The Surprising Science of Happiness
Dec. 1st, 2016 06:56 pmWow, I've been watching a lot of Ted talks recently, and this is one of the best ones I've seen. I honestly wasn't sure about it at first, though it got better as I could relate it to things I've observed and learned. Like many others, I've noticed that making decisions and sticking with them or not having a choice in the matter has made me feel better overall, even if the option I've stuck with didn't sound satisfying. And one of the things I've learned in my psychology classes was that people adapt. A big life change is shocking at first. After living with it for a while, we almost forget what life was like before the change. Whether the change was originally positive or negative, one's change in happiness or sadness often eventually becomes much less extreme... at least based on what our brains think after the change. So if we're having problems making a huge life decision, we can at least feel assured that, in the end, our brains (kind of) have our backs. We're often more adaptive than we initially think we are.