Stumbling on Happiness

Book Description

7 Reviews

• 2 people find this helpful

  

  Regular dosage recommended!

  Excellent synthesis of the research and findings on what makes people happy. Mind you, this is not a rosy, tacky self-help book. Better yet, the author lays out how the wiring of our brain produces flawed memories and flawed predictions even though it is extremely effective at keeping us alive.

  ... (continue)

  Excellent synthesis of the research and findings on what makes people happy. Mind you, this is not a rosy, tacky self-help book. Better yet, the author lays out how the wiring of our brain produces flawed memories and flawed predictions even though it is extremely effective at keeping us alive.

  I have always loved to read about clever yet straightforward tests used by psychologists to uncover human instincts, and there are plenty of the best ones quoted in this book. Although the author at times glide over complex logic a bit too effortlessly (I'd attribute it mostly to my slow comprehension though), on the whole this book is highly entertaining and enlightening.

  I'll probably read it every few years to remind myself how to avoid making myself unhappy. For the price of a book, I think I have saved myself tons of potential fees for therapy!

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  s tsui said on Jul 27, 2007 | Add your feedback

• 1 person find this helpful

  

  This is not a self-help book. It won't teach us how to find happiness. It won't offer solutions to our problems of frustration. Instead, it tells a depressing truth: we are naturally wired to be unable to imagine the future accurately, and so we cannot hope to say, with any certainty, how happy w ... (continue)

  This is not a self-help book. It won't teach us how to find happiness. It won't offer solutions to our problems of frustration. Instead, it tells a depressing truth: we are naturally wired to be unable to imagine the future accurately, and so we cannot hope to say, with any certainty, how happy we will be or what will make us happy.

  On further reflection, maybe that's not so bad after all. A natural conclusion is this: Happiness will come to us as surprises - and of course these will be pleasant surprises.

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  Holmes said on Mar 17, 2010 | Add your feedback

• http://broncobilli.blogspot.com/search/label/gilbert

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  Riccardo Mariani said on Nov 29, 2011 | Add your feedback

• 

  It is not an easy book to read - it requires a lot of thinking and interpreting, definitely not something you read at bedtime. What bothered me most was put best by the author himself:
  "My friends tell me that I have a tendency to point out problems without offering solutions...", which preci ... (continue)

  It is not an easy book to read - it requires a lot of thinking and interpreting, definitely not something you read at bedtime. What bothered me most was put best by the author himself:
  "My friends tell me that I have a tendency to point out problems without offering solutions...", which precisely the weakness of this book. I am not at all suggesting that any human being will be able to find a brilliant solution that helps with the quest for happiness, but I would expect at least some unique theory/opinion if you were going to author a book based on the subject.

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  Dora Tsang said on Mar 9, 2009 | Add your feedback

• 

  A fascinating book. Happiness is our goal in life, and we put so much effort into it. So why are we so bad at it? Well, this book will show you a whole bunch of shortcomings of your own brain that you didn't even know about. Very interesting cognitive psychology backed up by experimental findings, G ... (continue)

  A fascinating book. Happiness is our goal in life, and we put so much effort into it. So why are we so bad at it? Well, this book will show you a whole bunch of shortcomings of your own brain that you didn't even know about. Very interesting cognitive psychology backed up by experimental findings, Gilbert has written a gem.

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  audioreader said on Aug 15, 2008 about the Hardcover edition | Add your feedback

• 

  其實作者在序度已經講得好清楚，依本書唔係教你點樣快樂既，佢頂籠解釋到比你知，點解快樂會篇尋不穫。

  就好似封面打翻了一碗車厘子一樣。

  簡單ｄ來講，我地成日都錯估自己對目標達成後既反應，We are terribly lousy in predicting the future and our response!

  P. 247 onward:

  Imagination has three shortcomings:

  1. Its tendency to fill in and leave out without telling us. No ... (continue)

  其實作者在序度已經講得好清楚，依本書唔係教你點樣快樂既，佢頂籠解釋到比你知，點解快樂會篇尋不穫。

  就好似封面打翻了一碗車厘子一樣。

  簡單ｄ來講，我地成日都錯估自己對目標達成後既反應，We are terribly lousy in predicting the future and our response!

  P. 247 onward:

  Imagination has three shortcomings:

  1. Its tendency to fill in and leave out without telling us. No one can imagine every feature and consequence of a future event, hence, we must consider some and fail to consider others. The problem is that the features and consequences we failed to consider are often quite important.

  2. Its tendency to project present onto the future. When imagination paints a picture of the future, many of the details are necessarily missing, and imagination solves this problem by filling in the gaps with details that it borrows from the present. e.g., you cannot imagine hunger when you are full.

  3. Imagination fails to recognize that things will look different once they happen - in particular, that bad things will look a whole lot better. Our psychological immune system will be triggered when disasters fall on us.

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  Samsara said on Sep 14, 2007 | Add your feedback

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Book Details

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• English Books
• Paperback 310 Pages
• Edition: 1
• ISBN-10: 1400077427
• ISBN-13: 9781400077427
• Publisher: Vintage
• Pub date: Mar 20, 2007
• Dimensions: 1290 mm x 839 mm x 129 mm Just how big is that?
• Also available as: Hardcover, Audio CD, Others and eBook
• In other languages: other languages 繁體書, Deutsche Bücher, Libros en Español, Libri Italiani, Svenska böcker, Ελληνικά βιβλία

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