, creative, and captivating. The author's style is catchy yet informative, and the message is well-presented. Readers appreciate the lighthearted approach and eye-opening content.
"...A truly creative masterpiece. Below are excerpts from the book that I found particularly insightful:..." Read more
"...In reading this book you will gain a well synthesized and up-to-date look at some of the most interesting research happening in psychology today...." Read more
"...While that presentation was exciting, the audio book is less exciting but richer in content and details. Back to the review:..." Read more
"It's ok , starts slow but opens up as you get into a few chapters" Read more
Customers appreciate the book's compelling scientific facts and well-researched content. They find the material presented well, though some parts may seem dry. The book starts out strong and engaging, but it loses momentum in the middle.
"...In reading this book you will gain a well synthesized and up-to-date look at some of the most interesting research happening in psychology today...." Read more
"...His voice is sort of dry but the material is excellent, though you may have to have strong intellectual interests to find his material..." Read more
"...often deceives itself - a truly interesting subject - you have a very solid book...." Read more
"...its predictions on information from an often inaccurate and unstable past and present and fails to learn from experience...." Read more
Customers find the book valuable and important. They say it works as intended for its cost, generating huge economic output and creating many jobs. The book is outlined in a light and easy manner.
"...and biases in thinking and perception are absolutely worth the price of entry, even if he didn't conclude the book with any advice...." Read more
"...He approaches it from the social, scientific, biological, economic and psychological aspects! This book is a must read and a pleasure to do so!" Read more
"...The other is a wealth creator, builds a huge empire, generates huge economic output, and creates many jobs. Which life would you rather live?..." Read more
"...Daniel Gilbert outlines, in a light and easy manner, many facts (and misgivings!)..." Read more
Customers find the book repetitive and lacking a clear narrative arc. They say it takes too long to tell its story, lacks a central point, and is based on a false premise.
"...The mind misleads, misrepresents, over- and under-estimates, conflates, distorts, ignores, confuses, rationalizes, and otherwise falsely *imagines*..." Read more
"...The book also lacks a central point but still flows well because it is so enjoyable to read and the ideas are each interesting on their own...." Read more
"This book ends abruptly. It is almost all diagnosis and only couple of pages of cure...." Read more
"Gilbert does a great job helping us understand how we perceive our lives...." Read more
Reviews with images

a great book about not only happiness, but ourselves
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
- Reviewed in the United States on October 15, 2016If you want to stumble on happiness start doing good deeds and random acts of kindness. Writing in a gratitude journal also seems to work as does changing your thoughts from negative to positive. While this book may teach you some important things (think about the positives and negatives of any future situation) it is more of an intellectual romp through psychology land.
Daniel Gilbert is the type of person you'd want to be friends with. He'd provide entertaining conversation, take you to gourmet restaurants and explain why your life is such a surprising journey. Along the way he'd make you laugh a lot. He sure did in this book. I lost track of how many times I laughed. Maybe I just got his humor and his writing had high creative appeal. I also learned a few new words like panglossian.
What did occur to me while reading was that I think I remember my past experiences far better than the people discussed in this book. I definitely know what would make me happy based on past experiences. I also know what won't make me happy in the future. This book did answer some of my questions however, like why I love to wait for packages from amazon. I will often choose the free shipping just so things get to me slower. This habit of forestalling pleasure brings me a lot of anticipatory joy.
One thing I didn't agree with was the comments about the movie Casablanca. A person usually doesn't regret doing the right thing. In fact doing the right thing can bring a wealth of happiness. I'm also not sure the author has ever experienced a form of spiritual enlightenment as it is like night and day and you know you've never been that happy before. Some of his comments indicated he may be more concerned with science than religion although religion brings a lot of happiness to people. God was not mentioned except in passing so there was no data on people who have fallen in love with God. I also am completely convinced that some people want to be miserable. They make a choice to continue in their negative ruminations.
Daniel Gilbert is however a keen observer of the world and he knows a lot about human nature. So from that angle this book is very intriguing. It is a joy to experience his deep thinking and conclusions. I also felt he was very logical and has a good handle on philosophy. He does however believe in evolution if that is of interest to you. Not a lot of time is spent on that subject besides describing aspects of the brain.
I do personally think it is fun to think positively about the future but I will now use more caution when my imagination runs wild. Will I ever have pool or travel to Paris again? These are things I hope for and it is fun to think about what I will do tomorrow and which book I will read. So hope is definitely a factor in predicting happiness.
So get ready to have an author uncover some dark secrets about society. Be prepared to laugh out loud. This is a very enjoyable reading experience that I can recommend to almost anyone. Just have some éclairs or chocolate cake handy. You will get hungry for foods he mentions. :)
~The Rebecca Review
- Reviewed in the United States on October 3, 2008Gilbert notes that the frontal lobe evolved in order to control the environment in our quest for safety and pleasure (avoid/approach reactions). It does so largely by trying to predict the future. Unfortunately, we often stumble because our predictions are so often based on poor information gleaned from our past and present experiences through the filter of our inaccurate memories. In other words, we tend to repeat false assumptions and often poor decisions when predicting our futures so that when we do actually find happiness, it is often stumbled upon rather than planned.
As Gilbert says, "In order to have a smooth rational-seeming reality, we fill in what we don't know with details that are often wrong and leaving out details that are actually important if we realize them. And we do this seamlessly and largely unconsciously." "We tend to accept the brain's products uncritically and expect the future to unfold with the details- and only with the details- that the brain has imagined" He further states, "What we feel as we imagine the future is often a response to what's happening in the present and we predictably underestimate how different we will feel in the future."
Inaccurate predictions begets poor decision-making which often leads to an unhappy state. We then tend to rationalize our unhappy outcomes to make them more acceptable to ourselves which means we are likely to make the same choices in the future.
Any resultant feelings of inadequacy and lower self-worth can lead to even further repetition of poor choices. When in the discontented state, the mind seeks more stability and control. But what does it do? It rationalizes and continues to base its predictions on information from an often inaccurate and unstable past and present and fails to learn from experience.
For example, if you feel inadequate and odd in the sense you don't feel you fit in, you may seek out and depend on others that you see as being similarly inadequate or odd- the very people, if you do depend on them, that are most apt to reinforce your feelings of inadequacy rather than help give you the stability and centeredness that you seek.
Thus, the vicious circle continues as one clings to ones old ways...
So, in the search for stability one may cling to the tottering present in order to seek peace and happiness, but the result is most often a repetition of the past. The myth of Sisyphis comes to mind as one pictures the endless attempts to perform an impossible task such as rolling a boulder part way up a hill that is too heavy to reach the top and doing it over and over again...
But is it impossible to overcome the tendency to embrace failed thoughts and actions so that at least we stumble less and are happier with our lives?
Of course and careful observation of others who have found happiness is one recommendation.
.
Top reviews from other countries
-
RafaelReviewed in Brazil on September 27, 2022
5.0 out of 5 stars Uma aula de didática
Excelente leitura, muito divertida. Conceitos complexos colocados de uma forma fácil, humor ácido e muita autenticidade. Nos ajuda a compreender de forma prática como estamos enganados sobre muitas coisas a respeito da felicidade e previsão sobre o futuro.
- Ashish SinghReviewed in India on December 29, 2024
5.0 out of 5 stars Superb ending
Full of surprises and at the end will really make you think hard. Some very insightful chapters are at the end so be patient and you will be rewarded.
- OmriReviewed in the Netherlands on August 20, 2022
2.0 out of 5 stars Wrong cover
Specifically ordered this version of the book for the cover as shown. However, this less aesthetic cover was sent. Quite disappointed, at least show that there are two versions.
OmriWrong cover
Reviewed in the Netherlands on August 20, 2022
Images in this review
- Jorge CamposReviewed in Canada on October 31, 2018
5.0 out of 5 stars Really about the stumbling part and its understanding
TL;DR not a self-help book. This book is mostly about human decision making.
I really liked the book. And even after reading the warning in the foreword about not being about achieving happiness, I'm a little bit disappointed.
At some point the author gives an example on how we like more a so-so movie that has a great ending than a great movie that has a so-so ending.
Throughout the book the explanations about how humans perceive and estimate past, present and future happiness are excellent and funny.
The book is about decision making and how memories of past feelings, present feelings and the prediction of future feelings will affect our decisions. There really good examples on why these processes are biased and rely sometimes on faulty shortcuts.
By the end, I felt that this is a great work on a topic that still needs a lot of research. I kind of wanted a definite ending... I know, unjustly... But hey, I'm human after all...
-
pablo adrian fuentesReviewed in Mexico on September 4, 2018
5.0 out of 5 stars Excelente compra
Un libro fabuloso, si te interesa el comportamiento humano su relación intrínseca de cómo funciona el cerebro humano, este libro es para ti. Aunque no tengas bases de ciencias, el estilo es divulgativo, muy accesible para cualquiera.