LIFE STYLE
well-being
A SIMPLE KEY TO HAPPINESS
Does finding happiness need to be so complicated? Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert explains why it is and why it doesn’t need to be so in his book Stumbling on Happiness (Vintage, 2007).

While we all may have different ideas of happiness, as humans we all share cognitive biases that skew our view of things in the same way. Just as optical illusions systematically deceive our eyes, so certain “illusions of foresight” regularly deceive us when we try to imagine the future and, especially, our future feelings. While we adjust for tricks of the eye (we know that far-off objects are not actually as small as they appear), we generally aren’t aware of and consequently don’t adjust for our mind’s tricks of foresight. Gilbert’s book cites wide-ranging scientific research that establishes consistent human error in figuring out what leads to happiness. Our imaginative faculties have predictable flaws. So how can you fine-tune your dreams of future happiness? Here are four misperceptions to guard against—and one proven method to try.

Filling In and Leaving Out
When we imagine a future event, we automatically include some details and omit others. So when people think moving to California would make them happy, they focus on the balmy climate but forget things like housing costs and traffic. When deciding which vacation reservations to cancel, they're thinking in terms of rejection, so they go over the negative points (no nightlife) and ignore positive ones (spectacular scenery). What’s hard is imagining positives and negatives at once.

Projecting the Present
When we imagine how something will look or feel in the future, we use the same part of our brains that we use for actually seeing and feeling. We can’t help projecting the present into the future because our imagined feelings get preempted by actual feelings. This means, as Gilbert puts it, that “teenagers get tattoos because they are confident that ‘Death Rocks’ will always be an appealing motto.” Could be a problem.

Neglecting That Your Point of View Changes
Nature has endowed each of us with what Gilbert calls a psychological immune system, which allows us to feel good enough to cope with our present circumstances—often comforting ourselves with rationalizations. Being stood up at the altar seems unarguably devastating, but people’s natural resilience has them saying, “It’s the best thing that ever happened to me” in no time. Gilbert notes, “We are more likely to find a positive view of the things we’re stuck with than the things we’re not.”

Believing Conventional Wisdom
Common misperceptions lead people to a mistaken view of the future. Contrary to popular belief, greater wealth—despite our intense pursuit of it—increases happiness only when it lifts people out of poverty. Many of us, for instance, don’t figure out that money isn’t at the root of happiness.

Asking Others
Gilbert has a recommendation, supported unequivocally by research, for those who would like to make their way down the road to happiness. “There is a simple method by which anyone can make strikingly accurate predictions about how they will feel in the future,” he reports. Don’t imagine your future; ask someone currently experiencing the very thing you’re contemplating. But studies also show that people tend to reject this advice. Each of us has a built-in belief that we are unique—“I’m not like them”—so we doubt that we’ll feel the same as someone else in a similar situation. As it turns out, however, people’s emotional reactions are amazingly alike.

The surprising conclusion
We may not be able to stop stumbling, but if we better appreciate how much we have in common, we may stumble upon happiness a bit more often.
—Bruce Lacey

THE ARTS
This month, exhibitions are blooming along the East Coast. Old Master, Impressionists, Modernist, and Contemporary artworks are on view this season in Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese: Rivals in Renaissance Venice at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Cézanne and Beyond at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Outside In: Chinese x American x Contemporary Art at the Princeton University Art Museum.

BOSTON
“You can pretty much kiss goodbye the prospect of more exhibitions like Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese,” notes New York Times art critic Holland Carter of the Museum of Fine Arts’ current hit show. The costly partnership with the Louvre that made this breathtaking assembly possible is a vanishing breed. This exhibit covers the rivalry among three Venetian masters amid the first flowering of oil painting during the Italian Renaissance. For four decades, Titian, Tintoretto, and Veronese lived and worked in close proximity, always intensely conscious of one another. Titian dominated the art world in Venice for more than 60 years. Tintoretto—rumored to have been Titian’s apprentice until expelled for challenging his master—became Titian’s lifelong enemy, his paintings deliberately seeking to critique, twist, or mock those of Titian. The prodigy Veronese, whom Titian favored, drew on the work of both rivals. Their story is told with 56 paintings arranged in pairs and trios to capture the interplay among the artists. The show runs through August 16 at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. For more information, see www.mfa.org/venice or call 800-440-6975.

PHILADELPHIA
“There won’t be a show anywhere in the world this year to compete—in ambition, scope, and sheer concentration of masterworks—with Cézanne and Beyond,” reports Boston Globe art critic Sebastian Smee. The exhibit traces the influence of Paul Cézanne and, according to Smee, no artist had a bigger influence on 20th-century art. The exhibit features 40 paintings and 20 watercolors and drawings by Cézanne, displayed alongside works by 18 artists whom Cézanne inspired, including Matisse, Picasso, Mondrian, Beckmann, Braque, Giacometti, Léger, Gorky, Demuth, and Johns. The show runs through May 31 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Reservations are suggested, especially for the weekends. For more information, see www.philamuseum.org or call 215-235-SHOW.

PRINCETON
If you think you’re familiar with contemporary Chinese art, you’re probably wrong. “American audiences have been exposed to only a narrow range of what is available, with the majority of attention given to ‘avant-garde’ or ‘experimental’ art, frequently selected for its dissident political content or ‘shock value’ rather than its artistic quality,” according to Jerome Silbergeld, curator of Outside In: Chinese x American x Contemporary Art. “This exhibition presents contemporary Chinese art in a far wider range of styles and subject matter and substantially expands on our understanding of this work.” More than 50 paintings, drawings, and sculptures include work by Arnold Chang, Michael Cherney, Zhi Lin, Liu Dan, Vannessa Tran, and Zhang Hongtu. Many of these artists employ what might be called traditional media, in particular, ink and brush painting, still a vital part of artistic life in China but often neglected in contemporary works. Outside In not only expands our understanding of Chinese art but also explores the question of what is meant by “Chinese” art in this age of globalization. While the artists are all American citizens, some are immigrants, others are born in America, some are ethnically Chinese, and others have simply adopted Chinese art and culture as their own. The show runs through June 7 at the Princeton University Art Museum in Princeton, NJ. For more information, visit princetonartmuseum.org or call 609-258-3788.
—Bruce Lacey