People Want To Be Happy, And All

Your Emotions Are Meant To Fluctuate, Just Like Your Blood Pressure Is Meant To Fluctuate. It's A System That's Supposed To Move Back And Forth, Between Happy And Unhappy. That's How The System Guides You Through The World.

To Ensure That Our Views Are Credible, Our Brain Accepts What Our Eye Sees. To Ensure That Our Views Are Positive, Our Eye Looks For What Our Brain Wants. The Conspiracy Between These Two Servants Allows Us To Live At The Fulcrum Of Stark Reality And Comforting Illusion.

When We Have An Experience -- Hearing A Particular Sonata, Making Love With A Particular Person, Watching The Sun Set From A Particular Window Of A Particular Room -- On Successive Occasions, We Quickly Begin To Adapt To It, And The Experience Yields Less Pleasure Each Time. Psychologists Call This Habituation, Economists Call It Declining Marginal Utility, And The Rest Of Us Call It Marriage

Global Warming Is A Deadly Threat Precisely Because It Fails To Trip The Brain's Alarm, Leaving Us Soundly Asleep In A Burning Bed.

Happiness Refers To Feelings, Virtue Refers To Actions, And Those Actions Can Cause Those Feelings. But Not Necessarily And Not Exclusively.