Choosing Happiness...

Choice. We all want more of it, don't we? We think if we just have more choice than of course we will choose the thing that makes us happy. Right? Well... its not that easy. Oftentimes having more choices overwhelms us and so we end up making no choice, a bad choice, or having regrets about  a choice that we made even if it was a fine choice to make.

And why would we regret a choice we made even if its a good one. Well, its simple: We're all wanting optimal happiness and we feel badly (make ourselves feel UN-happy) if we somehow missed out on that happiness. Wait. What? Why do we do these things?

Why do we delay our current happiness for some future happiness? When asked, so many people say in life that they want to just be happy. Or oftentimes our goals are for some outside 'objective' thing or idea: money, power, love, prestige. Buy why do we often want these things ultimately? So we can be happy. So, why can't we just be happy?

If you have time (or can at least bookmark it for later), take a moment to listen to one or all of the following TED videos relating to choice, how we choose, and its impact on our happiness. I think you'll be happy you did :)

Dan Gilbert: Synthesizing Happiness

Barry Schwartz: The Paradox of Choice

Sheena Iyengar: The Art of Choice

Malcolm Gladwell: What we can learn from spaghetti sauce.

Dan Gilbert: Our Mistaken Expectations


Matthieu Ricard on the habits of happiness