Dan Gilbert mentioned affective forecasting and how we tend to be biased in predicting positive outcomes. My question to him is how does happiness relate to affective forecasting? If our beliefs about what will make us happy are wrong, then what do we need to change? Should we bother predicting our happiness or "go with the flow"? To what point do we separate desires from reality or just be more realistic about our capabilities? Doesn't taking the extreme of being realistic curtail innovation? How can we dream big without feeling discouraged if the fruits of our labor don't work out?
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I think that people tend to think positively when it comes to the future because that optimism gives them something to cling to in hard times. Predicting our happiness in the future is a worthy endeavor because otherwise we would resort to hedonism. The reason why I chose not to make certain decisions that seemed fun in the moment is because I assumed my 56 year old self would be far less thrilled with a tattoo of my then favorite band's lyrics across my shoulder than my 16 year old self. To your point about realism, I think that being realistic is valuable in the sense of setting expectations for the future, but dreaming of big possibilities is not necessarily incompatible with that realism. As we generate more and more scientific progress, those once unrealistic ideas become real possibilities. As a species we have progressed from dying in caves of cholera at 35 to figuring out how to save kids from dying of horrible diseases with just one prick to the arm to being able to safely cut people open with machines and fix their broken body parts all because people pushed the boundary of realistic.
I’d say optimism and idealism drive progress in human society, no matter how “unrealistic” they may be. I don’t think Dan Gilbert would disagree...but let’s invite him to comment.