When synthetic is better than natural
In contrast to conservation where natural tends to be preferred to synthetic, and control of our environmental destiny seems to be further from reach than we would like, synthetic happiness is within reach.
Happiness is very trendy these days. I was just sent a whole playlist of happiness talks and in the last two years have been given two books on the subject. There is a lot of advice on how to find it but this TED Talk I just watched says that actually the happiness we make is just as powerful as 'natural happiness' and possibly more enduring.
You should watch Dan Gilbert's talk, but as a self-experiment to create some happiness I will try to quickly summarize and post this blog because according to Gilbert we are more satisfied with irreversible decisions.
If you are given a Monet painting that wasn't your favorite one from the set you were looking at and then asked a while later to rank according to your preference that same set again, you are likely to rank the one you own as higher within the set. People actually learn to like what they have better.
Why? Well for starters our ability to predict our own happiness is not very good, and secondly we have a kind of "psychological immune system" that can help us make the best of what we have.
I think this is the explanation behind why I loved the freedom of traveling by bike, including the freedom of having only one ugly, unflattering and stained shirt to wear every day in front of the guy I hoped would fall in love with me. It's the paradox of choice, whereby logic says that more choices will bring more happiness, but as one of the world's most indecisive people, my observation is that happiness comes from packing light (metaphorically speaking).
So although we think that if things don't go as we had hoped then we will be less happy, what really happens is that our "psychological immune system" takes over and if served lemons our minds (and hearts) make lemonade.
I'll stop there and recommend again that you watch Dan Gilbert's TED Talk on the Surprising Science of Happiness, for some very surprising and reassuring insights about creating your own happiness.