Snippet: "Our intuitions can sometimes be off-center."

Snip·pet | ˈsnipit | noun a small piece or brief extract.

This is from Bruce Hood on “The Happiness Lab” Podcast. The episode “Get Over Yourself” is about becoming other-centered (allocentric) rather than self-centered. Hood is a professor at the University of Bristol and the author of The Science of Happiness: Seven Lessons for Living Well:

“We're a narrative animal. We tell stories and that's why we like stories because we relate them to our own lives. And if you are so self-centered that you generally don't pay attention to what's going on around other people's lives, then I think you're missing out on a really important component of psychology, as it were.

“So allocentric can be sort of indirect, just kind of listening to others. But then you can actually put the effort into changing other people's lives. You can volunteer. You can donate. You can help.

“You know, one of the surprising things is that people feel awkward. And this is a well-known phenomenon that when offered the opportunity to engage other people, most people shy away from that because they think it will be a really negative experience. But all the data is very clear is that it's an incredibly positive experience, both for the person helping and the person being helped.

“So again, this just demonstrates that our intuitions can sometimes be, you know, off-center when it comes to what's really good for us.

“So yeah, you can actually practically help other people out. And to do it in a selfless way, which is not expecting reciprocity or something in return, I think is really important, because then it loses its genuineness. It becomes obviously a transaction, which is not a recipe for happiness.

“All of these things, helping, donating, volunteering, just paying attention, listening to other people, are all the sorts of things I'm talking about when I say becoming more allocentric”

Photo by Matt Collamer on Unsplash.