Book Review: Stumbling on Happiness
Book Reviews November 28th, 2008Author: Daniel Gilbert
Stumbling on Happiness
Daniel Gilbert makes a wonderful examination about the “only animal that thinks about the future” in his book “Stumbling on Happiness”. I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I generally look for specific actions and books that give a variety of guidance but I must say that this one offers none of that. What it does do however, is examine what humans are capable of from the thinking perspective and he presents how that can be a huge benefit to our social and life decisions yet at the same time a limiting hindrance in our decisions and thoughts.
Gilbert makes reference to tens of studies and correlates them into a pretty common theme for the book. Humans are pretty bad at predicting what will make them happy!
I absolutely love Gilbert’s style of writing as there is much subtle humor and jibes toward the general intelligence (or lack thereof) at people’s ability to gauge and plan their own happiness. He has a very engaging style with this work and leads you around a variety of topics on happiness with scientific studies, personal observations and a lot of intriguing questions to ponder. He demonstrates how our brains lead us more often than not to obscurity in the future when it comes to happiness and there is little we can do about it, no matter how hard we try.
Subjective Happiness
Another important premise of the book is that happiness is completely subjective. One person’s idea of extreme happiness can be very different from anothers’. Not only that but individuals are not even consistent with their own happiness as what may have led to us being extremely happy a year ago or even last week, could be completely different now. It will also be completely different in the future. All of our experiences are faded in our memories so what we think we were feeling in the past that made us happy shifts over time in our memories. Similarly, our imaginations cannot be relied on for future prediction of happiness as it is altered by our memories and tinted by what we are experiencing at the time we imagine it.
Joy of Delusion
The examination that happiness really cannot be predicted, remembered or even repeated leaves us with one option, to enjoy the delusion and understand that happiness is what it is at that time only and will never again be the same so get what you can from it at the time. We’re incapable of imagining accurately so I’m certainly not going to try to think of happiness in the future. I’m instead going to enjoy what I can, when i can and know that my experiences are not something I can accurate predict in the future so its rather mute to try.
Some of the things presented in the book and how it affects happiness are:
- Our minds often exaggerate or filter out content in our memories
- Imaginations are never accurate predictions since our applied memories always shift
- People naturally rationalize situations to conclude themselves into some kind of happy state
- Happiness is rarely as good as we imagine it and it rarely lasts as long as we think it will
- Things that prevent happiness are often repeated and ignored when searching for happiness
These (and more) are covered in 5 parts just to give you an idea of the various angles he approaches things with.
- Prospection
- Subjectivity
- Realism
- Presentism
- Rationalization
Anyway, I definitely recommend this book, not so you gain a better understanding of how to be happiness, but more to realize what happiness is not, and how that changes some of your beliefs around happiness that you use to steer your life. The book is incredibly funny and quite similar to the books, Blink and Freakonomics in study and style. I’d recommend the unabridged audio version as it’s great fun to hear the author himself putting the emphasis on his content with wit and humor. I certainly was happy listening to it!
Prev: Maximum Productivity: Connections
Next: Open Ended Questions Make Better Conversations
November 30th, 2008 at 2:21 AM
Really good write up.
I like the distinctions and fine points.
Have you heard of “synthetic happiness”? It’s another distinction related to the number of choices we have. Fewer choices can help us appreciate what we’ve got, whereas more choices, can lead to dwelling on missed opportunities. I think that’s where an attitude of grattitude comes into play.
November 30th, 2008 at 5:38 PM
Hi J.D. Gilbert covers that topic well in the book and looks at so many angles of our synthetic and fabricated happiness. It’s like the more we look for it, the harder it is to find it!
He talks about a bunch of different studies of choices and choices in determining our happiness. Turns out that more choice actually leads to indecision more than anything, which leaves you less happy than even choosing the least of the choices available since then you at least of something. It’s interesting as well how choices make people second guess themselves and think about the other options as soon as they have the item they first choose and how that option of something else still leaves them unhappy. Sad considering how much choice we really do have.
If you haven’t read the book, I think you would love it! Thanks for the comment.
December 1st, 2008 at 10:24 PM
Hi Mike
This book gives a really interesting message – will take note of it.
Just to add, I think your reviews are great. You must read quite a bit and enjoy writing the overviews.
Thanks,
Juliet
December 2nd, 2008 at 1:02 AM
Thanks Juliet, it’s great to hear you appreciate them. I certainly do read a lot. I’ve gone through almost 40 books already this year reading and listening. I had never read a book until about 4 years ago though and I’ve fallen in love with it. I’ll never stop now, I have all those years of catching up to do when I never read 🙂 !
July 30th, 2009 at 12:56 PM
Wow haha, I read this book for my psychology seminar. It definitely delivers some interesting points and it made for some good discussions. It’s true that we are horrible at predicting what’s best for us. You are right about his style; the book definitely incorporates his sense of humor into it. He talks mainly of the limitations that humans have, like how our memory is vastly overestimated for example. It’s definitely a realist perspective and it’s a good read.
Till then,
Jean
August 17th, 2011 at 9:46 AM
I had purchased this book one year back but couldn’t read more than 20 pages. I can’t remember the reason. After reading lot of reviews and recommendation i am planning to read it after i complete Life after college, personal MBA and First break all the rules. Thanks for your reviews.
October 29th, 2011 at 7:46 AM
[…] Tweet EmailRSSThis week I have a wonderful guest post by Jesse who takes on the challenging topics of authenticity and happiness.  If you like this subject, I recommend you also check out my review of and buy Daniel Gilbert’s book, Stumbling on Happiness […]