Five years ago, I was unhappy. Positive psychology, the ‘science’ of happiness, offered hope that traditional psychology did not.

So I started this blog. I would research a topic and write up my findings, hoping to help both myself and others.

But three years ago, I stopped.

I stopped because I had realized that in the ways that matters, positive psychology was just like traditional psychology – it was a scientific mess.

Some of the blame lies with the human brain. It’s probably the most complicated thing in the universe. But that’s not the problem. Rockets are incredibly complicated, but NASA managed just fine.

Why? Because the science and engineering off of which rockets are based have one advantage the brain does not – they can provide robust feedback.

Feedback is how a human learns. Ironically, the brain, the organ which guides that learning, is bad about providing feedback about itself. It’s incredibly opaque.

Science is a process of truth seeking. Make a prediction, run an experiment, observe the results. The opacity of the brain turns the results of most experiments into unreliable nonsense.

Decades of work on complex statistical methods meant to overcome this problem have mostly failed. Not because the problem is insurmountable or psychologists are lazy and stupid. Because the incentives that guide research in the social sciences mostly lead to the production of garbage studies that fail to replicate.

I had everything I was supposed to want, both personally and professionally, but behind all that was a growing restlessness. As much as I loved the idea of what I was doing, I still lived for the weekends and my vacations. My boss was (and still is) one of my most significant mentors and role models, but it soon became clear to me that I didn’t have the fire in the belly to follow in his footsteps. It was a depressing, and yet liberating, moment. All the compliments, awards, and expectations of greatness I had received over the years had encouraged me to pursue someone else’s vision of success.

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