In his illuminating book Stumbling on Happiness, social psychologist Dan Gilbert asks us to consider what would have happened at the end of Casablanca if Ingrid Bergman had not patriotically rejoined her Nazi-fighting husband but instead remained with Humphrey Bogart in Morocco. Would she, as Bogart tells her in a heart-wrenching speech, have regretted it—“Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of your life”? Or did she forever regret leaving Bogart? Gilbert gathered a wealth of data that shows that the answer to both questions is no, that either decision would have
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