IMAGINE HAPPINESS

Here's a link to a fascinating talk by Dan Gilbert about our uniquely
human ability to imagine the future, and what amazing delusions we
have about what it will take to make us happy. I have the book but
haven't finished reading it yet, but check out the video below:

"Dan Gilbert is a psychology professor at Harvard, and author of
Stumbling on Happiness. In this memorable talk, filmed at TED2004,
he demonstrates just how poor we humans are at predicting (or
understanding) what will make us happy. (Recorded July 2005 in
Oxford, UK. Duration: 22:02)"

http://www.ted.com/tedtalks/tedtalksplayer.cfm?
key=d_gilbert&flashEnabled=1

or:

http://ted.streamguys.net/ted_gilbert_d_2004.zip

From the Amazon review of the book:

Guest Reviewer: Malcolm Gladwell

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=