CNN’s Sanjay Gupta ran a series a few weeks ago on happiness.  Before I go on, understand that I enjoy Sanjay’s shows and his appearances as a guest on other news shows.  He is a bright and easy personality to watch.  I will continue to watch Sanjay’s show as he brings a great deal of knowledge to his audiences.

I must say though, at times when he steps outside of his specialty of neurology, Sanjay is so mainstream, so ‘on the fence’ that I am overcome with frustration at his lone voice propogating foolishness without dissent.  I guess I like shows where dissenting views are shown so that I, the viewer, can use discernment to make up my own mind about the topic at hand.

On his ‘What makes people happy’ segment, Sanjay spoke with Daniel Gilbert – author of Stumbling on Happiness.  Mr. Gilbert has lofty credentials as a social psychologist and psychology professor at Harvard University.   His specialty -according to Wikipedia - is ‘affective forecasting’ which is the science of predicting one’s future emotional state or happiness.

So far so good.  If I didn’t believe we could control and therefore predict our future happiness, I wouldn’t be enjoying my life and I certainly would not be helping other’s to enjoy theirs.  But here’s where we part ways.  From the CNN transcript of the show, I am going to highlight the closing thoughts by both guest and host as I sat enraged and stupified at what I had heard.

TRANSCRIPT:

• GUPTA: We are back with HOUSE CALL. Daniel Gilbert, the professor and the author, has been our guest.  You know what’s so interesting, Professor Gilbert, talking about happiness, I’m feeling better myself. But you say that it’s hard to predict happiness. And as people ponder that, they may ask themselves well, if it’s so hard to predict, how do I actually get happy? How do I become happy? What do you say to them?
• GILBERT: Well, it’s a great question. It is very difficult to look into your own future and know what will make you happy. But it isn’t very hard to look into somebody else’s present. Human beings it turns out are remarkably similar in the things that make them happy across ages, across genders, and across cultures. The things that you observe making other people happy are likely to make you happy as well.
• GUPTA: I think that’s a great response. And I — I hope everyone gets something out of that.  Unfortunately, we’re out of time for this morning. Professor Daniel Gilbert, thanks so much for being with us.

Did Gilbert just say that what makes other people happyg is likely to make you happy too?  Are you kidding me?  Keep up with the Smiths & Joneses?  With all of his research, awards and credits, the lump sum of his wisdom is ‘follow others’ for true happiness and his book laughes at the thought of a Purpose-Driven Life with a title like ‘Stumbling on Happiness’?

Silly me.  I thought the keys to happiness were:

• working at a job that pursues your passion and capitalizes on your strenghes resulting in a worthwhile effort and promoting self-confidence and self-esteem  (sorry Prozac – we don’t need pills, we need purpose.)
• surrounding yourself with friends and family whose lifes spill over and into your bucket thus creating a strong, mutual support system rather than follow those that are lost and a drain to your bucket/resources (sorry alcohol, we don’t need another drink to drown in, we need support and encouragment.)
• living in the moment and cherishing the journey rather than endless pursuit of a single, unfulfilling destination (sorry Oz, you can’t give people heart, courage or brains and there is no utopia, what we need to know is that we already have those things inside of us if we would only look and raise our expectations)

So, I guess there are two types of people to sell to in today’s media markets:

• Self-helpers: those that are inspired by others’ success and feel they can control their own destinies and find real happiness in Purpose Driven Lives.
• Not Me-s!: those who who want everyone to be the same – mediocre – and want psychologists to keep masking apathy and laziness with creative labels of helplessness and disease,  pharmaceuticals to keep manufacturing drugs to make us all ‘comfortably numb’, and publishers to keep plenty of non-affirming, wish-washes on the best sellers lists with titles like ‘Stumbling on Happiness’.

Yippy ki yi yay.

Author | Dave Darby

Dave Darby is a husband, father of 5, son, entrepreneur, speaker and well, a renaissance man who frequently needs to dump his brain on thoughts about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.