I'll give you an example.

There was a study in the city of Chicago.

They were studying commuters, people who were about to get on the train and take the train to work, like they did every day.

And so they took a random sample of people in one group, and they were assigned to do what they always do on the train.

It could have been listening to music or reading the news on their phone, whatever they did.

The other group, randomly, was assigned to talk to a stranger on the train, which none of them had ever done.

And they asked them beforehand, how much do you think you're going to like this assignment we've just given you?

And the people who were assigned to talk to strangers said, I'm not going to enjoy this.

Afterwards, after they completed their assignments, the people who had talked to strangers were much happier than the people who had done their usual staying on their phones or reading the newspaper.

So it's an example of how we're not so good at knowing what's going to make us happy, and particularly when it comes to connecting with each other.

There's something about these kind of small conversations that we can have with strangers or even with someone we barely know that turn out to be very energizing more of the time than not.

But we're always afraid.

We're afraid someone's going to think we're strange if we strike up a conversation, or we're going to get stuck talking to someone who we don't like.

But what we find is that the culture gives us these messages about what will make us happy that turn out not to be the truth.

A lot of the messages are about consumerism.

We're told, if you buy this car, you're going to be happy.

If you serve this brand of pasta, you're going to have blissful family dinners.

And even though we sort of know that this isn't the truth, the advertisements really do inculcate this sense that if we consume the right things, that we'll be happy.

And what we know from our research and many other studies is that's just not so.

And that these connections with each other actually do make us happy.