In yesterday’s NY Time Magazine: The Futile Pursuit of Happiness. (Read/grab it before it disappears in 7 days.)
Some really interesting research on something termed affective forecasting is being done by four academics who’ve “… begun to question the decision-making process that shapes our sense of well-being: how do we predict what will make us happy or unhappy — and then how do we feel after the actual experience? … almost all actions — the decision to buy jewelry, have kids, buy the big house or work exhaustively for a fatter paycheck — are based on our predictions of the emotional consequences of these events… and when it comes to predicting exactly how you will feel in the future, you are most likely wrong…
And whether Gilbert’s subjects were trying to predict how they would feel in the future about a plate of spaghetti with meat sauce, the defeat of a preferred political candidate or romantic rejection seemed not to matter. On average, bad events proved less intense and more transient than test participants predicted. Good events proved less intense and briefer as well.
Put another way: our tendency to be wrong about what will make us happy or unhappy is due to mistaken ideas. And the unspoken corrollary is that our innate desire for MORE tends to make it difficult to appreciate the good things in life that we already have.
Two of the researchers cite examples from their own lives where their decisions proved problematic: buying a big house in the boonies; ignoring turn-back times when mountain climbing.
Lately, I’ve been telling myself that I’ll be soooo freaking happy when my backache is gone and that I’ll never give up my back exercises or overdo it with sports again. Heh. My wife seems to know better.
All of this brings to mind two of my favorite sayings:
It is said an eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent a sentence, to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him with the words, ‘And this, too, shall pass away.’ How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction! — Abraham Lincoln
Remember that there is nothing stable in human affairs; therefore avoid undue elation in prosperity, or undue depression in adversity. — Socrates