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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuffworks

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Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, you're welcome to Stuff to Blow your mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and um Julie d Ammonia Douglass.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, what does ud ammonia? I mean, it's a

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Speaker 1: contented state of being happy and healthy and prosperss Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and that's that sumps you up except for prosperous, but

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Speaker 1: prosperous in my relationships and other non monetary ways. Yeah. Okay, well,

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Speaker 1: you know that's a it's a big question, right happiness

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Speaker 1: At this very moment, I feel you, ammonia, So you

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Speaker 1: feel happy right now? Right now? Okay, Well that's good.

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Speaker 1: That's that's that's that's a good sign for the podcast episode.

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Speaker 1: We should we should both be happy while we're doing it.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you don't have to be, but it helps,

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Speaker 1: I guess. But that's pretty much life in general, right,

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Speaker 1: I mean, from moment to moment, it's a question, am

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Speaker 1: I happy? Is this making me happy? And should I

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Speaker 1: be asking that question? To begin with? To what extent

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Speaker 1: is it a false construct? To what extent can we

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Speaker 1: actually plan and manipulate our environment in our life in

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Speaker 1: such a way that the end result is happiness, right,

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Speaker 1: which is why this is such a sticky topic and

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Speaker 1: why we haven't really like put our arms around it

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Speaker 1: and really given it a big old squeeze, because, I mean,

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Speaker 1: this is kind of a territory that gets into all

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Speaker 1: sorts of variables. And as you had mentioned, happiness is

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Speaker 1: from moment to moments. So to say are you happy?

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Speaker 1: Do you want to be happy? It's sort of like, yes,

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Speaker 1: I do in five minutes, in a day, in a year,

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Speaker 1: I want all of that for me. And then to

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Speaker 1: even try to figure out what happiness is is a

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Speaker 1: whole sort of Pandora's box of philosophies and pitfalls. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: like when anyone asks you what it does X make

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Speaker 1: you happy? Um, and unless unless X is something that's

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Speaker 1: tied to a very in the moment experience, such as

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Speaker 1: say does the sugar make you happy? You know you

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Speaker 1: can say, well, yes, sugar makes me happy in a

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Speaker 1: very short term sense. But otherwise it you know, does

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Speaker 1: does does any kind of artestic artistic endeavor that you

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Speaker 1: you busy yourself with? Does does that make you happy? Well? Yes,

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Speaker 1: their moments that it probably makes you really happy. There

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Speaker 1: are moments where it will frustrate you there moments where

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Speaker 1: where it will will bleed into other areas of happiness

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Speaker 1: or frustration in your life. It's just it's it's such,

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Speaker 1: it's so dependent on so many different things, and it's

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Speaker 1: such a subjective experience, right, subjective and ephemeral. Right, it's

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Speaker 1: a fleeting feeling most times. And it's and you had

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Speaker 1: mentioned this whole thing of like, even asking the question

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Speaker 1: about happiness, what is it? Am I happy? Kind of

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Speaker 1: takes you outside of the experience of being happy, and

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Speaker 1: it's sort of one of the things that you start

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Speaker 1: to take it apart. Can you put it back together again?

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Speaker 1: You know? Does that does it make us unhappy to

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Speaker 1: even try to figure out what this un ammonia is? Well,

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Speaker 1: you end up stabbing to step outside of the human

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Speaker 1: experian's itself, because when you start realizing that that as

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Speaker 1: humans we are ephemeral, As humans were not one thing

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Speaker 1: from one second to the next. Where this weird, kind

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Speaker 1: of odd shaped snake that's draped across the timeline, with

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Speaker 1: all these weird unconscious things going on that we can't

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Speaker 1: always pin down. And right, there's just so many different

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Speaker 1: states affecting nous. So one of the things you mentioned.

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Speaker 1: You said, if X makes me happy, that made me

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Speaker 1: think about this equation. That we're going to talk about

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Speaker 1: this happiness equation, which might sound a little reductive, and

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Speaker 1: maybe it is, and we'll get to it, but we

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Speaker 1: really wanted to use this as our sort of entree

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Speaker 1: into the topic because we could go on and we

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Speaker 1: may into this topic for episodes and episodes and episodes,

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Speaker 1: but this at least gives us a place to start

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Speaker 1: ad to figure out, you know, happiness in this transient

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Speaker 1: state and what it means to us, because indeed, they're

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Speaker 1: constantly are studies coming out dealing with happiness and the

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Speaker 1: human we for happiness, and uh it's and we've been

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Speaker 1: trying to figure out what happiness is for a very

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Speaker 1: long time. Uh So it's a deep topic. And today

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Speaker 1: we're going to we're gonna talk a little bit about

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Speaker 1: how are thinking about happiness has changed, and then we're

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Speaker 1: gonna talk about this supposed happiness equation, which is when

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Speaker 1: we get to it, you'll see it's a little more

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Speaker 1: complicated than than than it sounds. Yeah, there's no X

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Speaker 1: plus Y equals. Yeah, there are many more variables. But

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Speaker 1: let's start with Aristotle because He described happiness as an

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Speaker 1: experience of the good life through virtuous action. Okay, so

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Speaker 1: this is the idea. You spend your time doing things

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Speaker 1: that are good, that are virtuous, that benefit humanity in

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Speaker 1: some way. You're gonna you're gonna feel good about that.

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Speaker 1: You're gonna feel uh this, this positive feeling in your life. Yes,

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Speaker 1: by being disciplined, by being virtuous. Yes, the byproduct is

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Speaker 1: a sort of glow of happiness that that you're you know,

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Speaker 1: a good person out they're doing good things. Okay, and

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Speaker 1: I can see where, certainly later you can end up

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Speaker 1: interpreting this, uh by by really drawing in more religious

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Speaker 1: ideas of virtue as well. But but you know on

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Speaker 1: the surface that that's this is a definition that seems

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Speaker 1: to ring true. When you're doing when you're helping others,

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Speaker 1: when you're doing good things of that nature, you do

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Speaker 1: feel a certain a bit of happiness is kind of

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Speaker 1: you know, contentment. You know you're not you're not you

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Speaker 1: don't feel like you're wasting your time. Yeah, there's a

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Speaker 1: sort of purpose in life. Right, And now you can

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Speaker 1: sort of turn the dial a couple of degrees and

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Speaker 1: you can see that you can go from being happy

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Speaker 1: to feeling happy, which then kind of makes you change

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Speaker 1: this perception of happiness as this pursuit, this thing that

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Speaker 1: you have to have and a kind of pleasure that

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Speaker 1: you want over and over again. In fact, we know

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Speaker 1: that dopamine is released when we're feeling really happy, so

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Speaker 1: you can kind of even tie that to a sort

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Speaker 1: of addiction to happiness. And I'm talking about hedonism, yeah,

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Speaker 1: for talking about, of course, the hedonistic view of life,

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Speaker 1: the idea that life is all about seeking pleasure and

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Speaker 1: you're just jumping from one pleasure to the next, and

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Speaker 1: that that is part and partial to the human experience itself,

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Speaker 1: and anything else you're telling yourself is just a lie.

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Speaker 1: So that's one way to look at it. Yeah, this

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Speaker 1: one way to look at Yeah. Another and you kind

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Speaker 1: of already touched on this is happiness can be associated

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Speaker 1: with a state of flow. And we've talked about this

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Speaker 1: before that when you're really engaged in activity or just

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Speaker 1: even thinking about something, it's pleasurable because you lose yourself

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Speaker 1: inside of it and time sort of suspends itself. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we've talked about the default mode network before. You know

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Speaker 1: that the voice in your head, it's constantly tied into

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Speaker 1: anxieties about past and the future. Uh. And then when

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Speaker 1: you can shut that down, uh, you know, by meditation,

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Speaker 1: by who knows medication, but also by just simply becoming

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Speaker 1: the act that you're involved in, be that act howing

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Speaker 1: the yard or writing a poem, or doing your job

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Speaker 1: at work, or a gamy. And we're going to talk

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Speaker 1: about in our next episode. But according to Megan Keener,

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Speaker 1: writing for the Huffington Post, neuroscientists and Buddhist monk Mathou

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Speaker 1: Record teaches that durable happiness as a way of life

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Speaker 1: requires training the mind and developing qualities like inner peace, mindfulness,

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Speaker 1: and altruistic love and uh. She goes on to say

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Speaker 1: that Dali Lama agrees, describing happiness as a skill requiring

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Speaker 1: effort in time to develop an understanding of the true

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Speaker 1: nature of reality. And in a way, you kind of

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Speaker 1: get back to Aristotle here, this byproduct of doing right

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Speaker 1: by yourself, of doing good in the world, of of

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Speaker 1: trying to come to the act in a very mindful way. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and a little bit there from the Dalai Lama about

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Speaker 1: understanding the true nature of reality. Um, I kind of

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Speaker 1: enjoy taking that notion to a certain degree. Outside of

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Speaker 1: the Buddhist construct there and think about, you know, just

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Speaker 1: sort of having a good understanding, a good based understanding

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Speaker 1: of how the brain is working, how the mind is working,

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Speaker 1: and and and knowing, you know, however, we're gonna inevitably

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Speaker 1: go from this happy moment to the next with dips

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Speaker 1: in between, and there's a topography to uh, to our

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Speaker 1: emotional state in life. Like just knowing that there is

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Speaker 1: a topography and realizing that there are going to be

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Speaker 1: ups and downs. I feel like that is is is

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Speaker 1: an important part of at least trying to maintain some

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Speaker 1: sort of happiness in your life. Yeah, I kind of

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Speaker 1: quit it with the ferret of the mind looking for

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Speaker 1: everything that's shiny, you know, and just bouncing from one

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Speaker 1: thing to another. Yeah, and just knowing that there's a ferret.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of half the battle. I mean that you

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Speaker 1: can become aware of this, uh, this state of mind,

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Speaker 1: then you can you can actually take some steps to

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Speaker 1: deal with it. Yeah. And if you can say stop,

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Speaker 1: that's fool schoold, it's not the real thing, then maybe

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Speaker 1: you can back up for a second and kind of

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Speaker 1: get back into yourself and back into that present moment.

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Speaker 1: Now when did we humans really least think that happiness

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Speaker 1: was worth pursuing an earnest because this hasn't always been

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Speaker 1: the aim of humanity. Oh yeah, I mean you just

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Speaker 1: just in the Western tradition you look back at and

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Speaker 1: it's certainly like Protestant thinking and and to a certain

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Speaker 1: degree Catholic views of of life, where you you really

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Speaker 1: get into this idea of this physical world as being

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Speaker 1: a world of suffering and just you it's all about

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Speaker 1: just enduring what the world is throwing at you, and

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Speaker 1: you've got to keep your eyes in the prize and

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Speaker 1: that being some form of happiness in the afterlife, if

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Speaker 1: you can even call it happiness. You can even I

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Speaker 1: guess it base call it liberation. Uh, you know, to

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Speaker 1: get a little Buddhist on it. But life sucks, and

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Speaker 1: your only possibility out of the suck is to follow

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Speaker 1: the rules and make it out in the next life. Right,

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Speaker 1: there's the original sin, the idea of that, and everybody's

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Speaker 1: gonna suffer for that in this lifetime, which when you

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Speaker 1: get out maybe not so much so. According to Peter

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Speaker 1: Stearn's writing for the Harvard Business Review, this idea changed

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Speaker 1: in the eighteenth century, and he said the fact is

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Speaker 1: that the commitment to happiness in Western culture is relatively

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Speaker 1: modern until the eighteenth century. Uh, if anything, you have

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Speaker 1: that saddened approach to life. And so he says, what

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Speaker 1: changed is you had the the Enlightenment. And we've talked

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Speaker 1: about this before. The Enlightenment not only just brought in

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Speaker 1: this new circulation of ideas, but coffee houses which helped

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Speaker 1: to circulate and really pump up everybody's energy to communicate

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Speaker 1: those ideas like little virus, these little memes that began

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Speaker 1: to distribute among everybody. And so then you have these

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Speaker 1: ideas of well, hey, maybe you know the original sin

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Speaker 1: and suffering. Maybe it's a little bit different. Maybe God

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Speaker 1: wants us to be happy, and he was coffee and

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Speaker 1: all this energy, and I have all these thoughts and

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Speaker 1: ideas and I want to talk about him. Maybe God

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Speaker 1: really wants us to be cheerful. That's that's the idea there.

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Speaker 1: And in addition to that, Stearn says that the air

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Speaker 1: were advances and human comfort for the middle classes. This

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Speaker 1: is really key, and he's saying that there is better

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Speaker 1: home heating. I mean, imagine being chilled throughout the night

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Speaker 1: and how angry and depressed you might be the next day. Um.

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Speaker 1: It's these little things that he said sort of move

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Speaker 1: the needle for people to get into a position where

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Speaker 1: they could begin to consider happiness. In other words, they

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Speaker 1: were in this really nice, comfortable position. Um. And he

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Speaker 1: even says that improved dentistry might have encouraged people to

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Speaker 1: smile more. And you know, we've talked about this before.

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Speaker 1: Just smiling, the act of it will communicate to your

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Speaker 1: brain that you're happy, even if that state. You know,

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Speaker 1: right before that you were kind of feeling funky or

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Speaker 1: in a funk, I should say. And then the just

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Speaker 1: the act of your lips curling up can tell your brain, hey,

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Speaker 1: you're smiling. You know that. In this of course, flows

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Speaker 1: into the the theory that the Mona Lisa, for instance,

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Speaker 1: might have had that unique smile because she doesn't want

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Speaker 1: to show her teeth. Um, it's an it's an interesting theory.

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Speaker 1: But the thing is, it's kind of disappointing though. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know, like, oh, she's the she's neither smiling or grimacing,

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Speaker 1: she's just doesn't want to show her teeth. Yeah, but

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Speaker 1: you know what, I think we've all seen very genuine

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Speaker 1: smiles on the part of people with imperfect, too too

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Speaker 1: bad teeth, you know, and in a way like there's

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Speaker 1: nothing better, because you know, that's a genuine smile, Like

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Speaker 1: it's a smile where the the happiness of the moment

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Speaker 1: supersedes any concerns about physical health or or or just

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Speaker 1: you know, basic appearance. Yeah, and it's you know, we

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Speaker 1: kind of take dentistry for granted now, but think back

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Speaker 1: to the eighteenth century, and this would be a clear

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Speaker 1: marker of those who maybe had access to money and

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Speaker 1: dentistry and those who did not. So all of a

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Speaker 1: sudden to be able to have things in your mouth fixed,

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Speaker 1: you know, maybe not have that rowan tooth or whatever

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Speaker 1: it is. Um that might say, oh, look at me,

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Speaker 1: I've got access to wealth, and I'm going to smile

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Speaker 1: about it all day. All right. So weally, we eventually

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Speaker 1: get into this idea, uh, in large part, especially in

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Speaker 1: the United States, so due to the Declaration of Independence

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Speaker 1: UH and Thomas Jefferson's pen that everyone has the right

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Speaker 1: to life, love, and the pursuit of happiness. Now, the

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Speaker 1: Declaration of Independence is not provide additional details on exactly

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Speaker 1: what happiness means and or how to obtain it, but

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Speaker 1: we're told, oh, will you have a right to uh,

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Speaker 1: to pursue it? So so what are we to make

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Speaker 1: of that? Like? Where where does that even come from?

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Speaker 1: That's a that's a question that scholars have actually looked

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Speaker 1: at quite a bit. Well. Thomas Jefferson, as we know,

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Speaker 1: was really very well read and in many different areas,

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Speaker 1: and as Josh Clark points out his article about this um,

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Speaker 1: Jefferson was very interested in philosopher John Locke's ideas, and

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Speaker 1: Locke had originally positive the idea that a person's right

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Speaker 1: to live a healthy life, free to amass and maintain

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Speaker 1: property or life. Health, liberty, and property was sort of

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Speaker 1: the bedrock on which Jefferson began to build his own

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Speaker 1: philosophy for what the United States might want to pursue

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Speaker 1: for itself. So we're not quite sure how happiness came

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Speaker 1: to be in in his um final wording in in

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Speaker 1: the Declaration of Independence, but we do know that this

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Speaker 1: idea of health and wellness well being might have informed

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Speaker 1: this idea of happiness. Yeah. Again, it's such a subjective

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Speaker 1: thing that really if you try and and really dissected

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Speaker 1: too much, you just start running into dead ends. And

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Speaker 1: especially when you think about the fact that that the

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Speaker 1: American dream, as as it was back then, also entails

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Speaker 1: being able to um to a new place and practice

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Speaker 1: some sort of dreary take on Protestant theology again where

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Speaker 1: life is not about happiness, and maybe that that that

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Speaker 1: belief is in a sense your own sort of happiness.

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Speaker 1: That it gets complicated, it does, and then it's again

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Speaker 1: it's interesting to see Thomas Thomas Jefferson and others during

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Speaker 1: this period really bringing in these other ideas of what

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Speaker 1: life is. So obviously in the United States there's a

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Speaker 1: comfort level that has been reached in which Jefferson and

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Speaker 1: others can begin to ponder what it means um to

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Speaker 1: be this human in this society and what to expect.

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Speaker 1: And I think that's the fascinating thing, is that that

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Speaker 1: turn from health and wealth being eking into this idea

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Speaker 1: of happiness and that that should be accessible for people

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Speaker 1: some people. You know, technology makes a lot of things easier,

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Speaker 1: and stamps dot Com provides all of the expertise. They'll

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Speaker 1: to do is print the postage, hand it to your

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Speaker 1: not wait. Go to stamps dot com before you do

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Speaker 1: the homepage and type in stuff that stamps dot com

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Speaker 1: enter stuff. All right, we're back and we're talking about happiness,

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Speaker 1: and we're gonna talk a little bit about something called

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Speaker 1: the happiness industrial Complex, or something dubbed the happiness industrial complex.

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Speaker 1: And for an example of this, you just need to

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Speaker 1: look at pretty much anything in your surrounding world. U

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Speaker 1: turn on the television, turn on the radio, listen to

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Speaker 1: a podcast, drive down the street. It's everywhere. Yeah. And

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Speaker 1: according to Caroline Gregor, a features editor Huffington Post, a

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Speaker 1: Google search for happiness yields seventy five million results and

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Speaker 1: nearly forty thousand books on the topic. Now sitting atop

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Speaker 1: this heap of books is Gretchen Rubens Happiness Book or

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Speaker 1: The Happiness Project. I'm sure a lot of listeners have

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Speaker 1: probably seen this around. And Gretchen Ruben, she was very

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Speaker 1: interested in trying to figure out what made her happy,

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Speaker 1: and she began to sort of live this life of

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Speaker 1: how she could achieve Um. It's a sort of like

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Speaker 1: the six sigma Jack Doneghie, Like I'm going to attack

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Speaker 1: happiness and it's going to be in you know, all

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Speaker 1: these different areas of my life. And she lived it

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Speaker 1: for like a year and then wrote about the successes

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Speaker 1: and the failures of that, as well as some of

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Speaker 1: the studies and the science behind it. Um. But she

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Speaker 1: says that she thinks that the reason why there is

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Speaker 1: this happiness Industrial complex is because we live in a

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Speaker 1: time of incredible prosperity, not of course globally, but in

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Speaker 1: the West. This is probably one of the prosperous times

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Speaker 1: in history. And so hearkening that to that idea that

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Speaker 1: when you reach a certain comfort level, you began to

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Speaker 1: really become more introspective and figure out how to move

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Speaker 1: that needle on your own happiness. Yeah, and then the

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Speaker 1: media that you consume, the examples of life that you

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Speaker 1: see around you, those kind of become the the sort

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Speaker 1: of baseline happiness that you feel, on some level you

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Speaker 1: should be able to achieve. So you have this, uh,

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Speaker 1: you have this example of what your home should be,

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Speaker 1: what your family should be, what your clothing should be,

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Speaker 1: what your your nose should be, I don't know, and

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Speaker 1: and and that that becomes the model that becomes something

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Speaker 1: that you you strive for. Um And there's and there's

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Speaker 1: no end of people that want to sell you something

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Speaker 1: that will help you reach that point where you have

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Speaker 1: that house, where you have that nose, where you have

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Speaker 1: that outfit, where you have whatever version of of of

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Speaker 1: happiness you're having to pull out of the media ether

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Speaker 1: all around you, which kind of gets you into this

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Speaker 1: terrible place where you think that there's a standard of

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Speaker 1: happiness that you must fulfill for yourself, even though knowing

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Speaker 1: can really define that for the community at large, it

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Speaker 1: has to be defined individually. And so I think that's

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Speaker 1: what fueling this industry. People are just saying, how if

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Speaker 1: I just buy this book, if I just do this

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Speaker 1: one thing, then I'll be happy, Which again, it's not

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Speaker 1: a one size fits all, um, and it's taken hold.

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Speaker 1: I think of people's imagine nation so much so that Uh,

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Speaker 1: there is a one forty five million dollar Pentagon sort

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Speaker 1: of happiness program that was put into place. Uh and

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Speaker 1: his PBS opinion piece The Tyranny of Happiness, Joshua Faust

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Speaker 1: writes that Martin Silikman helped to create this program to

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Speaker 1: teach optimistic thinking to veterans returning from wars in Iraq

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Speaker 1: and Afghanistan. And it's a kind of resilience training that

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Speaker 1: was also put into place for for other soldiers, not

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Speaker 1: just veterans. And so on the one hand, you have

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Speaker 1: detractors who say it's super reductive. Um, it's almost like

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Speaker 1: mind control. And it's also possibly not dealing with the

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Speaker 1: concerns of veterans who have really had some very traumatic

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Speaker 1: experiences returning from war. But on the other hand, I

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Speaker 1: mean as as again as reductionists as it may seem

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Speaker 1: to just sort of have this hey fight the horror

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Speaker 1: with happiness kind of vibe. I mean, at least they're

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Speaker 1: giving them some tools to work with, some something cling

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Speaker 1: onto if you feel yourself drifting off into the deep

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Speaker 1: end of of trauma and post traumatic stress. Right, it's

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Speaker 1: it's a step in the right direction for mental health, right,

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Speaker 1: and to even addressing the fact that there are issues

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Speaker 1: that um, a lot of people are dealing with when

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Speaker 1: when they're at war. UM. But the other sort of

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Speaker 1: murky thing about this is that Seligman is very much

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Speaker 1: associated with torture tactics and techniques and he's he's kind

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Speaker 1: of actually got the corner on that. So here you

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Speaker 1: have this guy who has has worked with the government

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Speaker 1: UM and torture techniques, but is also on the flip

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Speaker 1: side trying to help soldiers with positive thinking. And UM,

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Speaker 1: it's it's very interesting, I should say, just if not

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Speaker 1: um controversial. I mean, you could argue that he's very

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Speaker 1: qualified for this since he is familiar with the the

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Speaker 1: the opposite end of the spectrum. But but yeah, I

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Speaker 1: don't know it. It's still maybe it's just just a

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Speaker 1: simple matter of anytime you have something that's referred to

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Speaker 1: as the Pentagon Happiness program, it's going to ring a

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Speaker 1: little Hollway. I think that's an informal take on it.

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure if that's what they actually I think

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Speaker 1: I know they refer to it as positive psychology. But

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Speaker 1: you're right, it is interesting, like this is the guy

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Speaker 1: who knows how to break an individual, so maybe this

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Speaker 1: is the guy who knows how to fix an an individual.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, there's the interesting duality of course you can

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Speaker 1: make there. You know, there's the the whole argument that

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Speaker 1: those are the two movements you can take in life,

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Speaker 1: either destroying and creating. And just because you can tear

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Speaker 1: a car apart doesn't mean you can rebuild it. So

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Speaker 1: I don't know. Indeed, I feel like this is fertile

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Speaker 1: ground for another episode to even talk about this um.

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Speaker 1: So we should talk about the mathematical happiness that we

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Speaker 1: referred to in the introduction this. I d you that

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Speaker 1: those moment to moment um state through our mind might

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Speaker 1: be able to be trapped and even predicted in terms

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Speaker 1: of how contemp we feel and of course this uh,

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Speaker 1: this falls logically based on any number of studies we've

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Speaker 1: discussed on this podcast. Right, we can always use an

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Speaker 1: f m R. I we can look and see how

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Speaker 1: blood is flowing through the brain and based on what

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Speaker 1: associations are made with different parts of the brain and

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Speaker 1: different parts of the brain in connection with each other,

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Speaker 1: then we can and then we can compare the brain

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Speaker 1: scans the FMR results to what kind of stimulized involved

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Speaker 1: what you're asking the tests of you to think about,

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Speaker 1: and you can start forming theories about um, you know

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Speaker 1: how to fill in that X and that y in

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Speaker 1: various equations regarding human behavior. And I was thinking about

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Speaker 1: this in terms of how we always say that the

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Speaker 1: brain is this pattern seeking machine and um. Dr Rob

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Speaker 1: Rutledge from the University of College London, who conducted the study, said,

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Speaker 1: the brain is trying to figure out what you should

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Speaker 1: be doing in the world to get rewards. So all

430
00:23:58,080 --> 00:24:01,960
Speaker 1: the decisions, expectations and out comes or information it's using

431
00:24:02,000 --> 00:24:04,399
Speaker 1: to make sure you make good decisions in the future.

432
00:24:04,760 --> 00:24:08,080
Speaker 1: All of the recent expectations and rewards combined to determine

433
00:24:08,080 --> 00:24:10,840
Speaker 1: your current state of happiness and what's interesting about that

434
00:24:10,880 --> 00:24:13,919
Speaker 1: is I don't think that people really thought about happiness

435
00:24:13,960 --> 00:24:17,280
Speaker 1: in that context before, Like, oh, that's just my brain

436
00:24:17,320 --> 00:24:20,160
Speaker 1: trying to predict what's going on and what it should expect.

437
00:24:20,240 --> 00:24:22,840
Speaker 1: You know. We tend to think of happiness coming more

438
00:24:22,920 --> 00:24:32,720
Speaker 1: from the inside as opposed to external conditions. So this

439
00:24:32,800 --> 00:24:37,320
Speaker 1: brings us to the the so called happiness equation, which

440
00:24:38,240 --> 00:24:39,879
Speaker 1: if you look at it, and we'll i'll try to

441
00:24:39,880 --> 00:24:41,720
Speaker 1: include a link to it or an image of it

442
00:24:41,880 --> 00:24:45,640
Speaker 1: on the podcast page associated with this episode, you'll see

443
00:24:45,640 --> 00:24:49,119
Speaker 1: that it again is not an X plus Y equals whatever.

444
00:24:49,200 --> 00:24:53,920
Speaker 1: It is is a long equation with several different variables,

445
00:24:54,359 --> 00:24:57,480
Speaker 1: different levels. Like if it were if this equation we're

446
00:24:57,520 --> 00:25:00,840
Speaker 1: physically a house that would have several floor as there

447
00:25:00,840 --> 00:25:03,560
Speaker 1: were to be different places you could hide. It's a

448
00:25:03,680 --> 00:25:08,480
Speaker 1: it's an elaborate equation, is but it is an equation nonetheless,

449
00:25:08,520 --> 00:25:11,800
Speaker 1: So it's an attempt to mathematically understand this thing, and

450
00:25:12,040 --> 00:25:15,680
Speaker 1: in this case, UH, the individuals trying to mathematically understand

451
00:25:15,800 --> 00:25:20,040
Speaker 1: the Quest for Happiness researchers at University College London. So

452
00:25:20,080 --> 00:25:21,959
Speaker 1: what they did is they analyze the results of twenty

453
00:25:21,960 --> 00:25:25,880
Speaker 1: six people doing a task in which over repeated trials,

454
00:25:25,920 --> 00:25:29,840
Speaker 1: they were asked to choose between definite and risky monetary rewards.

455
00:25:29,840 --> 00:25:32,200
Speaker 1: So we're, you know, we're talking basically the idea of

456
00:25:32,400 --> 00:25:35,399
Speaker 1: do you stand to to to gain any kind of

457
00:25:35,400 --> 00:25:39,000
Speaker 1: small monetary reward on this particular risk is that there's

458
00:25:39,040 --> 00:25:41,879
Speaker 1: zero dollars involved? Is there one dollar, two dollars involved,

459
00:25:41,920 --> 00:25:44,960
Speaker 1: that sort of thing, And what's your expectation as opposed

460
00:25:45,000 --> 00:25:47,760
Speaker 1: to what really happened and when you were playing the game? Yeah,

461
00:25:47,840 --> 00:25:49,919
Speaker 1: and so through these trials, they're asked to report their

462
00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:53,439
Speaker 1: level of happiness following the result. And of course the

463
00:25:53,480 --> 00:25:56,600
Speaker 1: participants brains were also scanned using an f m R I.

464
00:25:57,600 --> 00:26:00,720
Speaker 1: So looking at the brain scans, looking again how blood

465
00:26:00,760 --> 00:26:03,760
Speaker 1: is flowing through through the noggin during all of this,

466
00:26:04,080 --> 00:26:06,840
Speaker 1: they they noticed activity in two areas of the brain

467
00:26:06,920 --> 00:26:12,159
Speaker 1: correlated positively with happiness scores. These were the ventral striatum,

468
00:26:12,760 --> 00:26:16,360
Speaker 1: this is the main source of dopamine neurons, and the insula,

469
00:26:16,640 --> 00:26:20,440
Speaker 1: an area of the brain that is associated with several emotions,

470
00:26:20,920 --> 00:26:24,400
Speaker 1: but especially happiness. So, yeah, let's say that a player

471
00:26:24,880 --> 00:26:28,760
Speaker 1: made a decision and she thought, okay, there's you know,

472
00:26:28,880 --> 00:26:32,639
Speaker 1: she wasn't sure what her reward would be monetarily, but

473
00:26:32,720 --> 00:26:35,880
Speaker 1: she expected maybe zero dollars or one dollar. But let's

474
00:26:35,920 --> 00:26:38,720
Speaker 1: say her reward was not those full six dollars, but

475
00:26:39,400 --> 00:26:42,720
Speaker 1: four dollars. Hey, that was better than what she expected.

476
00:26:42,920 --> 00:26:44,920
Speaker 1: She thought that on the lower end of the spectrum

477
00:26:44,960 --> 00:26:48,439
Speaker 1: she'd get zero or one dollar. So you see that

478
00:26:48,480 --> 00:26:51,520
Speaker 1: activity in the brain spiking. So what they did is

479
00:26:51,520 --> 00:26:55,360
Speaker 1: they took all of that information and then they had

480
00:26:55,359 --> 00:26:58,120
Speaker 1: a second part of the study in which they developed

481
00:26:58,119 --> 00:27:01,760
Speaker 1: that equation based on all of those reactions and the

482
00:27:01,760 --> 00:27:05,439
Speaker 1: way the brain was behaving, and they applied it to

483
00:27:05,640 --> 00:27:10,400
Speaker 1: eighteen thousand people playing a game that was very similar

484
00:27:10,440 --> 00:27:13,440
Speaker 1: to what the volunteers were doing. So we're talking about

485
00:27:13,440 --> 00:27:18,200
Speaker 1: a decision making task game. It's a smartphone game. And

486
00:27:18,280 --> 00:27:21,480
Speaker 1: the results were as the model had predicted. When players

487
00:27:21,520 --> 00:27:24,639
Speaker 1: expected a reward, they were less happy to receive it

488
00:27:24,680 --> 00:27:29,239
Speaker 1: than if they hadn't expected anything at all. Okay, So

489
00:27:29,320 --> 00:27:34,440
Speaker 1: it all comes down to expectations and how appropriately low

490
00:27:34,520 --> 00:27:38,280
Speaker 1: or high those expectations might be. Yeah, which is kind

491
00:27:38,320 --> 00:27:40,800
Speaker 1: of uh, that's a little bit of a dumb moment,

492
00:27:40,800 --> 00:27:43,479
Speaker 1: But at the same time, it challenges our perception of

493
00:27:43,560 --> 00:27:47,600
Speaker 1: how happiness sort of happens inside of us, So it

494
00:27:47,640 --> 00:27:50,880
Speaker 1: doesn't depend on really how things are going, but on

495
00:27:50,880 --> 00:27:53,960
Speaker 1: our perception of how they will go or how they

496
00:27:53,960 --> 00:27:57,040
Speaker 1: should go. Yeah. I feel like an area of my

497
00:27:57,119 --> 00:27:59,240
Speaker 1: life where I see this in play the most is

498
00:27:59,240 --> 00:28:00,560
Speaker 1: when I see a move of you when I go

499
00:28:00,640 --> 00:28:02,720
Speaker 1: to check out a film, right, because you're coming into

500
00:28:02,720 --> 00:28:08,440
Speaker 1: any given film with varying levels of of of information

501
00:28:08,600 --> 00:28:12,080
Speaker 1: regarding its quality and how much you are supposedly going

502
00:28:12,080 --> 00:28:14,920
Speaker 1: to like it, so you have a certain expectations set

503
00:28:14,960 --> 00:28:17,919
Speaker 1: for it. Maybe so everyone's saying this is the big

504
00:28:17,960 --> 00:28:20,520
Speaker 1: summer thrill ride, this is the best movie of the year,

505
00:28:20,760 --> 00:28:23,639
Speaker 1: this one an Oscar, this one, this uh, this is

506
00:28:24,080 --> 00:28:25,840
Speaker 1: the film that all your friends are talking about. So

507
00:28:25,920 --> 00:28:28,640
Speaker 1: you go into it perhaps thinking well, I will certainly

508
00:28:28,640 --> 00:28:30,600
Speaker 1: love it, it it will be the greatest thing ever. Or

509
00:28:30,720 --> 00:28:32,880
Speaker 1: you go into a film that everyone has dumped on

510
00:28:33,240 --> 00:28:36,000
Speaker 1: and then it's better than you expected. So based on

511
00:28:36,040 --> 00:28:39,840
Speaker 1: your expectations, you know, I find myself thinking at times,

512
00:28:39,840 --> 00:28:42,520
Speaker 1: what was this film really that bad? Or was that

513
00:28:42,640 --> 00:28:45,400
Speaker 1: just my expectations were just way too high for it?

514
00:28:45,600 --> 00:28:48,480
Speaker 1: And then likewise, I'll see something and I'll really enjoy it,

515
00:28:48,520 --> 00:28:50,360
Speaker 1: and then I'll think, well, maybe that's just because I

516
00:28:50,400 --> 00:28:52,640
Speaker 1: was really expecting nothing out of it, and it did

517
00:28:52,680 --> 00:28:56,560
Speaker 1: have some some nuggets of gold hidden in there with

518
00:28:56,640 --> 00:29:00,160
Speaker 1: the poop. That's a nice way to say. Yeah, um

519
00:29:00,160 --> 00:29:02,920
Speaker 1: and Ritledge says he even says like this isn't the

520
00:29:02,960 --> 00:29:05,360
Speaker 1: way to pursue happiness, by the way, because we're talking

521
00:29:05,400 --> 00:29:09,400
Speaker 1: about moment to moment, and he said, in contrast to this,

522
00:29:09,520 --> 00:29:12,400
Speaker 1: you could actually even be thinking about stay an upcoming

523
00:29:12,600 --> 00:29:17,000
Speaker 1: vacation and imagine yourself learning to serve or if that's

524
00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:20,160
Speaker 1: something you really think you're going to do and you're

525
00:29:20,160 --> 00:29:23,720
Speaker 1: committed to that and have pleasure from that, just from

526
00:29:23,760 --> 00:29:28,560
Speaker 1: imagining yourself being on vacation and doing things, so you

527
00:29:28,600 --> 00:29:32,920
Speaker 1: can have expectations, he says, Um, but the trick moment

528
00:29:32,960 --> 00:29:37,240
Speaker 1: to moment in your life is to try to um,

529
00:29:37,800 --> 00:29:41,560
Speaker 1: as you can say, lower your expectations to the reality

530
00:29:41,680 --> 00:29:47,840
Speaker 1: of the situation in order to not be disappointed. Right, Okay, Yeah,

531
00:29:47,840 --> 00:29:50,240
Speaker 1: I mean that makes sense. You can set out, you

532
00:29:50,280 --> 00:29:53,440
Speaker 1: can fantasize essentially about learning to serve on that vacation,

533
00:29:53,800 --> 00:29:56,240
Speaker 1: but don't be upset when it rains every day and

534
00:29:56,280 --> 00:29:59,280
Speaker 1: you just end up playing scrabble in the beach house. Yeah,

535
00:29:59,320 --> 00:30:02,560
Speaker 1: just just the out of being on vacation having those

536
00:30:02,560 --> 00:30:05,480
Speaker 1: thoughts and yeah, maybe even being like, maybe this is

537
00:30:05,520 --> 00:30:10,160
Speaker 1: the key fantasizing about surfing, but also saying that won't

538
00:30:10,200 --> 00:30:12,800
Speaker 1: it be beautiful if it rains, then I'll be playing scrabble,

539
00:30:12,920 --> 00:30:16,800
Speaker 1: So surfing settle for scrabble. That can be our new

540
00:30:17,000 --> 00:30:21,320
Speaker 1: bumper sticker happiness equation that everybody can can use and

541
00:30:21,400 --> 00:30:23,360
Speaker 1: we can put that in our stuff to blow your mind.

542
00:30:23,840 --> 00:30:27,000
Speaker 1: Store right Travel can license it and use it on

543
00:30:27,040 --> 00:30:30,760
Speaker 1: all the products. There you go. Religeous also says that

544
00:30:31,040 --> 00:30:35,400
Speaker 1: this is only a measurement for immediate reward. He says

545
00:30:35,440 --> 00:30:38,160
Speaker 1: that it doesn't deal with long term satisfaction. And in

546
00:30:38,200 --> 00:30:40,920
Speaker 1: fact um, when you look at all these short term

547
00:30:40,960 --> 00:30:43,920
Speaker 1: spikes in debts and you account for them, people still

548
00:30:44,000 --> 00:30:48,680
Speaker 1: have a baseline happiness point and they tend to follow

549
00:30:48,720 --> 00:30:51,240
Speaker 1: that over the course of a lifetime. And perhaps that's

550
00:30:51,280 --> 00:30:55,080
Speaker 1: more dominated by your philosophy of life. Yeah, and also

551
00:30:55,120 --> 00:30:57,520
Speaker 1: by the I mean sort of the the the icons

552
00:30:57,560 --> 00:30:59,560
Speaker 1: and the role models you look up for too. I mean,

553
00:30:59,600 --> 00:31:02,280
Speaker 1: those became the models of what you want to achieve,

554
00:31:02,720 --> 00:31:05,480
Speaker 1: be that you know, you're one of your own parental

555
00:31:05,560 --> 00:31:09,560
Speaker 1: units or some celebrity or whatever. You end up you

556
00:31:09,640 --> 00:31:11,720
Speaker 1: end up kind of shackled to that model to some degree,

557
00:31:12,040 --> 00:31:15,920
Speaker 1: and you are shackled to um, whatever your circumstances are

558
00:31:15,960 --> 00:31:19,560
Speaker 1: at that very moment, the circumstances that you can't maybe change.

559
00:31:19,600 --> 00:31:22,160
Speaker 1: So I'm thinking health is one of them. Um. And

560
00:31:22,200 --> 00:31:25,840
Speaker 1: this certainly doesn't even begin to touch on depressions. So again,

561
00:31:27,440 --> 00:31:29,680
Speaker 1: reductionists at all. But these are just you know, this

562
00:31:29,760 --> 00:31:33,640
Speaker 1: happiness equation is interesting to look at the happiness paradigm

563
00:31:33,720 --> 00:31:35,320
Speaker 1: and try to figure out what's going on there in

564
00:31:35,320 --> 00:31:38,680
Speaker 1: the femeral states. So if we're to take something away

565
00:31:38,720 --> 00:31:41,480
Speaker 1: from this, and again you can't really take away a quick,

566
00:31:41,560 --> 00:31:45,280
Speaker 1: easy uh uh you know rocket ride to happiness but

567
00:31:46,360 --> 00:31:49,440
Speaker 1: essentially aimed for the stars but settle for them in

568
00:31:49,720 --> 00:31:52,360
Speaker 1: kind of a situation. Yeah, but even that, it's it's

569
00:31:52,440 --> 00:31:55,520
Speaker 1: more complicated than it sounds like. If you start dissecting

570
00:31:56,000 --> 00:32:01,000
Speaker 1: the the bumper sticker um simplicity of it, it is

571
00:32:01,040 --> 00:32:02,680
Speaker 1: a lot like how do you set how do you

572
00:32:02,920 --> 00:32:08,200
Speaker 1: aim big and still find yourself satisfied with with with

573
00:32:08,400 --> 00:32:11,760
Speaker 1: less impressive results? Uh? Like even my own life when

574
00:32:11,760 --> 00:32:14,920
Speaker 1: I think about about my writing, uh, it's I feel

575
00:32:14,920 --> 00:32:16,480
Speaker 1: like I've I've gotten to the point where I have

576
00:32:16,560 --> 00:32:20,280
Speaker 1: a like a healthy level of expectation, but I still

577
00:32:20,400 --> 00:32:23,640
Speaker 1: I am also at the same time, uh, staying ambitious

578
00:32:23,640 --> 00:32:26,000
Speaker 1: with what I'm trying to do, and I'm not sure

579
00:32:26,040 --> 00:32:30,200
Speaker 1: I can really break apart how I'm maintaining that, you know,

580
00:32:30,520 --> 00:32:35,760
Speaker 1: like because they seem like to contradictory feelings. Well, I

581
00:32:35,760 --> 00:32:38,080
Speaker 1: think it's kind of one of those things, especially with fiction,

582
00:32:38,200 --> 00:32:40,480
Speaker 1: is you do have that expectation I'm going to write

583
00:32:40,480 --> 00:32:42,840
Speaker 1: the great American novel, and I'm doing it now, and

584
00:32:42,840 --> 00:32:46,240
Speaker 1: it never happens, right, because that novel turns out into

585
00:32:46,280 --> 00:32:49,680
Speaker 1: something entirely different than what you expected. So I think

586
00:32:49,760 --> 00:32:54,120
Speaker 1: when you come to the experience of flow, in this case, happiness,

587
00:32:54,720 --> 00:32:58,480
Speaker 1: that you have to be willing to fail a lot

588
00:32:58,560 --> 00:33:01,280
Speaker 1: or a little in order to reach some sort of

589
00:33:01,560 --> 00:33:04,960
Speaker 1: stasis of happiness, right, because it's just in the effort

590
00:33:04,960 --> 00:33:07,640
Speaker 1: of trying to do that and then square your expectations

591
00:33:07,640 --> 00:33:11,920
Speaker 1: with whatever comes out on the other side. Yeah. Again,

592
00:33:11,960 --> 00:33:15,680
Speaker 1: when we're writing, requires that sort of like zen monk

593
00:33:15,800 --> 00:33:19,120
Speaker 1: like mind, which makes it I think, very difficult, although

594
00:33:19,200 --> 00:33:23,000
Speaker 1: not for Joyce Carol Oates. Oh yeah, she finds it easy.

595
00:33:23,080 --> 00:33:25,360
Speaker 1: She's prolific, And I think it's because it's like a

596
00:33:25,440 --> 00:33:28,320
Speaker 1: muscle for her. She has written so much and she

597
00:33:28,440 --> 00:33:31,240
Speaker 1: does it almost automatically when she comes to the table,

598
00:33:31,320 --> 00:33:35,200
Speaker 1: because that is what she does, you know, every single

599
00:33:35,320 --> 00:33:38,200
Speaker 1: day that you know, I think that you sort of

600
00:33:38,240 --> 00:33:40,720
Speaker 1: maybe when you're doing it that much, you put away

601
00:33:40,800 --> 00:33:44,000
Speaker 1: those fears or those thoughts that allow you to get

602
00:33:44,000 --> 00:33:47,800
Speaker 1: to that page. Bottom line, though, expectations seem to play

603
00:33:48,120 --> 00:33:52,040
Speaker 1: a major role in the pursuit of immediate happiness. So

604
00:33:52,160 --> 00:33:57,480
Speaker 1: shoot for the moon, or if you shoot for the moon,

605
00:33:57,480 --> 00:33:59,080
Speaker 1: the shoot for the moon. Shoot for the moon is fine,

606
00:33:59,080 --> 00:34:03,280
Speaker 1: but settle for low Earth orbit. There you go. That's

607
00:34:03,280 --> 00:34:07,800
Speaker 1: our bumper sticker, all right, guys, Um, you know you

608
00:34:07,840 --> 00:34:10,439
Speaker 1: can find us in other places, right, Oh yeah, yeah,

609
00:34:10,480 --> 00:34:13,879
Speaker 1: we're available all over, but especially at stuff to Blow

610
00:34:13,880 --> 00:34:16,000
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. That's the mothership. That is where

611
00:34:16,040 --> 00:34:19,000
Speaker 1: you will find all of our podcast episodes streaming for

612
00:34:19,040 --> 00:34:21,640
Speaker 1: your pleasure. You will find all of our videos. You'll

613
00:34:21,680 --> 00:34:24,760
Speaker 1: find our blogs as well as links out to various

614
00:34:24,760 --> 00:34:27,480
Speaker 1: social media accounts that we frequent And if you have

615
00:34:27,560 --> 00:34:32,759
Speaker 1: any thoughts on happiness, any sad thoughts on happiness differately, um,

616
00:34:32,800 --> 00:34:34,600
Speaker 1: please do share them with us. We would love to

617
00:34:34,600 --> 00:34:36,960
Speaker 1: hear from you, guys, and you can do that by

618
00:34:37,080 --> 00:34:40,239
Speaker 1: emailing us at blow the Mind at how stuff works

619
00:34:40,280 --> 00:34:47,640
Speaker 1: dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.

620
00:34:47,880 --> 00:34:55,120
Speaker 1: Is it how stuff works dot com