Happiness is a vague word not a pleasurable. We always think that only we feel happy when we have what we need in order to be happy, but happiness is more deep than this thought. Sometimes things can makes someone happy and at the same time makes someone else unhappy. Everyone have a different feeling and different things make him/her happy. I would like to concentrate about only one of the studies at happiness for Gilbert, a professor in Harvard’s department of psychology. So, I would to talk about the affective prediction or forecasting. And how we forecast our feelings, and if those predictions match our future or not.
We always think and believe that a new car or a new house will make us happy, and that we are in perfect condition. As Gilbert has found, ‘’ however, is that we overestimate the intensity and the duration of our emotional reactions -- our ‘’affect’ -- to future events.’’ page (8), in the futile pursuit of Happiness by Jon Gertner. He tried to explains that after short period of time, we are not excited anymore about the new car or the new house. Because people always looking for more and more things to own. So, whatever they have at this year, next year they will think about something else to be satisfy or to make them feel happy. Gilbert approved that in his studies in the laboratory and in the real- life, too. Although there are certain things can make us happy, but we can’t predicate what can make us happy in the future.
In our life we can’t predicate what can us happy at the moment, so how we can know what make us happy in the future. Most of people think that money can makes them the happiest person in the earth, but money is the root for evil because most of our problem about money issue. Anyway, we can’t say that if we have a lot of money, we will be the happiest person. We have to think what can make us happy and why we are not happy at the moment. And try to forget that we can forecasting our future, and what will make us happy tomorrow. Gilbert does not believe all forecasting mistakes lead to similar results. He said that, ‘’ Our research simply says that whether it’s the thing that matters or the thing that doesn’t, both of them matter less than you think they will.’’ page(10). We think that things we buy or own can make a different in our happiness. That’s totally wrong because happiness is not by owning something or buying something, It is more deep than these things. Happiness is full of satisfaction, if we can be satisfy about what we have, we can be the happiest person in the entire life. So, we can’t predicate what can make us happy at the next hour because we don’t know what can happen at the next minute in our life.
In the conclusion, Happiness is the way of life, if we not happy at our life that’s mean we are not satisfy about what we have. The main important thing can approve that we are happy, is that we not misunderstanding the different between affective predication and what make us happy in the future. Anyway, there is no happiness, if there is no love.
