How Happy Are You ?

With prospect theory increasing in relevance in recent years, psychological economics will hit the mainstream in few years. Psychology and economics speak with each other. We human beings are the decision makers, rule breakers and rational decision takers. However, the word rational in itself is very contradicting. While setting out few rules, we make several assumptions. But we forget, our assumptions may seemingly vary from individual to individual. Hence what is rational for me may not be rational to you. An analogy to this is, what makes me happy may not make you happy. As we grow up, we try to follow ,imitate and refurbish lifestyles,behaviour, habits assuming that this would lead to contentment and happiness. Less than 0.01% knows their fundamental questions of why and what correctly. Others are just following without knowing where are they heading to.

Few days ago, i was reading an article by Terry Burnham, an economist who studies the biological basis of

human behavior. Walking through Harvard Square one day, he had an interesting encounter with Noble Laureate, Prof Amartya Sen. Prof Sen asked “What should you do if you see a person trying to cut his fingers off with a pair of dull scissors?” He, having an usual answer replied-"stop him from cutting off his fingers, call the police for help, etc." Prof Sen replied rhetorically, “Offer him sharper scissors,”.

This answer ties back to the neoclassical theory of economics -people know what they want.

There can be multiple facets to happiness like- money, joyrides,sex, family, kids etc. Human behavior is very difficult to comphrehend and conclude in writing. Hence judging people based on their choices is not a correct way of viewing things . People have different perspective and various alterations in evolving and becoming their true self. Let people be happy in whatever they do, genuinely happy in their yearnings and learnings.Live and let live!