

Your Work Habits and the Happiness Treadmill - JackHerrick
http://www.rolfnelson.com/2009/11/your-work-habits-and-happiness.html

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ars
He raised interesting questions, but mostly forgot to also supply answers.

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joe_the_user
The question of hedonic bias is more complex than the article indicates. I
would recommend Game Theory Evolving by Herbert Gintis. Gintis talks about
human short-term bias and hyperbolic discounting and shows that this is often
not as "irrational" as it seems (look especially at Chapter 11).

Still it's a great discussion, I'd love to see it much more developed,
hopefully the article's author reads here.

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joe_the_user
It's certainly documented that people have a short-term bias in their
happiness choices.

However ... I started to listen to tunes on my machine about two months ago
and I think I can look back on those two months and say I've been happier and
more productive during that time. There are times to turn off the tunes - I
never walk around with headphones - but music is cool and the article's
argument about lottery tickets won't change that.

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noonespecial
Music is actually a terrible example because it has qualities that change mood
and percetion all by itself. Its effecs also vary so widely for individuals as
to make comparisons nearly meaningless.

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philwelch
For individuals? Hell, they vary widely over time as well.

