Response to The Futile Pursuit of Happiness, by Jon Gertner

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"The Futile Pursuit of Happiness" by Jon Gertner was published in September of 2003. It is an essay that discusses the difference between how happy we believe we will be with a particular outcome or decision, and how happy we actually are with the outcome. The essay is based on experiments done by two professors: Daniel Gilbert and George Loewenstein. The experiments show that humans are never as happy as we think we will be with an outcome because affective forecasting and miswanting cause false excitement and disappointment in our search for true happiness. Gertner jumps right into his essay with examples. He repeatedly states that we are wrong to think that nice things will make us happy. His language starts out blunt and maybe even a little scornful for being so naïve. He tries to bring out a sense of disappointment in the reader by telling us that, basically, we can't be happy. This continues throughout the essay especially with his discussion of affective forecasting and miswanting. Following his introduction, Gertner spills into a discussion of affective forecasting. He uses real life examples to get his point across. Also, results from experiments done by Gilbert and Loewenstein were used to show that affective forecasting is a valid idea. This term is used to describe the inability of humans to predict how they will feel after a certain event takes place. The reason for this is that we don't realize that things become normal to us. This can be quite a disappointment to someone who goes out and blows fifty grand on a car. But, the concept of affective forecasting goes the other way also. Whenever something bad happens, such as the death of a family member or the loss of a job, we think the grief wi... ... middle of paper ... ...ome very valid points. I think he wrote it to help the reader out. He wanted to open the reader's eyes to these issues so they wouldn't be searching for happiness in the wrong places. But, is there a "right" place to look for happiness? This is never clearly answered in the essay but we are left with some helpful insight. Gertner explains that affective forecasting, miswanting, and hot and cold states can really throw us off track in our search for true happiness. He uses many examples and experiment results from credible sources to prove his point. After reading Gertner's essay, we are left with this: The things that we think will make us happy rarely do. These decisions or investments are usually unimportant and become normal and boring for us. After all of our disappointments, we are left still wondering if true happiness can ever really be reached.

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