The end of Stumbling On Happiness

After several posts on the subject, I thought I would post about the end of Stumbling on Happiness. I have to admit that it took me by surprise. So that it won’t do the same to you, let me post the last two sentences from p 263 of the January 2007 First Vintage Books Edition paperback.

“There is no simple formula for finding happiness. But if our great big brains do not allow us to go surefootedly into our futures, they at least allow us to understand what makes us stumble.”

So now we know. It turns out that this book is not necessarily about how we should find happiness, but more an explanation as to why we aren't always happy with what we think we want. His point is to help us understand how we, with all of our forward looking brain power, are really bad at choosing the paths that will make us happy.

He does have one suggestion. In psychological studies, they have found that people are better at predicting their own future happiness when given no information about what will happen next except written reports on the happiness levels of individuals who have been through the same experience. This is called surrogating. He recommends that we all do something similar. Find someone who is doing what we want to do and ask them about their happiness.

But, all of his studies in happiness also indicate a few things that make me skeptical of this suggestion. First, sample size is important in happiness studies because this is an inherently subjective measurement. The only way to be certain is to interview a very large number of people in the circumstance that you are considering. How do you find enough people to ask? Secondly, when people predict how happy they will be and remember how happy they were about certain events, those predictions and memories are fairly close. But when they are actually asked how happy they are during the event, they are not as happy as either their prediction or their later memory. So, is my happiness during the event more important than my memory of happiness after the event?

Of course, this suggestion is really only a small part of the book. I can only hope that it is purely there as setup for a sequel. I would enjoy reading a similarly rigorous look at how surrogating works in daily life. It would certainly be an interesting read.

For my part, I have come to some conclusions about the entire happiness phenomenon. There are things that I can do to encourage my overall happiness levels. I know what they are and I should use them when I feel the need. For the most part, though, happiness is a fleeting response to a wide variety of factors that are only partially in my control. I intend to enjoy the moments that I find and allow my brain to trick me into remembering even more happiness than I felt during the moment. But there are goals and objectives that I will pursue for myself, my family and my community that are more important to me than a fleeting emotional response. So, with all due respect to our founding fathers, I will have to continue to behave as if my life is about far more than the pursuit of happiness.