Our brains continuously lie to us. Our memories are faulty and deceive us. We overestimate the good in events, skewing our perception of what will make us happy in the future. We tend to make decisions based on how we’re feeling in the moment rather than on how we’ll feel when we get where we’re going. We misremember our past and overestimate our abilities. We believe that we will regret action more than inaction, but looking back, it’s the opposite. We regret the things we didn’t do. Because we’re so poor at predicting what will make us happy, Gilbert suggests that we ask folks who are at or close to the destination we’re trying to reach about how they feel now to help guide our decisions.
