I was just turned on to a video of a short lecture at the 2004 TED Conference, which is an annual meeting where big thinkers from all walks of life get together to talk about interesting stuff.

The lecture is about the nature of happiness from Dan Gilbert, a Harvard psychology professor who teaches a course about happiness. It’s one of the most succinct and informative things I’ve seen on the subject (and I make a point to read and see whatever I can, since being happy is pretty much at the top of my “to-do” list for life).

Many of us live an “if only” life…. thinking that if only a certain thing would happen, then we’d feel happy. But that’s not how it works at all, from a psychological or scientific perspective. So if you live your life thinking circumstances are what makes you feel a certain way, and you have thoughts like “once I get a great job, I”ll be happy” or “if only I could meet the right person and fall in love, then I’ll be happy” then you have to watch this. It’s well worth the jam-packed 22-minutes that it takes. You can see it here.