Stumbling on Happiness  (English, Paperback, Gilbert Daniel)

Published in the year 2006, Stumbling On Happiness is a non-fiction book that aims to provide its readers with insight into the reason why their desire to achieve true happiness is hampered many a times.

Summary Of The Book

Stumbling On Happiness is a book that is written by psychologist, Dan Gilbert, and through the course of this book, he outlines certain factors that prevent people from experiencing happiness in their lives. It is important to note that this book isn’t a self-help one, which provides a few tips on how to be happy. Rather, it explains the working of the human mind, and how it steers individuals in the wrong direction.

The main theme around which Gilbert focuses is that individuals imagine their future poorly as a result of certain misconceptions. Through the course of this book, he throws light on three ways by which the human imagination fails. He explains that the human mind tends to add, and subtract certain details in an imagined scenario, which may also cause key details to be removed. Gilbert further explains that an imagined future or past is more or less like the present itself, and is different from the way the future or past really is. He goes on to explain that imagination actually confuses the mind into believing its response would be different once an event actually takes place. The author makes use of several research studies to base his views on the way the human mind works in terms of happiness.

Gilbert begins to advise readers into using another individual’s experiences with a goal to predict their own future, rather than just dreaming about it. He also begins to throw light on the fact that humans often treat their future selves as children, and spend a great deal of time building their tomorrows with an aim of bringing about happiness.

Stumbling On Happiness has been greatly appreciated by its readers, and also won the Royal Society Prizes For Science Books general prize, in the year 2007. This book has also been sold in 20 languages, and is a New York Times bestseller as well.

About Daniel Gilbert

Daniel Gilbert is a well-known journalist, author, and psychologist. Apart from this book, Gilbert has written another book entitled Psychology European New Edition. Gilbert was born on the 5th of November, 1957. He quit schooling at the age of 19, deciding to write science fiction, and tried enrolling for a creative writing class at a local community college, where he was informed that all classes were full except one, Introduction To Psychology.

After that, Gilbert earned a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of Colorado, Denver, followed by a Doctoral degree from Princeton University, studying Social Psychology. He has been awarded several times for his immense contribution to the field of Psychology. He has carried out extensive research and also teaches the subject. Some of the awards presented to Gilbert include the Phi Beta Kappa Teaching Prize, Harvard College Professorship, and Guggenheim Fellowship. The articles written by Gilbert have been featured in several well-known publications such as The Los Angeles Times, Forbes, The New York Times, and TIME. He currently resides in Cambridge, Massachusetts.