Blog 1

     In the article “The Futile Pursuit Of Happiness” by Jon Gertner, psychologist, Dan Gilbert, expresses his ideas on happiness and how people tend to predict how we will feel about certain experiences in the future. One thing I found most interesting was what he and Tim Wilson called “the impact bias”. The impact bias is when we predict how we will feel about certain things in the future and the how we end up feeling when they actually happen.
    A lot of people think that they will find true happiness in material things, or just things that they long for in the moment. They believe not only will it make them happy in the moment, but also that it will bring them a long term positive feeling. In all reality, we fail to realize that things do not always turn out the way we expect them to. Something we worked so hard for, or that we felt brought us great joy, will not always provide us with the same feeling. As it states in the article, we learn to adapt to these things, so in the long run they didn’t make us as happy as we assumed they would.
     I agree with the idea of the impact bias because in my experience as a teenager, I believed that there were so many things that I could have had that would make me happy. I wasn’t able to have everything I wanted, so I had to deal with the thought of not being happy. At the moment of not being able to get what I wanted, I was upset and felt I would be that way for a long time, when in turn I just accepted that I couldn’t get it and moved on. Later on, after graduating high school, I got my first job and I was then able to do things for myself and I didn’t have to ask anybody for anything. The first couple of months, I bought things I felt I needed to make me happy. I felt since I wasn’t able to have them then, I could have them now. What I realized is that these things didn’t really make me any more happier. I was happy when I got them but after a while, I didn’t have the same feeling of excitement that I did when I first got them. I, then, learned not to look for happiness in those areas. I know now where my true happiness lies, and it is far from what I used to believe.

All About Me...

    Hey everyone! My name is Marilyn and I'm really new to this blogging thing. I never really cared to try it out, but since my english class requires it, I'm actually really interested.
    So a little about me is I am a freshman at LaGuardia. I graduated John Bowne High School in 2008. I was in the Center For Writing program so I've been writing for a while now. I took a couple of years off of school because I was working. I am majoring in veterinary technology.
    I love to sing. I do it everyday and can't go a day without it. I sing mostly R&B music, but I do love to listen to all other types of music. It's kind of my way to express what I'm feeling inside. It helps a lot.
    I love to spend time with all of the people who are close to me because I have learned not to take the people I care about for granted, especially my family. As long as I have them, I don't need anything else.