Everyone who has observed human behavior for more than thirty continuous seconds seems to have noticed that people are strongly, perhaps even primarily, perhaps even single-mindedly, motivated to feel happy.
Interpretation
People are inherently driven by the desire to achieve happiness in their lives.
In this quote, Daniel Gilbert emphasizes that humans are fundamentally motivated by the pursuit of happiness. He suggests that after even a brief observation of human behavior, one can readily see that individuals prioritize their happiness, indicating that it is a primary driver of our actions and decisions.
In practice
During a motivational speech on mental health, one could use this quote to highlight the importance of happiness.
Part of us believes the new car is better because it lasts longer. But, in fact, that's the worst thing about the new car. It will stay around to disappoint you, whereas a trip to Europe is over. It evaporates. It has the good sense to go away, and you are left with nothing but a wonderful memory.
Psychologists call this habituation, economists call it declining marginal utility, and the rest of us call it marriage.
The mistakes we make when we try to imagine our personal futures are also lawful, regular, and systematic. They, too, have a pattern that tells us about the powers and limits of foresight in much the same way that optical illusions tell us about the powers and limits of eyesight.
When we have an experience -- hearing a particular sonata, making love with a particular person, watching the sun set from a particular window of a particular room -- on successive occasions, we quickly begin to adapt to it, and the experience yields less pleasure each time. Psychologists call this habituation, economists call it declining marginal utility, and the rest of us call it marriage
Alas, we think of ourselves as unique entities-minds unlike any others-and thus we often reject the lessons that the emotional experience of others has to teach us.
What’s so curious about human beings is that we can look deeply into the future, foresee disaster, and still do nothing in the present to stop it. The majority of people on this planet, they’re overwhelmed with concerns about their immediate well being.
We’re young, we’re not monsters, no fools: we’ll conquer happiness for ourselves.
Such happiness as life is capable of comes from the full participation of all our powers in the endeavor to wrest from each changing situations of experience its own full and unique meaning.
I'm from New Orleans, which is all about direct engagement out in the street with all the parades and Mardi Gras Indians and jazz funerals. I'm trying to take that and put it into my generation, a group that doesn't have enough joy and celebration in their lives.
Don't you stay at home of evenings? Don't you love a cushioned seat in a corner, by the fireside, with your slippers on your feet?
....that the mounds of ices, and the bowls of mint-julep and sherry cobbler they make in these latitudes, are refreshments never to be thought of afterwards, in summer, by those who would preserve contented minds.
And when they went away, leaving comfort behind, I think there were not in all the city four merrier people than the hungry little girls who gave away their breakfasts and contented themselves with bread and milk on Christmas morning.
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