Fascinating Read.....

...at least it is to me - I have been reading, "Stumbling On Happiness," by Daniel Gilbert, Phd out of Harvard and an American Psychological Association Distinguished Scientific Award winner. The book is more about the strange way in which we think. As I read the book, it makes me think about the popular Freakonomics tome that was written not too long ago. Here is a brief excerpt :

"To my knowledge, no one has ever done a systematic study of people who've been left standing at the altar by a cold-footed fiance'. But I'm willing to bet a good bottle of wine that if you rounded up a healthy sample of almost-brides and nearly grooms and asked them whether they would describe the incident as "the worst thing that ever happened to me" or "the best thing that ever happened to me," more would endorse the latter description than the former. And I'll bet an entire case of that wine that if you found a sample of people who'd never been through this experience and asked them to predict which of all their possible future experiences they are most likely to lok back on as "the best thing that ever happened to me," not one of them
will list "getting jilted." Like so many things, getting jilted is more painful in prospect and more rosy in
retrospect. When we contemplate being hung out to dry this way, we naturally generate the most dreadful possible view of the experience; but once we've actually been heartbroken and humiliated in front of our family, friends, and florists, our brains begin shopping for a less dreadful view -and, as we have seen, the human brain is one smart shoppper. However, because our brains do their shopping unconciously, we tend not to realize they will do it at all, hence we blithely assume that the dreadful view we have when we look forward to the event is the dreadful view we'll have when we l back on it. In short, we do not realize that our views will change because we are normally unaware of the processes that change them."

Because we act today based - on how we think we will feel tomorrow, the above becomes an extremely interesting thought to consider. Chrisopher Reeve believed that becoming a quadrapalegic was the best thing that could have happened to him. How could that be? Was he merely making the best of an inevitable situation? Did he really feel this was true?....or does it even matter which is which? Where would you fall on that thought? If you think, "he was delusional," I would only have one thing to add....

...May I be blessed and graced - with that kind of ability to handle the difficulties that life hands me.

(NOTE: the above paragraph is a stated opinion by the author. Most of the book, including the reason he is lead to the conclusion on the above situation, is packed with results of studies that have been done based on how we think.....and subsequently act).