The name QuantiModo is derived from Quasimodo, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. Since Quasimodo was born with a hunchback, the townspeople just saw him as a hideously misshapen monster. However, those townspeople were idiots (as most townspeople are). For within that deformed figure resided a beautiful human spirit. The Latin words “quasi” and “modo” mean “almost” and “the standard measure” respectively. As such, Quasimodo is “almost the standard measure” of a human being. QuantiModo intends to be the full measure of a human being.
Like Quasimodo, life-tracking data in its natural form appears to be a hideous mess of numbers in spreadsheets. However, within this cacophony of data lies something very beautiful, the secrets to maximizing your happiness.
Like true beauty, true happiness is an endogenous phenomenon, meaning that it comes from within. Happiness can be influenced by environmental stimuli. However, contrary to popular belief, happiness is not solely determined by environmental stimuli.
This has been proven in many scientific studies. For example, lottery winners experience extreme elation in the weeks following their win. However, after a matter of months, they generally drift back down to their genetically predetermined hedonic set point. Conversely, after an initial severe depression, new paraplegics generally return to the same level of happiness they had prior to their accidents.
Happiness does not correlate with health, wealth, education or status. But it does correlate with many small things we can now do in our everyday lives. You can raise your emotional set-point.
I would like to give you an example of a person who had every reason in the world to be miserable, yet eternally remained in a maniacally happy state. This woman was an employee at my laboratory. She and her little brother were abandoned by their parents at a very young age. Her brother was her sole companion at the time. Around the age of 6, she and her brother went to stay with their father. Their father happened to be an alcoholic and managed to set their trailer on fire. Her brother burned to death in this accident. Later in life, she had two children. Both of these children possessed behavioral and learning disabilities. The fathers of these children provided very little support. A short time before I had met her, she was in an automobile accident which shattered her leg, resulting in chronic pain and a severe limp. Despite all of these challenges, she was literally the happiest person I had ever met before. It was almost obnoxious how happy she was all the time.
Conversely, there are people like Kurt Cobain, who have attained success beyond their wildest dreams and have every reason in the world to be ecstatic but kill themselves to end the pain caused by a neurotransmitter imbalance. This is all evidence that our emotions are merely a product of biochemical reactions.
I am living proof that it is possible to manipulate these biochemical reactions and attain sustained happiness. Since childhood, I had always dreamed of blowing my brains out. My depressed brain was as resistant to treatment as anyone. I attempted to find relief from my own psychological problem within the medical community for over a decade. Finally, I decided to employ the same techniques I had used in my industrial testing laboratory to find a solution.
The first step is research. I found the following books extremely helpful in gaining a full understanding of how our biochemistry produces our emotional states.
For me the result was going from a Moodscope score of 30% mood rating, a state where death or unconsciousness is a step up, to a sustained period of extreme productivity and happiness.
