When you look at the books about well-being, you see one word - it's happiness. People do not distinguish.

We were required to predict a soldier's performance in officer training and in combat, but we did so by evaluating his behavior over one hour in an artificial situation. This was a perfect instance of a general rule that I call WYSIATI, "What you see is all there is." We had made up a story from the little we knew but had no way to allow for what we did not know about the individual's future, which was almost everything that would actually matter. When you know as little as we did, you should not make extreme predictions like "He will be a star."

Lucky risk takers use hindsight to reinforce their feeling that their gut is very wise. Hindsight also reinforces others' trust in that individual's gut.

Our comforting conviction that the world makes sense rests on a secure foundation: our almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance.

The extra daily social time of 1.7 hours in weekends raises average happiness by about 2%.

I enjoy being active, but I look forward to the day when I can retire to the Internet.

Odd as it may seem, I am my remembering self, and the experiencing self, who does my living, is like a stranger to me.