DanGilbert

Dan Gilbert focused his TED talk around the question "why are we so happy?" He jumped right into his speech talking about the brain and how it has developed over thousands of years to become bigger and much smarter than it used to be for our first ancestors. He went on to say that we many times believe that situations will have a bigger outcome than they actually do, for example, people might think that a person who wins a lottery will be much happier a year later than someone who lost a leg, but statistics show they are both equally happy. I became confused when he started talking about different situations, and synthetic happiness, and the "psychological immune system." I also did not like his presentation style because it seemed like he was giving a huge lecture, during which I personally tend to tune out. This video does connect to the world and me, though, because the science, surveys, and ideas he is talking about do not only apply to one person, they apply to everyone. People in general think that outcomes of situations will be different in how happy they will be depending on the situation, when in reality it is not as big of deal as they believe.