Happiness hypothesis: Why do our efforts to change ourselves fail? There is an enormous range of self help books available. But what jonathan hyde asked was, why doesn't it work? And then he said, a, our mind has the structure,. he use a very indian metaphor, has the structure of an of a mah an elephant, the elephant. The mouth is the one who rides the elephant. A controls the elephant. Now if the elephant obeys the mouth, it will work. But the little elephant does not obey the mouth. The elephant finds some bananas there, which it wants to eat, and wants to go that way. It cannot do anything to the