Miswanting – why can’t we predict what will actually make us happy?

Miswanting

Daniel Gilbert has written some great books, including “Stumbling Upon Happiness”. He is also partly responsible for coining the phrase “Miswanting”. On of the observations that he and others studying happiness and subjective wellbeing have made, is that people are generally pretty poor at being able to predict what will make them happy. Many of the things that we feel a desire for, that we want, in the belief that they will bring us happiness or an improvement in our subjective wellbeing, don’t actually do so. In fact, some actually do the opposit. It is these incorrect wants that he labeled as “Miswanting”.

What we get wrong

While we are all different, there are some consistent patterns to the things we miswant (just as there are consistent patterns with our cognitive biases, leading us to be predictably irrational). Some of the things we, as people, often miswant include:

Material Possessions:

People often think new and expensive items, such as cars, clothes, gadgets, or houses, will lead to lasting happiness. In reality, the joy from new possessions often fades quickly (see hedonic adaptation), and they do not provide the enduring satisfaction anticipated.

Wealth and Financial Success:

Many think that accumulating wealth or achieving a higher income will significantly increase their happiness. While financial stability can improve well-being to a certain extent, beyond a certain point, additional income has a minimal impact on overall happiness (there are some disputes as to the level of ongoing impact, but there seems to be concensus that it doesn’t have much impact beyond a certain point).

Professional Achievements:

People often assume that getting a promotion, achieving career milestones, or receiving professional recognition will bring long-term happiness. Again, the buzz of satisfaction from these achievements can be short-lived, and people often just re-baseline and want to achieve an even bigger goal.

Physical Appearance

Who wouldn’t want to look slimmer, younger, better, hotter, fitter?! People so want this, and there are industries (with very low sucess rates btw) that sell us these dreams all the time. But once again, while these changes can boost confidence temporarily, they often do not lead to long-term contentment.

Romantic Relationships:

People sometimes assume that finding the perfect partner or getting married will “complete them”, they’ll find their “soul-mate” and have their Hallmark life ensuring lasting happiness. While relationships are hugely important for well-being, they also come with challenges and do not guarantee perpetual happiness.

Social Status and Popularity:

Many people believe that gaining social recognition, popularity, or a large following on social media will make them happy. Unfortunately, the pursuit of social validation can lead to stress and does not necessarily result in lasting happiness. You get the picture! So many of the things we want, don’t actually correlate to lasting increases in happiness or subjective wellbeing.

Why does it happen?

Basically, we’re pretty rubbish at predictinghow we’ll feel about something, and really rubbish at predicting how long and change in our feelings will last.  Perhaps more techincally we could say that we have inherent flaws in affective forecasting, the process of predicting our future emotional states. Check out hedonic adaptation for more. Miswanting can lead to a cycle of perpetual dissatisfaction, as individuals continuously seek out new acquisitions or achievements in the hopes of finding lasting happiness. This pursuit can result in wasted resources, such as time and money, and can distract from activities and relationships that truly contribute to well-being. Understanding miswanting encourages a shift in focus toward more sustainable sources of happiness, such as meaningful relationships, personal growth, and experiences over material possessions. By recognizing the limitations of our affective forecasts, we can make more informed decisions that enhance our overall quality of life.

Why do we care?

Miswanting can lead to a cycle of perpetual dissatisfaction and leave us feeling pretty unhappy and listless in life. People can continually seek out new acquisitions or achievements in the hopes of finding lasting happiness. This pursuit can result in wasted resources, such as time and money, and can distract from activities and relationships that truly contribute to well-being (see learning more for a few links). From a work perspective, our experience at work actually have the ability to bring a lot of the things that can provide longer lasting happiness, if we let them. We can do this in some way by shaping our ways of working and adopting helpful practices at and around our work.

As above, hedonic adaptation is a good start. And Laurie Santos’ free, on-line course, “The science of wellbeing” (Link to Coursera) is excellent. You might also want to learn a bit more about wellbeing, the PERMA model, positive thinking and the GREAT DREAM model.

We also think that acceptance is a key part of this. We can’t be and do everything. We think Oliver Burkeman’s book, “4000 weeks“, is helpful in relation to acceptance.

Our podcast on happiness might be of interst too, though it looks at things in a slightly different way:

Without getting all Hippy on you, we feel that being is much more important than having. We so often confuse the two. We want to “be” a respected, successful person in the world so we “have” a fancy car, thinking that will lead that to happen, but it doesn’t, we’re still just us, but now with a car. After all, to use another over-used phrase, “everywhere I go, there I am”. Of course, none of this is make any easier by the fact that we live in a world that is screaming for our attention so that it can sell us stuff or influence us to action, and often the building blocks of these efforts to influnce us to to pain a picture of all these people emodying what we stive to be because of the products they own or the actions they have taken. It’s hard to shut these messages out. At it’s core, a lot of the work on subjective wellbeing comes back to small practices that free our attention from the thoughts assoicated with this miswanting, and which help us connect meaningfully with people in our communities while using our time well. It seems that the path to happiness is actually pretty simple, though not at all easy.

Our thinking has been influenced by Laurie Santos’ free, on-line course, “The science of wellbeing“, and Dan Gilbert’s book: Gilbert, D. (2006). Stumbling on happiness. Vintage Books.

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