Makes sense. As we get more advanced, the concept of living in voluntary "simplicity" vanishes.

Dan presents a very simple formula for happiness by Daniel Bernoulli from the 1700s, then explains why it works but is so hard to apply in real life. The outcome is not surprising, of course. There is no easy formula for happiness, but only because we can't apply it well and there are no means to apply it well yet.

Dan Gilbert presents research and data from his exploration of happiness -- sharing some surprising tests and experiments that you can also try on yourself. Watch through to the end for a sparkling Q&A with some familiar TED faces.

Dan Gilbert believes that, in our ardent, lifelong pursuit of happiness, most of us have the wrong map. In the same way that optical illusions fool our eyes -- and fool everyone’s eyes in the same way -- Gilbert argues that our brains systematically misjudge what will make us happy. And these quirks in our cognition make humans very poor predictors of our own bliss.