If you saved your life by running up a tree when chased by a lion, your brain would learn to feel good about trees. Anything that transforms a bad feeling to a good feeling is a lifesaver from your mammal brain’s perspective, and it builds a big pathway. If you lived in a world full of lions, you would always be scanning for trees. Since you don’t, you instead scan for anything that once made you feel good in a moment when you felt bad. These are your “happy habits.” They are not conscious choices, but pathways that create the expectation of feeling good. The good feelings don’t last, of
...more
