Sunday, February 14, 2010

Intersting TED talk: Dan Gilbert asks, Why are we happy?

Stumbled upon interesting TED talk:
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy.html

"...natural happiness is what we get when we get what we wanted
and the synthetic happiness is what we make when we don't get what we wanted

In our society we have a strong believe that a synthetic happiness is one of the inferior kind... why do we have that belief?....well it is very simple
.... what kind of economic engine would keep turning
if we believed that not getting what we want could make us
just as happy as getting it ....
a shopping mall full of zen monks is not going to be particularly
profitable because they don't want stuff enough to make it profitable ...."

"...our longings and our worries are both to some degree overblown because we
have within us the capacity to manufacture the very commodity (happiness) we are
constantly chasing when we choose experience"


"Happiness is not a state to arrive at, but a manner of traveling."
~Margaret Lee Runbeck