Pretty, Shiny Things

Philly0028, originally uploaded by jryanpackard.

Just before leaving for Philadelphia I read some research suggesting that the things we think will make us happy never really make us as happy as we suspect they will. Also, the same is true for things we think will make us sad. In short, we are terrible predictors of our own satisfaction. Armed with this information I went to Philadelphia for my first ever academic conference. I presented some research of mine, and it went well. But here's the thing, everybody around me was more nervous than I was to the point that I started to get nervous. I started making this out to be a bigger deal than it actually was. I mean, there were over 4000 sociologists at this conference, and only 25 at my 15 minute presentation. Really, what's the worst that's likely to happen? So I stood up, did my best, and sat down. And that was it. It just sort of happened. I am really no more or less happy or sad than I was two weeks ago, long before I started agonizing about really important things such as whether I should wear a tie or just a sport coat (I'll save you the trouble, I didn't wear either since I think they're both silly).