Any frequent reader will be well aware of my obsession with TED.
I am consistently amazed that they can find people who can speak so eloquently and humorously about such nerdy topics. Perhaps they offer training, or maybe they just refuse all the really nerdy ones. In either case, it’s cool. They are making intelligence sexy and complex ideas accessible for dullards like me. Now we can feel smart.
I also love the cranky monkey!! How pissed off is that little guy!?
Usually information alone will not cause a change in behaviour. Most people need an experience or an emotional payoff to adjust long-term patterns; but there are some ideas that once heard, ferment in the brain. They percolate through the thoughts and you’ll find them popping up again and again.
They become relevant to everything.
I had an experience of this when I first heard of the confirmation bias.
Confirmation bias is (as you may know, or be able to guess) that habit we all have of looking for evidence which supports our beliefs. We’ll ignore or discount the relevance of evidence which contradicts our beliefs, and overstate the accuracy of stuff which seems to confirm them. This probably explains why 90% of people think they’re of above average intelligence. Because being smart is a nice thing to think about oneself, we’ll look for the proof. After hearing of the confirmation bias, I would constantly find myself thinking “Am I very perceptive, or is this this just my confirmation bias at work?”‘
Well here’s another of those insidious ideas. This TED talk I saw long ago, and has been bubbling through my mind since then. The idea that Dan Gilbert is voicing here is that being able to choose (anything – career, wife, which brand of chocolate to eat) does not make us happy; but simply through the act of choosing, we are doomed to be unhappy. Hidden within that scary and paradoxical idea (how could we choose to not choose!?) I see a glint of hope for a different way to be.
Thanks to @JustSewTired for the discussion that lead to the post.
This is a heartwarming idea – that our lifestyle can ‘switch on’ our good genes, and cause our biology to express the most useful parts of ourselves, if given the right amount of relaxation, challenge and reward.
While people who eat broccoli still die (thanks to Frank Farrelly for pointing that out) those who eat well, have fun, exercise hard, work hard and rest well are rewarded. They are blessed with the ability to properly enjoy the brief moment that passes between being not born yet and being dead already.
Since this old TED talk from Dan Gilbert about what makes us happy, I’ve often been wondering about the apparent contradiction – of our desire to choose, and to have choices available to us, versus the paralysis that choice can cause.
Since coming across some bits of research that suggest we invariably regret the things we didn’t do far more keenly than the things we did, Dan’s talk made me wonder: Surely in an environment where we’re inundated with choices, any decision we make is going to lead to immediate feelings of regret – because we’re choosing one product, one brand of margarine, and rejecting hundreds of others.
Typical buyers remorse eh?
Though a bit of choice couldn’t be hard. I recon Barry Schwartz could have chosen to wear some trousers and a nice shirt without running the risk of experiencing too much regret…
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I'm a speech and confidence coach, and occasionally I'm a voice artist. I used to be a Bollywood actor in Mumbai, and before that I was a foetus.
I blog because I'm opinionated and enjoy writing. They include dating advice, tips on speech and confidence, or anything else that arouses my interest.
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