Stumbling on Happiness

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Product Description
A smart and amusing book by a prominent Harvard psychologist, which uses groundbreaking research and (regularly hilarious) anecdotes to show us why we’re so lousy at predicting what will make us pleased – and what we can do about it.

Most of us spend our lives steering ourselves toward the best of all possible futures, only to find that tomorrow rarely turns out as we had expected. Why? As Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert clarifies, when people try to imagine what the future will hold, they make some basic and consistent mistakes. Just as memory plays tricks on us when we try to look backward in time, so does imagination play tricks when we try to look forwards.

Using cutting-edge research, much of it original, Gilbert shakes, cajoles, persuades, tricks and jokes us into long-suffering the fact that happiness is not really what or where we thought it was. Among the unexpected questions he poses: Why are conjoined twins no less pleased than the all-purpose population? When you go out to eat, is it better to order your favourite dish every time, or to try something new? If Ingrid Bergman hadn’t gotten on the plane at the end of Casablanca, would she and Bogey have been better off?

Smart, witty, accessible and laugh-out-loud amusing, Stumbling on Happiness brilliantly describes all that science has to tell us about the uniquely human ability to envision the future, and how likely we are to delight in it when we get there.Amazon.com Review
Do you know what makes you pleased? Daniel Gilbert would bet that you reflect you do, but you are most likely incorrect. In his witty and engaging new book, Harvard professor Gilbert reveals his take on how our minds work, and how the limitations of our imaginations may be getting in the way of our ability to know what happiness is. Sound odd and appealing? It is! But just to be sure, we questioned bestselling leader (and master of the odd and appealing) Malcolm Gladwell to read Stumbling on Happiness, and give us his take. Check out his review not more than. –Daphne Durham

Malcolm Gladwell is the leader 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 excellent chance to sit next to a psychologist named Dan Gilbert. He had a shiny bald head, an irrepressible excellent 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 amusing and has a rare gift for building very intricate thoughts come alive.

Stumbling on Happiness is a book about a very simple but powerful thought. What distinguishes us as human beings from additional animals is our ability to predict the future–or rather, our interest in predicting the future. We spend a fantastic 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 excellent reasons: it is what allows us to shape our life. And it is by trying to wield some control over our futures that we attempt to be pleased. But by any objective measure, we are really terrible at that extrapolative 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 vital?

In building 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 long-suffering of the conclusions of our imaginations. Our imaginations aren’t particularly imaginative. Our imaginations are really terrible at telling us how we will reflect when the future finally comes. And our personal experiences aren’t nearly as excellent at correcting these errors as we might reflect.

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 tale about one of the fantastic mysteries of our lives. If you have even the slightest curiosity about the human condition, you ought to read it. Trust me. –Malcolm Gladwell