Spiritual masters have long held that we are happiest when our minds are situated in the present. They note that suffering occurs when our minds wander to the past or future. But is this empirically true?
Matt Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert conducted a brilliant study involving real time experience sampling. This was exceptionally difficult to do before smartphones.
We solved this problem by developing a Web application for the iPhone (Apple Incorporated, Cupertino, California), which we used to create an unusually large database of real-time reports of thoughts, feelings, and actions of a broad range of people as they went about their daily activities.The application contacts participants through their iPhones at random moments during their waking hours, presents them with questions,and records their answers to a database at www.trackyourhappiness.org.1
Here’s what they found:
First, people’s minds wandered frequently, regardless of what they were doing.
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Second, multilevel regression revealed that people were less happy when their minds were wandering than when they were not [...] and this was true during all activities [...].
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Third, what people were thinking was a better predictor of their happiness than was what they were doing.
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In conclusion, a human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind.The ability to think about what is not happening is a cognitive achievement that comes at an emotional cost.
What are the implications for living well? Be here now. ✸
- Killingsworth MA, Gilbert DT. A wandering mind is an unhappy mind. Science 2010;330(6006):932. PMID: 21071660.
