Stumbling On Happiness

‘"Stumbling on Happiness" is an absolutely fantastic book that will shatter your most deeply held convictions about how your own mind works. Ceaselessly entertaining, Gilbert is the perfect guide to some of the most interesting psychological research ever performed. Think you know what makes you happy? You won’t know for sure until you have read this book.’ Steven D. Levitt, author of ‘Freakonomics’

‘In "Stumbling on Happiness", Daniel Gilbert shares his brilliant insights into our quirks of mind, and steers us toward happiness in the most delightful, engaging ways. If you stumble on this book, you’re guaranteed many doses of joy.’ Daniel Goleman, author of ‘Emotional Intelligence’

‘This is a brilliant book, a useful book, and a book that could quite possibly change the way you look at just about everything. And as a bonus, Gilbert writes like a cross between Malcolm Gladwell and David Sedaris.’ Seth Godin, author ‘All Marketers Are Liars’

‘Everyone will enjoy reading this book, and some of us will wish we could have written it. You will rarely have a chance to learn so much about so important a topic while having so much fun.’ Professor Daniel Kahneman, Princeton University, Winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics

‘A fascinating new book that explores our sometimes misguided attempts to find happiness.’ Time Magazine

an interview with Daniel Gilbert

Q and A with Professor Gilbert  

What was your childhood like?
My dad was a professor (still is, in fact) and my mother was a writer and artist, so I got the best of both worlds. Like my mother, I write. Like my father, I am a scientist. My childhood was lovely because my parents were wonderful, but also because my older brother was the first child and my younger sister was the first girl, and because I wasn't the first anything I received far less scrutiny, which meant that I could do as I pleased generally because no one was looking.  

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I seem to recall that second baseman for the Chicago Cubs and Playboy photographer were both very high on the list. At the age of 10, I thought these were the two best ways to ensure that I'd eventually get to see a woman naked.  

Would you describe yourself as happy - and where on the eight-point rating?
People are terrible at remembering how happy they were, predicting how happy they'll be, or judging how happy they are in general. They can, however, tell you how happy they are at the moment they are asked, so at this moment I am somewhere around 6.5. Am I usually this way? I don't know. People tell me I have a sunny disposition but that I am easily annoyed.  

What makes you happy?
This is another question that people have trouble answering for themselves. When you are truly happy you aren't noticing how happy you are, which makes it difficult to recall later. With that said, I have the sense that I am happiest when I am writing without interruption. I can wake up at 5 a.m., walk directly to my desk, and write for 10 hours without ever remembering to eat or brush my teeth. My normal day is an endless series of interruptions - email, telephone, family, students - so the occasional uninterrupted day is (I think) my greatest pleasure.  

What makes you unhappy?
I get snippy and sarcastic when people use language incorrectly. I shouldn't, but I do. When a clerk at a store says, 'That will be three dollars', I say, 'Really, when?' I know, I know. I should be shot.  

You say that research shows that having children doesn't make us happier. Do you think becoming a dad made you happier?
Intuitions and data often collide. The data say the earth is round, but it looks flat to me. My intuition is that fatherhood increases my average daily happiness, but the data say that unless I'm different from most people, this probably isn't so. Of course, I'm not exactly like other people inasmuch as I am 48 and my son is 30, so perhaps I'm free to believe my intuitions - in which case, I believe that he makes me happy and that my granddaughter makes me even happier.  

Can self-help books help?
Yes. They help the authors make money. Anyone who takes psychological advice from someone who isn't trained and licensed to give it should have their head examined. Would anyone buy a book written by a cab driver called How to Remove Your Own Appendix?  

Does what you know about the way the human brain works in any way help you to be happy?
Knowing that people overestimate the impact of almost every life event makes me a bit braver and a bit more relaxed because I know that whatever I'm worrying about now probably won't matter as much as I think it will.  

Do you intend for your book to help people to think differently?
My book isn't meant to make people happy. It is meant to make them smart about happiness by telling them what science has discovered. I hope to give people information that they can use (or not use) as they wish. I'm not in the business of telling people what's right. I'm in the business of helping them see what's true and then letting them decide for themselves what to do about it.  

What do you hope to accomplish with your research?
I'd like to say that I am trying to understand errors in affective forecasting so that we can learn how best to overcome them. The trouble is that forecasting errors are not clearly a 'disease' that requires a 'cure'. Indeed, some people have suggested that inaccurate forecasts may play an important role in our lives. Having said that, I’m willing to bet that on balance we are best served by accurate estimates of the emotional consequences of pains, tragedies and embarrassments. However, at heart I'm just a guy who is curious about human nature, and what I really want from my research is a deeper understanding of who we are and what we are doing here. If my research has a practical benefit, I'm happy about that. If it doesn't, I'm not even slightly worried.What is the practical benefit of knowing how the universe began, or of understanding the evolution of the mealworm?    

Have you tried self-help books, meditation, therapy, whatever, to do battle with your brain's behaviour?
Yes, I call it single malt scotch therapy and I find that at the end of a long day it tames my brain quite nicely.  

Would you like to live in the eternal now?
No. I enjoy remembering the past and imagining the future. My ability to do these things is among nature's greatest gifts to me, so why would I want to be rid of it? Anyone who wants to live in the moment should have been born a mosquito.  

You say we all imagine our futures will be better than our presents, but Americans particularly so. Why do you think Americans are more optimistic than other nationalities?
America is a young country that has had an astonishingly rapid rise to the height of wealth and power. Things have been good here since the beginning and have always gotten better, so Americans believe that this is their eternal trajectory. I see a few surprises in store for us.  

Why do you open every chapter of your book with a Shakespeare quote?
There are two reasons. First, throughout history there have been wonderfully insightful people who have made shrewd guesses about how the mind works. Modern science allows us to decide which of these guesses was right and which was wrong. Shakespeare has a pretty good track record of being right, so I decided to let him kick off each chapter. The second reason is that I am an ordinary low-brow guy who prefers action movies to sonnets and Tater Tots to pâté, but in my daily life I impersonate a Harvard professor, and I always have this nagging feeling that to play this role properly requires that I be a refined snob who sits around reading Shakespeare while eating little sandwiches without crusts. That's not me, but the quotes will fool everyone - provided you don't rat me out.    

What is your favourite film or book and why?
I like movies a lot, but I love old science fiction movies, so let me say The Day the Earth Stood Still. I still get shivers when someone says 'Klaatu, barada nikto'. As far as books go, I'm very fond of T. C. Boyle. Drop City was terrific. And A. M. Homes. She's dark and strange in all the right ways. Music for Torching made me feel like I was an alien on my own planet.  

Are you an optimist?
No, sorry, I don't know the first thing about making eyeglasses.  

We all suffer from illusions of foresight. How do you imagine your future?
Do you think you are wrong about it? When I think about the future I imagine quitting my job and sneaking off to a Hawaiian island with my wife and my guitar and never coming back. I suppose that makes me an optometrist after all.   You say that we regret not doing something more than something we did. What do you regret not doing - and doing? I regret not looking after my health a bit better back when it was easy to do. The guy who had my body before me wasn't all that nice to it. I don't have any Great Regrets of Action, though I suppose I would take back every instance in which I made someone I love feel bad if that were possible.  

You say it's the frequency not the intensity of positive events in your life which makes you happy. What positive events reoccur in your life regularly and therefore contribute to your happiness?
Three good things I do regularly: (1) drink freshly ground double-strength coffee made in a French press every morning, (2) walk to and from my office every day, and (3) listen to Miles or Jimi at least once a week (and if you have to ask their last names then you are even less cool than I am).  

Do you think that too much choice in modern life is making us miserable?
Well, we surely have too many stupid choices. A year or two ago I bought a dozen pairs of identical cargo pants and identical black T-shirts and now when I wake up in the morning I never think about what to wear. Why should we waste our lives deciding whether to have Coke or Pepsi, with or without caffeine, with or without sugar, with or without lemon, in a can or a bottle or a litre or a cup, with or without ice, and a straw thank you?  

Do you think we have lost some primal ignorance that would have kept us happy?
No, no, no. Did I mention no? Every generation has the illusion that things were easier and better in a simpler past. Dead wrong. Things are better today than at any time in human history. Our primal ignorance is what keeps us whacking each other over the head with sticks, and not what allows us to paint a Mona Lisa or design a space shuttle. The 'primal ignorance that keeps us happy' gives rise to obesity and global warming, not antibiotics or the Magna Carta. If human kind flourishes rather than flounders over the next thousand years, it will be because we fully embraced learning and reason, and not because we surrendered to some fantasy about returning to a world that never really was.  

What do you consider to be your greatest achievement and why?
I am rather proud of being listed just before Dizzy Gillespie on the list of the World's Most Famous High-School Drop-outs. I mean, just to be on the same page as Diz ... wow.  

What would you do right now if you learned you were going to die in 10 minutes?
I'd go to the phone to say goodbye to a few important people. Then, if I had time, I'd smoke up a storm.