Immune To Reality Daniel Gilbert Summary

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How many times have we fantasized about having a perfect life, and in that fantasy, we dreamt that we are extremely happy living that life? According to Daniel Gilbert, in his essay “Immune to Reality”, “because we ignore how our psychological immune system works, we cannot predict how happy our choices will make us”. Therefore, it gets us away from the perfect life that we wish so much. At the end, can we learn how to control the Psychological Immune System to achieve happiness in our life? We would be in a better standing position if we can take advantage of the knowledge how our psychological immune system works, identify what kind of happiness we want to experience, and recognize that we cannot be always happy. By knowing when and how we trigger the psychological immune system, we will be able to make the…show more content…
We cannot force happiness in our consciousness. Recognize that we cannot be always happy is a big challenge because it means that we have to give space in our life to sadness as well. We would not expect us to feel happiness after we lost a relative. Although the psychological immune system engages immediately (we will never see our relative again!) by trying to explain the phenomenon, it takes time in the consciousness to adapt to the positive idea (He is going off to a better place), relieving us from that unhappy condition in which we encounter. While our happiness gets momentarily disturbed, we assimilate the idea at our own pace. With this, we can be sure that even with the toughest situations that we can be facing, our happiness will get us back to normal when we assimilate the idea. Giving space to other kind of feelings than happiness is a good idea because will improve our sense of the psychological immune system. Given that we will be experiencing multiple feelings, thus our perception of the psychological immune system will be

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