Posts

Showing posts from October, 2012

Stumbling on Happiness

Image
We overestimate how happy we will be on our birthdays, we underestimate how happy we will be on Monday mornings, and we make these mundane but erroneous predictions again and again, despite their regular disconfirmation. Do you dread going to work, going to the gym or to that family gathering? How do you really feel when you finally get there or after? It’s often very different from your prediction. Some things that look like an enormous chore to do in the future are actually very fulfilling in the moment and afterward… like, oh, blogging. So how do we fix this? Easy. Look at other people, what they do, and how they react in the moment: This trio of studies suggests that when people are deprived of the information that imagination requires and are thus forced to use others as surrogates, they make remarkably accurate predictions about their future feelings, which suggests that the best way to predict our feelings tomorrow is to see how others are feeling today. “But I’m differe

Most Lucky / unlucky Countries on this Planet

Image
Most Lucky Countries on this Planet (Happy Planet Index score): 1. Costa Rica (64,0) 2. Vietnam(60,4) 3. Colombia (59,8) 4. Belize (59,3) 5. El Salvador (58,9) 6. Jamaica (58,5) 7. Panama(57,8) 8. Nicaragua (57,1) 9. Venezuela (56,9) 9. Guatemala (56,9) 11. Bangladesh (56,3) 12. Cuba(56.2) 13. Honduras (56,0) 14. Indonesia (55,5) 15. Israël (55,2) 16. Pakistan (54,1) 16. Argentinië (54,1) 16. Albanië (54,1) 19. Chili (53,9) 20. Thailand (53,5) Most Unlucky Countries on this Planet: 132. Benin (31,1) 133. Tanzania (30,7) 134. Democratic Republic Congo (30,5) 134. Burundi (30,5) 136. Trinidad en Tobago (30,3) 137. Guinee (30,0) 138. Luxemburg (29,0) 139. Sierra Leone (28,8) 140. Macedonië (28,3) 141. Togo (28,2) 141. South Africa (28.2) 143. Koeweit (27,1) 144. Niger (26,8) 144. Mongolië (26,8) 146. Bahrein (26,6) 147. Mali (26,0) 148. Central-Afrikan Republic (25,3) 149. Qatar (25,2) 150. Tsjaad (24,7) 151