Stumbling on Happiness
by Daniel Gilbert
(Buy it at Amazon)

Firstly, this is not a self-help book. I felt burning eyes of judgement when I pulled it out on the train but of course if I stood up and shouted the truth I’d look more crazy. This book is about the science behind happiness and how the brain works. It contains some very interesting revelations. If you won the lottery how happy do you think you would be in one year? More happy than someone who has a car accident and becomes paraplegic? Of course you would think you would be but Gilbert shows otherwise. We discover that lottery winners are equally as happy as paraplegics one year after the major change in their life.

There’s two reasons for this. Firstly, we are really bad at predicting future outcomes of events. We over-emphasise the duration and intensity of our abnormal feelings about these outcomes. We think a lottery winner would be a lot happier than they actually are and we think that these feelings would last a lot longer than they actually do. Secondly, we synthesise happiness in the absence of ‘real’ happiness. People whose situation from the outside may seem hopeless will often our brains soften the impact of bad events.

He also discusses how the brain ‘cheats’ in its memories by filtering out a lot of the boring stuff and highlights key points in events. For example, our opinion of a movie is heavily skewed towards the ending just because our brain picks key parts (it can’t store every event in our lives) out and ‘fills in’ the rest when required. This filling in is not always reliable though so although you may really enjoy a movie at the time but aren’t impressed by the ending, recalling the movie in a few months time will probably bring the bad ending to forefront so your memory later is that you didn’t really like it.

Maybe if I hadn’t already read The Paradox of Choice before reading this I would have gotten more out of it. There is a bit of overlap between Gilbert and Schwartz’s work. I did end up struggling through this one from about three-quarters of the way in until the end. The themes do get slightly repetitive although there is a liberal dab of humour thrown in there to keep you interested.

I wouldn’t recommend you read both Paradox and Stumbling and I would probably recommend Schwartz’s work over this one.

Gilbert’s appearance at TED is below and he covers a couple of the studies he discusses in the book.

The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less – How the culture of abundance robs us of satisfaction
By Barry Schwartz
(Buy it at Amazon)

Decisions, decisions. That’s what this book is all about. More to the point, it’s about the choice we are faced when we are required (or invited) to make decisions that affect our life. One thing that has crept up on us in modern times is that there’s just so much ‘stuff’ to choose from. Even at something so mundane as the supermarket, it’s easy to be overwhelmed by choice. This book hit a nerve with me because I’m currently facing the choice of where I want to work after I graduate – not a small decision by any stretch of the imagination. What I realised after reading this book though is that obsessing about choices you make will definitely not make you any happier – something that I’m trying to keep in mind as I attend interview after interview.

Anyway, enough about me and more about this book. Schwartz divides the book into When (we choose), How (we choose), Why (we suffer) and What (we can do). Schwartz argues that the advancements in freedom (a subjective term I know) should be voluntarily curtailed by self-imposing limits and rules on the choices that we evaluate. For example, I’m not looking for any jobs that would involve me moving from my hometown – that greatly simplifies my choice of where to apply for jobs. If I didn’t limit where I applied by location I would be completely snowed under with the choice of where I should work. In fact, after reading this book I realised that if I only got one job offer then it’s likely that I’d be happier than if I got 10.

He identifies two groups of people: maximizers and satisficers. Maximizers agonise over every decision they make. They don’t just want to make a good choice, they want to make the best choice. Satisficers are generally satisfied by making a choice that is good, but not necessarily the best. The result is that maximizers are generally speaking less happy with their decisions than satisficers even though the maximisers have made better choices.

That’s just a brief glance at what this book contains. There’s a lot more to it, Schwartz highlights many studies that backup his points. It’s also an immensely readable book (unlike the last book I read) and I absolutely raced through it in about a week (which is good for me considering I only really read when I’m on the train).

I’ve included Schwartz’s appearance at TED for you. He discusses many elements that are in the book and should give you a good taste for the subject at hand (just under 20 minutes long).