Human Beings Are Works In Progress That

Alas, We Think Of Ourselves As Unique Entities-minds Unlike Any Others-and Thus We Often Reject The Lessons That The Emotional Experience Of Others Has To Teach Us.

The Word Happiness Is Used To Indicate At Least Three Related Things, Which We Might Roughly Call Emotional Happiness, Moral Happiness, And Judgmental Happiness.

Psychologists Call This Habituation, Economists Call It Declining Marginal Utility, And The Rest Of Us Call It Marriage.

No One Likes To Be Criticized, Of Course, But If The Things We Successfully Strive For Do Not Make Our Future Selves Happy, Or If The Things We Unsuccessfully Avoid Do, Then It Seems Reasonable (if Somewhat Ungracious) For Them To Cast A Disparaging Glance Backward And Wonder What The Hell We Were Thinking.

Few Of Us Can Accurately Gauge How We Will Feel Tomorrow Or Next Week. That's Why When You Go To The Supermarket On An Empty Stomach, You'll Buy Too Much, And If You Shop After A Big Meal, You'll Buy Too Little.