Impact Is Rewarding. Mattering Makes

Which Is More Important - Experience Or Memory Of Experience? If You Could Have An Hour Of Ecstasy That You'd Forever Remember As Torture, Or An Hour Of Torture That You'd Forever Remember As Ecstasy, Which Would You Prefer?

If I Wanted To Know What A Certain Future Would Feel Like To Me, I Would Find Someone Who Is Already Living That Future. If I Wonder What It's Like To Become A Lawyer Or Marry A Busy Executive Or Eat At A Particular Restaurant, My Best Bet Is To Find People Who Have Actually Done These Things And See How Happy They Are.

Why Isn’t It Fun To Watch A Videotape Of Last Night’s Football Game Even When We Don’t Know Who Won? Because The Fact That The Game Has Already Been Played Precludes The Possibility That Our Cheering Will Somehow Penetrate The Television, Travel Through The Cable System, Find Its Way To The Stadium, And Influence The Trajectory Of The Ball As It Hurtles Toward The Goalposts!

Few Of Us Can Accurately Gauge How We Will Feel Tomorrow Or Next Week. That's Why When You Go To The Supermarket On An Empty Stomach, You'll Buy Too Much, And If You Shop After A Big Meal, You'll Buy Too Little.

We All Have Direct Experience With Things That Do Or Don't Make Us Happy, We All Have Friends, Therapists, Cabdrivers, And Talk-show Hosts Who Tell Us About Things That Will Or Won't Make Us Happy, And Yet, Despite All This Practice And All This Coaching, Our Search For Happiness Often Culminates In A Stinky Mess. We Expect The Next Car, The Next House, Or The Next Promotion To Make Us Happy Even Though The Last Ones Didn't And Even Though Others Keep Telling Us That The Next Ones Won't.