As a friend on Facebook said today after reading this article on daydreaming, Harvard needs to find a different field of study.
————————————–
People spend about 47 per cent of their waking hours thinking about something other than what they are doing and this mind-wandering makes them unhappy, according to a Harvard study. Unlike other animals, humans spend a lot of time thinking about what is not going on around them -contemplating events that happened in the past, might happen in the future, or may never happen at all. “Indeed, mind-wandering appears to be the human brain’s default mode of operation,” according to the study by Harvard University psychologists Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert. “A human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind,” Killingsworth and Gilbert said.
———————————Indeed! I really want to call up these gentlemen and tell them that daydreaming is my entire occupation: when I write, I daydream on paper. And I hope to make it my profession some day.Not that writing is a terribly well-paid profession, but it is certainly a rewarding one. And no, thank you, I would not like a mind that does not wander from the basics of every day life.Another friend commented on the article: “What complete nonsense! Day dreaming got me through long, boring meetings when I was working.”I completely agree.
Daydreaming may not make me ecstatic most of the time, but it certainly does not make me unhappy! How do you and your daydreams deal with each other? Do they make you unhappy?
On the contrary! I often get flashes of inspiration whilst daydreaming! And when a really cool idea pops up that I can't wait to write down, it makes me uber ecstatic!
Always planning, always dreaming, but never doing. That's the real issue, isn't it?