Jon Gertner's The Futile Pursuit Of Happiness

In Jon Gertner’s “The Futile Pursuit of Happiness” he obviously talks about happiness. This story also makes some good points. One of the ideas presented in Gertner’s story is “impact bias” (L. 34). He states that Impact means the errors we make and how much we will be affected by that decision. Bias also means basically the same thing that impact means, our tendency to make mistakes. “The phrase characterizes how we experience the dimming excitement over not just a BMW but also over any object or event that we presume will make us happy…” (ll. 36-37) The BMW was mentioned in this line because in the previous paragraph he said that we expect and new things like cars and other stuff that we expect to make us happy, when in reality they don’t. When we buy new things we may be happy for the moment, but in the long run it won’t make us happy. “Impact bias” is said to mean what we predict and what we ultimately

In Paragraph one it states that it would be more precise to say that Gilbert studies a specific type of emotional and behavioral prediction. No matter what you call it I think we can agree that it has to do with what makes us happy and for how long. This brings me to my next topic, could we make a better world? Would a world without forecasting errors be a better world? Would a life lived without forecasting errors be a richer life? (ll.100-101) “To Loewenstein, who is especially attendant to the friction between his emotional and deliberative processes, a life without forecasting errors would most likely be a better, happier life.” (ll. 108-110) I agree with Loewenstein, that it probably be better in some cases. If we knew about how our decisions would affect our lives we might make better decisions. He also says that we might try to find more time making friends instead of making money. Life would be so much more fun if so many people weren’t worried about making