The Futile Pursuit of Happiness

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The Futile Pursuit of Happiness
The article “The Futile Pursuit of Happiness” by Jon Gertner puts the point across that individuals cannot actually know what makes one happy. He uses the word “impact bias” which shows the difference between how individuals think they will feel compared to what people actually feels after a certain occurrence (Gertner). For instance, a person may feel that buying a BMW will make him/her happy for his entire life but in reality, the excitement of the car wears off after a while, and one starts yearning for something else. What Gertner is trying to show here is that such pursuit of happiness can lead to mistakes of expectation and can result in mistakes that are far much greater. It is possible to make mistakes in choosing what one thinks will bring pleasure and in the process result in the problem of “miswanting.” The message being passed across here is that one can keep pursuing things that one assume...