Stumbling on Happiness

By Daniel Gilbert

Categories: Self-Help

Psychologist Daniel Gilbert asks why people are so bad at predicting what will make them happy. His 2006 book argues that imagination, like memory, plays tricks on us, and that we make the same mistakes whenever we picture the future. Drawing on research, much of it his own, Gilbert explains why tomorrow rarely turns out as expected. He mixes studies with humor and odd questions, such as whether conjoined twins are less happy than other people, to show that happiness is not what or where we thought it was.

Recommended by 4 people

• Sam Harris
• Maria Popova
• Derek Sivers
• Shane Parrish: “Stumbling Toward Happiness, by Dan Gilbert Very engaging book, focusing mostly on how we go awry when we try to make decisions based upon our recollection of past events or beliefs about how we will feel in the future. (I also really enjoyed Haidt’s Happiness Hypothesis, though it’s less focused on decision making than this book is.)”