THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

Here is a $1,000,000 question that can be answered in 1,000,000 different ways: 
Why Are We Happy?

I found a pretty interesting storytelling video on TED.com responding to this question.

This is a great speech for you all who are pursuing happiness!

Daniel Gilbert earned a doctorate degree in social psychology from Princeton University in 1985; he also won a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Phi Beta Kappa teaching prize for his work at Harvard. Gilbert believes that, in our ardent, lifelong pursuit of happiness, most of us have the wrong map.

Gilbert explains us that there is two form of happiness: synthetic happiness and natural happiness.

“Natural happiness is what we get when we get what we wanted, and synthetic happiness is what we make when we don't get what we wanted.”

For example, he proved his point by doing many experiences such as a lottery winner and a paraplegics, Jim Wright (former chaiman of the House of Representatives), Moreese Bickman (who spent 37 years in Louisiana Penitentiary for a crime he didn’t know commit), or Harry Langerman who was on of the first persons to be interested in getting a franchise from the McDonald’s brothers, hospitalized patients and also Harvard students…

One the points that Gilbert is communicating to us is that positive or negative outcomes have less impact, less severity and less extent that people expect them to have.

You could clearly tell that Gilbert had the attention of the audience by his deep involvement and a passion that he is sharing with others.

I find this speech to be inspiring because Gilbert tells us that happiness is not a thing to be found. We tend to find a way to be happy with what’s happened, but we do not know that about ourselves which sometimes can lead a disadvantage. I honestly believe that having strong bounded ambitions guides us toward a joyful work. Although we know that we will always chase for more, Gilbert made me understood that bounding our fears and our ambitions is essential key to pursue happiness.