• Week 2 - Things we think will make us happy but dont
  • Awesome Stuff / Money:
    • There is no objective number that makes you happy. What we think we need actually jumps up every time we get more.
    • Emotional Well being, rises with your income but stops after $75,000 (or number at which basic comfort living is obtained)
    • It's not going to make that much of a difference and it's making way less of a difference than we actually think.
  • Love: There is this honeymoon effect where you report being happier after marriage. But sadly, after that, it goes back to baseline. You get that little two year window
  • Weight Loss: Being in a weight loss programme itself makes you more depressed. Those who dont loose weight go back to baseline, those who do are actually more depressed.
• Week 3 - Annoying features of the mind
  • Our brains deliver to us this idea that we want certain things, but we are wrong about it. We are constantly miswanting.
  • Annoying Feature # 1
    • Our minds' strongest intuitions are often not the ones we expect
  • Annoying Feature # 2
    • Our minds just don't think in terms of absolutes. We think in relatives and we use reference points that are around us and measure our happiness relative to that.
    • Most of our evaluation of what a good job is, actually concerns having a high salary that's for better or for worse, everybody seems to care about
    • For every amount that your actual income goes up a dollar, your required income, the income you think you want, actually goes up a dollar and 40
    • So as you go up in your TV viewing hours, you also go up in your estimation of other people's average wealth.(Higher reference point, more unhappiness)
    • Rating your partner in a control condition after looking at pictures on social media drops the rating a few points.
    • The more Facebook use you have,the lower your self-esteem,and the magnitude of this effect. Again, soak that in,is twice as much as the magnitude of increased income on happiness.
    • Our mind just soaks in whatever reference point we get,and it doesn't actually have a great filter.And so, the more you can kind of force that filter on it, the better you will be.
  • Annoying Feature # 3
    • Our minds are built to get used to stuff.
    • It's not like we just get a stimulus and it's there and we notice it all the time. We just get used to it. And this is this phenomena of Hedonic Adaptation( This is this process of becoming accustomed to both positive stuff and negative stuff)
  • Annoying Feature # 4
    • In addition to having hedonic adaptation, we also don't realize that we're going to have hedonic adaptation.
    • We don't realize that our minds get used to this stuff. And this is a particular thing that messes up our predictions because we think the happy things that we seek out are going to make us happy for a long time and, maybe even more insidious, we don't realize that if bad things happen. We're just not going to be that affected by them very soon.
    • We have this impact biased for positive things. We predict it's going to be awesome. It's not as awesome as we expect, but we have way more of an impact bias for negative things. We think this is going to destroy our lives to be in this crappy residential college. We'll only be at half our happiness potential. But it just doesn't nearly do it as much as we think. The impact bias we have for negative predictions is much worse than we think
• Week 4 - Overcome Biases
  • Rethink Awesome Stuff - Invest in experiences, not stuff.
    • Invest in experiences not material things. Experiences dont suffer from hedonistic adaption.
    • Experience are short lived. They bring more happiness then material things.
    • Experiences also bring more happiness, in terms or thinking about them, (You are also less impatient thinking about them then material), actual contribution to happiness, as well as in retrospect.
    • People incorrectly estimate this. When thinking about experiences, people forecast they will feel half less happy then material. But it's the other way around after it happens.
    • Experiences make you resonate with people. Those who share experiences resonate better with others.
    • They are less susceptible to social comparisons (harder to compare your experience to someone else's versus a material thing)
  • Thwart hedonistic adaptations
    • Savoring
      • Step outside the moment and enjoy it. Dont think about other things, think about the experience itself.
      • It helps because a)you start higher on your hedonistic curve so takes longer to go down b)makes you notice more things and helps with thwarting.
      • Things that help - sharing with others, thinking you are lucky to have this moment, think about moment itself, express energy, being proud for having the moment
      • Things that dont help - i dont deserve this, how this can be better, this will be over, it will never be this good again, this could have been better.
      • Recall increases happiness. Replay happy memories 8 minutes per day. Doing this thrice, increases happiness, till 4 weeks later.
    • Negative Visualizations
      • Play out scenarios where something might never have happened.
      • Couples who wrote down about these worlds in which they had never met their partner - reported more happiness (marriage and general happiness both)
      • You can do this for things you have now (Great university you are in etc)
    • Make this day your last
      • Simulate, what if particular things in your life that you really like are going to end.
      • Thinking about loosing something thwarts Hedonistic Adaptation, because it makes you suddenly appreciate the good things you have, bumping up your happiness.
    • Gratitude
      • Very powerful for thwarting Hedonistic Adaptation,, but also for re-setting reference points.
      • Gratitude: quality of being thankful and tendency for appreciation for what one has.
      • Just the act of listing 5 things that you are happy about, has incredibly powerful effects on happiness.
      • Doing this once a week for a few weeks, participants experienced better feelings about current life and upcoming events, less impact of physical things (disease etc) and more exercise.
      • If its people you are greatful for, sharing it with them amplifies happiness. (Physically give them a letter). The impact of this can last upto 6 months.
      • If you have a lot of gratitude and express it for your partner, all the other bad characteristics of the marriage can be nullified.
      • Just the act of thanking someone(co-worker, employee), makes them work harder voluntarily.
  • Reset your reference points
    • If there is other food on the table that you like more, just that being there will decrease your happiness for the stuff that you are eating (Gross stuff would increase it)
    • Concretely re-experience
      • When you get something, you move to a new reference point and you forget your earlier reference point and therefore the new thing becomes routines.
      • So you go back and re-experience that older reference point / bad /less good prior thing. (8 minute per day)
    • Concretely Observe
      • Simulate your fantasy, and sometimes you realize, the thing you are fantasizing about, is not as good as you thought.
      • You can realize that the fantasy has some of the same problems that you have, and that can reset your RP.
      • See what the other half is like, and then you will like what you have more.
      • Note: This seems to be about 2 things
        • Visualizing how bad others have it
        • Visualising how bad others have it, who have what you want (or alteast have it as bad as you)
    • Avoid Social Comparisons
      • Stop Technique
        • When you catch yourself making social comparisons, yell 'Stop' it. It forces your brain to stop thinking about it.
        • If you are catching your evaluations being about other people rather then your own worth and your own stuff, it can be powerful in breaking those connections.
      • Practice Gratitude
        • If you are experiencing gratitude for what you have, you dont have enough bandwidth for social comparisons.
        • Gratitude is killer of envy
      • Be Conscious of kinds of social comparisons you are letting in
        • You can change your social feeds. Not follow victoria secret for example.
        • Are you letting in these upward social comparisons to stream in or are you letting in the more real stuff? Real people salaries, real people bodies etc.
        • Basically curate your information to be more realistic.
      • Get rid of your social media accounts
        • Even downward social comparisons dont make you happy.
        • If you are not doing that, then be on guard, use other techniques like stop-think.
    • Interrupt your consumption
      • Interrupt what you enjoy.
      • Normally HE takes over happiness trends downwards, but if you interrupt and resume later, it gets a boost that goes above the baseline.
      • You should be splitting things you like. You will enjoy it more.
      • Conversely: Dont break up bad things. Hedonistically adapt to them
        • Dont split things you dont want to do over 15 minutes, do them in one go.
        • Because every time you go back to it it would give you a stronger negative boost.
    • Increase variety
      • So much of our life is tied up in routines, so they end up being super boring reference points.
      • Break it up. Mix it up. If you are having the same ice-cream every day, space it.
      • Have the good things happen relatively infrequently.
      • This is why experiences are better. Stuff does not change. Experiences do. So do think about it in terms of stuff too. How can you make it dynamic. Change it up, to boost happiness.
• Week 5 - Better Wanting