If I wanted to know what a certain future would feel like to me, I would find someone who is already living that future. If I wonder what it's like to become a lawyer or marry a busy executive or eat at a particular restaurant, my best bet is to find people who have actually done these things and see how happy they are.

Everyone who has observed human behavior for more than thirty continuous seconds seems to have noticed that people are strongly, perhaps even primarily, perhaps even single-mindedly, motivated to feel happy.

Our brain accepts what the eyes see and our eye looks for whatever our brain wants.

People want to be happy, and all the other things they want are typically meant to be a means to that end.

People are happiest when they're trying to achieve goals that are difficult but not out of reach.

Why isn’t it fun to watch a videotape of last night’s football game even when we don’t know who won? Because the fact that the game has already been played precludes the possibility that our cheering will somehow penetrate the television, travel through the cable system, find its way to the stadium, and influence the trajectory of the ball as it hurtles toward the goalposts!

Our inability to recall how we really felt is why our wealth of experiences turns out to be poverty of riches.