Finding Happiness

We’ve all seen these bumper stickers and posters: Follow Your Joy and Follow Your Heart. It sounds a bit sentimental and cheesy, and we want it to be good advice. The problem, though, is that if think about the times we got ourselves into trouble was exactly because we followed our hearts desire. Our hearts are fickle and don’t operate in reality, ignoring warning signs because our passion is fearless. Well, only the stupid are fearless.

If you’re reading this, you’re old enough to have some life experience. Not all of our rabbit hole pursuits end at a rose garden with a tea party. Even that didn’t end well for Alice as the queen screamed, “Off with her head!” We have a brain, a brain that over the years has hopefully learned that there are bad consequences for bad choices, you know, those times when you thought you’d throw caution to the wind, be a free bird, and shoot for the moon. And then your rocket exploded and your parachute didn’t open. Because you’ve had those experiences, you have learned some lessons, learned that caution is probably your friend, and that reasoning has great value.

Reasoning tells us to get another opinion, to wait, to check the waters, to seek more information. This is where science comes in. Science may help you to make better choices. Scientific studies show that we are better off looking at the data than reading our hearts.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz is the author of Don’t Trust Your Gut: Using Data to Get What You Really Want in Life, published just this year. Sorting through tons of data, this data scientist learns a great deal that can benefit us in our daily lives. Data shows us how to use data to achieve the results we really want.

So far, I’ve only read the Amazon book description and an interview that Seth Stephens-Davidowitz did with Sean Illing on Vox Conversations. I have requested the book from my library and hope to get my hands on it soon. You can check with your local library for your own viewing pleasure, or even purchase the book so that you can underline and write notes in it. If you do read the book and use data to help you achieve happiness, please respond and let me know your experience.