Daniel Gilbert Immune To Reality Analysis

The act of wondering gives people a sense of puzzlement, curiosity, and amazement. In today’s society, people look for and find explanations for any and everything. People want and crave these hidden answers to tend to their curiosity. They want to understand what is happening and the reason why so they can better judge the effects it may have on their lives. These uncovered explanations allow people to feel a sense of relief. Understanding why something had happened enables people to further prevent or allow those things to happen in the future. However, when people constantly need to discover a situation’s probable impact, it can lead them to a life of despair. In the passage “Immune to Reality”, author Daniel Gilbert describes how explanations

They are most curious when they do not understand why or how something happened. Intuition can let curious people believe that answers are worth pursuing as an end in itself. When curiosity strikes, their hunger for the answers is driven. Explanations are necessary when bad things occur; people should take the extra step in finding out why and how it had happened, so it does not arise again. Finding answers and explanations is a good thing, but when people know too much it can affect their future. For instance, say a store clerk is promoted to store manager. At first, the clerk may feel excitement and glory that someone rewarded him or her for their hard work. When that store clerk’s curiosity of why they became manager sets in, they go and ask their boss the reason they were promoted. The boss would state the previous manager quit and they needed someone to fill in for the week, hence they moved the clerk to manager. Sometimes finding explanations can become a buzzkill. Due to the store clerk finding the reason why to “maximize [his] pleasure and minimize [his] pain” (143) of his curiosity, his outcome was not the one he expected. He then “must be able to associate [his] experience with the circumstances that produced them” (143). Finding the answers may not always be a person’s best bet; if the explanation is unfavorable than it can alter their emotion. When pleasant things are explained, people tend to

Happiness is achieved when people live through reality. Every day, people are forced to make decisions about how much information they want to take in and know. Sometimes, they may choose to remain ignorant; they choose not to discover. When individuals stop to think and predict an outcome, rather than the thing they are actually doing, they can become distracted from their present happiness. Living in the moment should not require a person to have to think and evaluate a situation before making any moves, it should be a free-flowing act of life. When people think ahead or expect the unexpected they can become more miserable even if they are thinking about a pleasant outcome. For example, when children are young, their parents tell them about this mysterious man, Santa, who comes down the chimney to drop off a bag full of their favorite gifts, in return for milk and cookies. Those children are amazed yet curious by this unexplainable event. Those parents try to hide the truth, so their children's innocence can enjoy the unexplained experience. It allows the children to imagine things that may never occur, yet they still gain an abundance of happiness. People’s “uncertainty can preserve and prolong [their] happiness, which allows [them] to cherish it” (145). In some cases, when people find the explanations to the things they enjoy and savor, it can rob them “of their emotional impact because it makes