Humans are pretty universally terrible at predicting what will make them happy. Lori Santos teaches about this in a class on happiness at Yale, and one of her favorite examples is talking to strangers in public. Pretty much all of us think our lives will be worse off if we talked to strangers in public.
They did a study in Chicago and they asked people to strike up a meaningful conversation during their morning commute on public transportation. People were happier as a result.
This was not talking about the weather. This was like actually find a social connection.
You might be saying, “Oh, I’m an introvert. This is not gonna work.”
The only difference between introverts and extroverts was how bad people predicted it would be.
Introverts thought this would be terrible. Extroverts were just like, “Eh, I’m not interested.” Everybody would rather keep to themselves.
Yet, everybody experienced more happiness by talking to a stranger.
Happiness hack: talk to a stranger.