Dr. Michael Kilgard

That idea that you're happiest when you're accomplishing some simple goal, not some Olympic-level impossible goal, but just some simple thing that needs to be done.

What was surprising from that study was that when people were daydreaming, which for years we thought the pursuit of happiness, our forefathers thought if you could just sit and contemplate your navel and have the examined life, you'd be most happy.

Not so.

Not so.

Oftentimes, contemplating our own life leads us to find someone who's got a better version of it, leads us to realize we're not accomplishing every goal.

And so maybe humans evolved, were created so that they would be actively engaged in doing something.

That appears to be the case.

And when we disengage, it appears that things happen that are not good.

What are those?

Typically, in psychiatry, they're called anxiety and depression.

They're different things.

But they may be very similar sides of a coin where this is not working for me.

And I think we can work back to how about we go to the laundry?

How about we go to the grocery store and find out that that is, in fact, a satisfying activity, even though it's pedestrian.

It's not something you're going to put an Instagram post on, you know, making a good pancakes.

I'm pretty good at making pancakes.

I flip it over.

It's just brown all along.

That's a good pancake.

Some people are not as good at me.