Dumb Luck

Description: Daniel Gilbert wandered into psychology.

Transcript: You know, I was about 15½ years old when I decided that I was smarter than my high school and I shouldn’t be attending. So I stuck out my thumb and started hitch-hiking around the country. Ended up in Denver, Colorado where I got married and had a child. I became a science fiction writer. One day I decided I might benefit from a course in writing at the local community college. So I jumped on a bus and went down there to sign up for one; but I was a little late and the course was full, so I . . . they said psychology was open. So I wandered into psychology.

I think that story makes it pretty evident that luck and chance is something between 99 and 100 percent of what’s happened to me. You know, had that bus been early or late, or had a different course been open, we might be having a chat about my career in cartography or some other discipline.

Recorded on: 6/12/2007