Believe it or not, studies showed that your mind is not engaged with what is right in front of you 47 percent of the time. That is distressing enough to me in my ordinary life where the consequences just mean I’m unproductive. (At least now, I know why!) But think about that where the repercussions could be serious. That means surgeons, airplane pilots, and judges are not paying attention for about half of the time. That is scary!

The research, by psychologists Matthew A. Killingsworth and Daniel T. Gilbert of Harvard University, is described in the journal Science. Killingsworth and Gilbert write:

A human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind. The ability to think about what is not happening is a cognitive achievement that comes at an emotional cost.”

The research tells us that mind-wandering is an excellent predictor of happiness. In fact, how often a person’s mind leaves the present and where they tend to go is a better predictor of happiness than the activities they actually engage in. Science shows that about half of your happiness is under your conscious control. You can influence your happiness and mental health in a big way simply by building your ability to sustain and guide your attention.