I happen to stumble upon this TED talk, by Dan Gilbert, social psychologist from Harvard. He talked about how we take away our own happiness thinking we would be more happy through our preference for choice & freedom over the less desirable-irreversible situations, which ironically, lets us synthesize happiness. He claimed that we tend to underrate 'synthesized' happiness, which is generally perceived as a '2nd-class' happiness by the society in which we live in. Unknowing to all of us is that this experience is no different than the 'natural' happiness we all yearn to have so much. So is the freedom to choose, bad?
As Gilbert suggests, “We should have preferences that lead us into one future over another. But when
those preferences drive us too hard and too fast because we have overrated the
difference between these futures, we are at risk.”, of unhappiness.
I find this interesting. And very true. ;)