The Happiness Hypothesis

Reason and emotion must both work together to create intelligent behavior, but emotion (a major part of the elephant) does most of the work.

The whole universe is change and life itself is but what you deem it. —MARCUS AURELIUS

29 An emotionally intelligent person has a skilled rider who knows how to distract and coax the elephant without having to engage in a direct contest of wills.

Yet, when people are actually given a larger array of choices—for example, an assortment of thirty (rather than six) gourmet chocolates from which to choose—they are less likely to make a choice; and if they do, they are less satisfied

What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow: our life is the creation of our mind. —BUDDHA

Buddhism, for example, in an effort to break people’s carnal attachment to their own (and others’) flesh, developed methods of meditating on decaying corpses.31

The automatic system has its finger on the dopamine release button. The controlled system, in contrast, is better seen as an advisor. It’s a rider placed on the elephant’s back to help the elephant make better choices.

By choosing to stare at something that revolts the automatic system, the rider can begin to change what the elephant will want in the future.

After conducting several variations of this experiment with similar findings each time, Van Boven and Gilovich concluded that experiences give more happiness in part because they have greater social value: Most activities that cost more than a hundred dollars are things we do with other people, but expensive material possessions are often purchased