The lonely lives of psychologists

Psychologists spent a month tracking the moods of 28,000 people, and what they did when they were the happiest shocked them

Someone here does not believe in evolution. Humans are supremely successful species, therefor under the evolutional theory we would expect us to have evolutionarily found ways to solve these basic issues.

​More below.

"We like doing things that feel good because, well, they feel good. It's something psychologists call the "hedonic principle." Basically, the principle goes, we try to do pleasurable things whenever possible and avoid un-pleasurable things whenever we can.

Given our pleasure-seeking track record, it's pretty remarkable that any of us actually gets anything done."

Right, so, do the author, or the surprised psychologists, actually believe that humans are an evolutionary pinnacle or not? The last sentence is bollocks. It is not remarkable at all that humans would have evolved (if you believe in God, please just replace evolution with God, it is the same thing in this context) a mechanism to allow both reasonable reward from our pleasure center, and productivity.

To the contrary, anyone with half a brain would expect this. That this operates in the manner described is also not particularly surprising, except to the surprised psychologists, and maybe the author.

In the productive world, it makes total sense to do scut work when on a high, as opposed to waiting until you really bottom out. Only perpetually surprised psychologists would be surprised by this finding.

"After all, if all we want to do is enjoy ourselves, how do we commit to mind-numbing chores like doing the laundry, or challenging tasks like finishing a work project?"

Evolution? Just a thought.
"More importantly, if all we seek is pleasure, then why do some of us spend such a large proportion of our lives unhappy?"

The pursuit of personal happiness is not evolutionarily valuable, or productive, and we have developed a mechanism to limit this selfish obsession? Just thinking out loud here.

Happiness is always the wrong metric. Happiness is at its core just the temporary elimination of the vicissitudes of life. While we enjoy this state, it is only sustainable for short periods of time. Evolution has functionally equipped us to pursue, and feel accomplishment for pursuing, the things fundamentally important to human survival, and continued evolution.

There is a reason so much psychological research is so valueless.