Impact Is Rewarding. Mattering Makes Us Happy.

To Learn From Experience, We Must Remember It, And, For A Variety Of Reasons, Memory Is A Faithless Friend.

Daniel Levitin Has More Insights Per Page Than Any Other Neuroscientist I Know. The Organized Mind Is Smart, Important, And, As Always, Exquisitely Written.

We All Have Direct Experience With Things That Do Or Don't Make Us Happy, We All Have Friends, Therapists, Cabdrivers, And Talk-show Hosts Who Tell Us About Things That Will Or Won't Make Us Happy, And Yet, Despite All This Practice And All This Coaching, Our Search For Happiness Often Culminates In A Stinky Mess. We Expect The Next Car, The Next House, Or The Next Promotion To Make Us Happy Even Though The Last Ones Didn't And Even Though Others Keep Telling Us That The Next Ones Won't.

In Short, If We Adhere To The Standard Of Perfection In All Our Endeavors, We Are Left With Nothing But Mathematics And The White Album.

Our Inability To Recall How We Really Felt Is Why Our Wealth Of Experiences Turns Out To Be Poverty Of Riches.