The Core Dump
It updates the blog, or it gets the hose again.
Review: Stumbling on Happiness
We all want to be happy. As the only species on the planet able to plan for the future, you’d think most of us would succeed in mapping out whatever path we each need to go down to bring us happiness.
Obviously, this is not so.
In Stumbling on Happiness, psychologist Daniel Gilbert explains the reasons happiness can be so elusive, and why we often don’t learn as well as we should from our experiences.
The book is a slim volume, written in a very approachable and easy-to-read way without sacrificing academic rigor. It highlights some very illuminating studies that have been performed about how people evaluate happiness and how we approach different situations in ways that one would hope would lead to the greatest amount of happiness. The vast majority of these studies are very clever and showcase the ways our brains are wired.
Stumbling on Happiness is adamantly not the book to read if you want a recipe for happiness; it is essentially a compilation of studies of how our minds work and how we evaluate happiness, but does not—and certainly never claims to—provide a 1-2-3 system for getting there.
It wouldn’t be fair to create a Cliff’s notes version of the book in this review, so the one thing I will include, the thing that really struck me, is this: If you want to know how happy you will be doing something, ask somebody who’s doing it. Not somebody who has done it, not somebody who’s thinking about doing it, but somebody who’s doing it right now. It turns out that us humans aren’t as singular as we’d like to think we are—we all share the same wiring.
Which, depending on how you look at it, is either a happy or depressing thought.
Posted Friday, 31 August, 2007 by Nic Lindh
For your enjoyment, the 10 latest posts
Cloudy with a chance of broken
All Nic wants for WWDC is sync that actually works
Book roundup, part eleven
Another book roundup, including some stellar athletes and soldiers, what might be the most jaded, soul-weary protagonist ever, and some grimdark fantasy.
Paywalls and tinfoil hats
The Internet is getting creepy, and Nic is breaking out his tinfoil hat after newspaper paywalls push him over the edge.
OK then, Mr. Gekko
Nic is tired of tech sites obsessing over Apple’s financials and business strategy. So very tired.
Read this book: Salt Sugar Fat
Nic reads a book about the processed food industry and is incensed.
The cargo cult of technology
Computers are complicated. This brings out the irrational in people.
Seen a Rechthaberei lately?
Nic proposes the loan word Rechthaberei be incorporated into American English.
Book roundup, part ten
The Core Dump is back! Books were read during the hiatus. Includes The Coldest Winter, Oh, Myyy!, Tough Sh*t, The Revolution Was Televised, The Rook, Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore, Gun Machine, Fortress Frontier, Standing in Another Man’s Grave, and The Memory of Light.
The Core Dump is hibernating
This site will return in February.
Book roundup, part nine
From a true patriot to a world-weary detective, a dead god, and a civilization about to sublime from the galaxy, this book roundup spans the gamut. Includes Where Men Win Glory, Wild, Inside the Box, The Black Box, Three Parts Dead, Red Country, and The Hydrogen Sonata.
Put me in your feed reader
Niclas Lindh.com
Amazon wishlist
Twitter
Google Plus