Speaker 1: Pushkin. Do you remember where you were on the morning
Speaker 1: of September eleventh, two thousand and one. I was a
Speaker 1: senior in high school, and I remember we heard the rumors,
Speaker 1: the whispers that an attack had happened. This is author
Speaker 1: and activist Simren Jeet Singh. Like many Americans, he also
Speaker 1: has a vivid memory of how scared he was that
Speaker 1: terrible morning. We ran to my teachers classroom. Is strong
Speaker 1: and while just watched on television, we watched the towers
Speaker 1: come down. But Simmern's fear is about the events unfolding
Speaker 1: in New York, in DC one beyond just the tragic
Speaker 1: terrorist attacks that were unfolding that afternoon. The death threat
Speaker 1: started first by phone, then people driving bys. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was a really intense moment in my life. Simren
Speaker 1: and his family are sick members of a major religion
Speaker 1: that sprang up in India around five centuries ago. Part
Speaker 1: of their faith, sick men grow beards and wear turbans.
Speaker 1: Even though their faith had nothing to do with the
Speaker 1: awful attacks of Osama bin lauded, Simren and his family
Speaker 1: became immediate targets for abuse in their small South Texas town.
Speaker 1: That afternoon, Simren's mom locked their front door. I remember
Speaker 1: that vividly because we had never locked the doors. Followers
Speaker 1: of sickism are no strangers to assault in persecution. The
Speaker 1: threat of oppression has even shaped their faith. But Simren
Speaker 1: was still surprised when his father pondered their situation soon
Speaker 1: after nine to eleven and gave thanks. My dad said
Speaker 1: something to me like, aren't we so fortunate? You know,
Speaker 1: We're so lucky that your neighbors have been coming by
Speaker 1: to give us food, that your teachers and your teammates
Speaker 1: have been checking in to see if you're okay. I mean,
Speaker 1: aren't we so lucky to have all these people around us.
Speaker 1: This story is a pivotal moment in Simren's hip book,
Speaker 1: The Light We Give How Sick Wisdom can Transform Your Life.
Speaker 1: The memoir tries to unpack different strands of Simren's sick
Speaker 1: faith and explores how following these ten can make us
Speaker 1: all feel a little happier. So let's hear more about
Speaker 1: the well being wisdom of sickism on happiness Lessons of
Speaker 1: the Ancients with me, doctor Laurie Santos. We heard the
Speaker 1: story of Simren's family and the abuse they suffered following
Speaker 1: nine to eleven in the last episode. But what I
Speaker 1: wanted to dig deeper into this time was the reaction
Speaker 1: that Simren's father had to this difficult time. If your
Speaker 1: family was under siege, with strangers calling in death threats,
Speaker 1: an abuse being screamed at you from passing cars, would
Speaker 1: you ever think to say, are we so fortunate? And
Speaker 1: I look at him like he's lost his mind? Right?
Speaker 1: In what world is there something to feel fortunate about?
Speaker 1: And yet this is what Simmeren's dad thought. His religion
Speaker 1: valued optimism and gratitude even in the face of negative events,
Speaker 1: and prize the bonds that formed between people of different backgrounds.
Speaker 1: Rather than forgetting all those teachings in such a stressful moment,
Speaker 1: mister Singh kept them at the forefront of his mind.
Speaker 1: He committed to putting those teachings to action day in
Speaker 1: and day out until they were simply second nature. And
Speaker 1: this powerful lesson fits with the advice that we get
Speaker 1: from scientific work on happiness. If we want to weather
Speaker 1: the bad times well, we need to practice good habits
Speaker 1: when things are less stressful. We need to flex our
Speaker 1: happiness muscles regularly to build them up for when we'll
Speaker 1: need them the most. If this sort of practice makes
Speaker 1: perfect metaphors, sounds like something a sports coach might say, Well,
Speaker 1: that kind of makes sense because it's an analogy that
Speaker 1: I've borrowed from sports obsessed to Simren. As an avid
Speaker 1: teen soccer and basketball player, Simmeren realized that his father's
Speaker 1: example of putting in daily practice was exactly the thing
Speaker 1: he was learning from his coaches who were helping him
Speaker 1: to shoot hoops and pass soccer balls. Good habits or
Speaker 1: bad habits or lack of habits shape us in all
Speaker 1: kinds of ways, and so sports, to me was probably
Speaker 1: just the best way that I've come to understand this,
Speaker 1: because I would say probably like fifty percent of my
Speaker 1: childhood waste basketball, soccer, or baseball, and the other fifty
Speaker 1: percent was thinking about practice or games. So yeah, when
Speaker 1: I was in school, there was there was actually very
Speaker 1: little attention that I was paying to what was actually
Speaker 1: going on, which I think is probably true for a
Speaker 1: lot of us. But yeah, I mean, it's it's super
Speaker 1: interesting because I think the way that we function as
Speaker 1: a society, at least what my experience was growing up,
Speaker 1: is that in sports we talk about practice as a
Speaker 1: way to prepare ourselves for the big moments in school too, right,
Speaker 1: like homework and test preparation. Whether you actually do it
Speaker 1: or not, is it or find shortcuts is a different story.
Speaker 1: But but like we're trained to understand that if we
Speaker 1: want to succeed academically, like there is there's a process
Speaker 1: that you go through. And then for whatever reason, when
Speaker 1: it comes to living life, generally, we tell ourselves like
Speaker 1: all I need to know is the right ideas. All
Speaker 1: I need to know is that it's important to love
Speaker 1: my neighbor. And as long as I know that in
Speaker 1: my brain, then I can feel empathy for anyone. And
Speaker 1: to a degree it works, right, Like on a micro level,
Speaker 1: day to day, you see your neighbor and you say hi,
Speaker 1: and you feel good about yourself and you're like, see,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm a good person, I'm empathetic, I'm compassionate. Whatever.
Speaker 1: I watch TV and see this earthquake in Turkey and
Speaker 1: I donated a hundred bucks and like that's that's it,
Speaker 1: and like those are those are good and they're fine.
Speaker 1: But what I found is without real intention behind bringing
Speaker 1: those ideas into practice, like they just are so distant
Speaker 1: from who we actually are and part of the reason
Speaker 1: that this really came to me was in trying to
Speaker 1: understand what I was noticing on the front lines of
Speaker 1: hate violence, which is that for certain communities, and I
Speaker 1: worked with many six and we see this particularly among
Speaker 1: faith communities, when when certain communities are targeted and beaten
Speaker 1: and assaulted in these nasty, hateful attacks, they have an
Speaker 1: ability to respond with the best of their values in
Speaker 1: a way that goes beyond human understanding. Right, Like, it's
Speaker 1: so hard to watch these people as they're in the worst,
Speaker 1: most vulnerable positions of their lives because somebody couldn't control
Speaker 1: their own anger and their own hatred. And they'll sit
Speaker 1: up and they'll be like, I don't want them to
Speaker 1: be punished, Like I've seen people who've lost family members,
Speaker 1: and then like, I don't believe in capital manishment. I
Speaker 1: don't want that person to die. I want to forgive them.
Speaker 1: And like, however, this plays out, and it's super complicated,
Speaker 1: and I don't think there's a clear formula for it
Speaker 1: in terms of what people should do. But what I
Speaker 1: can say is I've seen that in their most vulnerable moments,
Speaker 1: when people have lived lives where they've practiced daily what
Speaker 1: their values are like they're ready to show up in
Speaker 1: those difficult moments, and so that that's become the inspiration
Speaker 1: for me, Like what am I doing every day to
Speaker 1: prepare so that when the hardship comes, and it's going
Speaker 1: to come, like life is life, things are hard when
Speaker 1: hardship comes, I'm ready to respond in a way that
Speaker 1: reflects my values and makes me feeling good about what
Speaker 1: I can control, kind of kind of like my dad
Speaker 1: and in that moment in nine to eleven where you know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot that he couldn't control, the world was
Speaker 1: spinning out of control, and he was able to really
Speaker 1: look into his values and find a way to claim
Speaker 1: his own agency in that moment. And I think that's
Speaker 1: that's really powerful way to live. And I think part
Speaker 1: of it is recognizing the power of the moment. You know,
Speaker 1: there are so many faith traditions that really focus on
Speaker 1: the kind of redemption or liberation that will happen to
Speaker 1: you after you die, right, you know, I'll try to
Speaker 1: get into heaven or you know, after life will be
Speaker 1: so great. But I think one of the powerful things
Speaker 1: about Sick philosophy is there's a real emphasis on the
Speaker 1: here and now, right the liberation doesn't happen when you die,
Speaker 1: It's happening kind of as you're living right now. And
Speaker 1: so talk about this idea of mindfulness, something that the
Speaker 1: happiness literature has talked about a lot, and how that
Speaker 1: sort of plays out with kind of making sure you're
Speaker 1: practicing all these good values and these good deeds in
Speaker 1: the here and now. Yeah, yeah, it's it's interesting because
Speaker 1: you know, I study a lot of religions and philosophies.
Speaker 1: I'm a professor of religion, and even as a kid,
Speaker 1: one of the things that never really made sense to
Speaker 1: me was this approach to life that said life is
Speaker 1: an illusion, don't take it seriously. Real happiness comes after
Speaker 1: you die, Like, just set yourself up for that happiness.
Speaker 1: And you know, to each their own, it's it's fine
Speaker 1: if that's if that's the way you want to live.
Speaker 1: But like, what I've learned and understood and what I
Speaker 1: really appreciate is um, life is finite. We don't know
Speaker 1: what we don't know, and what we do know is
Speaker 1: what we experience right now. And here's here's an analogy
Speaker 1: that that might be a little bit basic, but but
Speaker 1: but I think it pertains here. So my wife is
Speaker 1: a physician, and when she was in high school, I
Speaker 1: didn't know here them, but this is sort of how
Speaker 1: she's described it to me. She was like, all I
Speaker 1: need to do to be happy is to get into
Speaker 1: good college. And then she was like, all I need
Speaker 1: to do to be happy is to get into Gate
Speaker 1: good med school. And then it was all I need
Speaker 1: to do to be happy is get into the right
Speaker 1: and like, you just keep giving yourself these distant goals
Speaker 1: of like I will be happy then if I do
Speaker 1: this now, and it's it ends up being so conditional,
Speaker 1: and like who really looks at people? Who? I mean,
Speaker 1: we see it in movies all the time, we see
Speaker 1: it in literature all the time, right, Like it's not
Speaker 1: like this is a foreign concept to us. We live
Speaker 1: this too. But we know that the greatest way of
Speaker 1: finding happiness is to live in the present moment, right
Speaker 1: Like that's that's what every romcom teaches us, and so
Speaker 1: and so it's it's it's it's in our faces. It's
Speaker 1: it's not a surprise. But it's so hard to live
Speaker 1: that way for a lot of reasons. And and there
Speaker 1: are all sorts of challenges that we face on a
Speaker 1: daily basis. But but I think for the people that
Speaker 1: we know who are the happiest, they're the ones who
Speaker 1: are really engaged and taking seriously that. I mean, those
Speaker 1: are the people that I have most fun being around.
Speaker 1: Are the people who are happy and enjoying life, and like,
Speaker 1: that's who I want to hang out with. And anybody
Speaker 1: who's planning for happiness twenty years from now, I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 1: hang out with me in twenty years. You'll be more
Speaker 1: fun then. And part of making sure that you're doing
Speaker 1: the best that you can do for yourself in the
Speaker 1: moment is really like taking a good heart and oftentimes
Speaker 1: courageous look at yourself and noticing when you're straying from
Speaker 1: that path. Right. I think you sort of this term
Speaker 1: the Hohokam, like this idea of acceptance even when you're
Speaker 1: kind of off track. And this was something that I
Speaker 1: really admired that you talked about doing in the book,
Speaker 1: again not necessarily through your spiritual practices, but just in
Speaker 1: terms of your priorities and like taking a good, hard
Speaker 1: look at that and so you know, talk about how
Speaker 1: you did that in terms of paying attention to whether
Speaker 1: you were really prioritizing the things that you loved in life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know one of the things. As you're saying this,
Speaker 1: somebody asked me recently, like, when you write about your
Speaker 1: own life memoir style, how do you choose what's write about?
Speaker 1: And I was like, I hadn't thought about that, Like
Speaker 1: what are the moments? And I realized I just reflected
Speaker 1: on where I messed up the worst. I was like,
Speaker 1: let me just tell everybody about these moments in my life.
Speaker 1: And so this is one of them where this experience
Speaker 1: that I had, and I think all of us lived
Speaker 1: this way. In my head, I would describe my priorities
Speaker 1: as being, you know, family first always, and I had
Speaker 1: these young kids, and I would say that that's the
Speaker 1: most important thing to me. And I would say, you know,
Speaker 1: my own personal happiness, spiritual practice and the like. Last
Speaker 1: among that is work. And I think that's really reflective
Speaker 1: of how I see the world and where priorities should be.
Speaker 1: And I wasn't sure exactly how to how to check
Speaker 1: if that's I mean. It felt to me like I
Speaker 1: was off balance and I wasn't quite I wasn't quite
Speaker 1: where I where I thought I was, and things weren't
Speaker 1: really lining up. And so I had this exercise where
Speaker 1: I said, okay for today, Imagine that an alien comes
Speaker 1: from outer space and is just watching me and observing me,
Speaker 1: and based on those observations, they're going to see how
Speaker 1: I spend my time, and based on how I spend
Speaker 1: my time, they're going to tell me what my priorities are.
Speaker 1: And so I go through this exercise and what it
Speaker 1: enabled for me was almost a third person distance, right,
Speaker 1: Like I'm observing myself going through through the day, and
Speaker 1: as I'm going through it, I'm like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: Like I'm sitting here with my kids getting them ready
Speaker 1: for school. But even when I'm sitting with them, I'm
Speaker 1: so distracted by what I need to do for work
Speaker 1: that I'm not I'm not even actually here. And for me,
Speaker 1: like I could tell myself the story every day that
Speaker 1: like I'm such a great dad. I'm you know, getting
Speaker 1: my kids ready for school, I'm doing their hair whatever.
Speaker 1: But really, if somebody else is watching me, they're like,
Speaker 1: you're half present. And I go through this process like
Speaker 1: the entire day of reflecting on both what I'm doing
Speaker 1: with my time, like what am I prioritizing and actuality,
Speaker 1: and also what my headspace is when I'm there, and
Speaker 1: that that exercise was really illuminating for me in understanding
Speaker 1: that I was I was very much off base in
Speaker 1: terms of what my actual priorities were and how I
Speaker 1: was living my life. And it revealed to me a
Speaker 1: source of my own unhappiness, right, Like I wasn't actually
Speaker 1: doing the things that I cared about, and the things
Speaker 1: that I cared about I was like half doing. And
Speaker 1: so it was just a nice way to recalibrate not
Speaker 1: just how I spent my time, but but where I
Speaker 1: spent my time. This also seems to be something that's
Speaker 1: consistent with at least some sick philosophy. I know you
Speaker 1: mentioned in the book that Grew John talks about this
Speaker 1: idea of setting fire to any practices that take you
Speaker 1: away from love. And I love this specific phrasing because
Speaker 1: it's like you got to set fire to it, right,
Speaker 1: This is a hard task that you really need to
Speaker 1: kind of detonate what's going on in your life if
Speaker 1: it's not working, but if it's taking away from love,
Speaker 1: it's sort of worth doing that hard work to some
Speaker 1: interesting extent. No, I love it. It's it's such a Again.
Speaker 1: I think I think some of these ideas. They're so obvious,
Speaker 1: Like it's not like we haven't heard that concept before, right, Like,
Speaker 1: do what matters to you, do what takes you towards
Speaker 1: your goals, Like, I mean, we hear this since childhood,
Speaker 1: but the reminders and having them package indifferent way. I mean,
Speaker 1: the original Punjabi for Gurugen's line is ja lo scd
Speaker 1: jiti metada vis today And he's talking like you can
Speaker 1: translate it as rituals right in a in superstitions, and
Speaker 1: you could make it very specific to a critique of
Speaker 1: religious practice. But my read on it is it's actually
Speaker 1: applicable to all of us in all aspects of life,
Speaker 1: right like, just burn the things that are taking you
Speaker 1: away from your goal. And for me as someone as
Speaker 1: I'm reflecting on that story, it was actually a really instructive,
Speaker 1: practical mechanism for dealing. I mean, you know, I could
Speaker 1: sit here and say my priorities are misaligned and I'm
Speaker 1: going to change them. That's so hard to actually do, right, Like,
Speaker 1: there's actual psychological impact, right Like, Okay, So one of
Speaker 1: the examples specifically is that at the time that I
Speaker 1: went through this reflection, so much of my headspace was
Speaker 1: tied up with social media, Twitter in particular, so I
Speaker 1: would be like doing my kid's hair and thinking of, like,
Speaker 1: what's the cool tweet that I'm going to put out today?
Speaker 1: And it sounds so ridiculous when you say it out loud,
Speaker 1: like it's I'm definitely I was gonna say, I'm a
Speaker 1: little ebarrassed. I'm a lot embarrassed to say that. But like,
Speaker 1: you get addicted to these things, and there are all
Speaker 1: kinds of addictions in life, and it's not so easy
Speaker 1: to just say, Okay, starting from today, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to do this thing. Like it actually takes real effort
Speaker 1: to get there. And for me, this teaching jo lo
Speaker 1: sd like burn that thing. For me, that meant just
Speaker 1: top off social media for a few months, and like
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean, you know, you have to make some
Speaker 1: like huge commitment or radical change in your life, but
Speaker 1: just like get away from that thing and you can
Speaker 1: come back to it later. So anyway, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: it's a really powerful teaching that I come back to,
Speaker 1: especially in moments where I find it difficult to step
Speaker 1: away from the things that I that I'm actually really
Speaker 1: attached to. Auditing what we actually spend our time doing
Speaker 1: and honestly comparing that to our aspirations can be a
Speaker 1: sabring experience. If you've listened to the Happiness Lab before,
Speaker 1: you've probably heard that I often struggle to match my
Speaker 1: behavior with what I know should be my priorities. I
Speaker 1: far too often choose tasks that satisfy my it's to
Speaker 1: seem busy and productive instead of simply having fun with
Speaker 1: my loved ones. But there's another mismatch between intention and
Speaker 1: reality that trips a lot of us up. And that's
Speaker 1: the gulf between knowing that we should do nice stuff
Speaker 1: for the people around us and the temptation to just
Speaker 1: concentrate on pleasing ourselves. After the break, we'll look at
Speaker 1: how Simren's parents tackle that problem by taking away his
Speaker 1: birthday presents. The Happiness Lab will be back in a moment.
Speaker 1: There are so many arresting moments in Simren Jeet Singh's
Speaker 1: book The Light We Give How Sick Wisdom Can Transform
Speaker 1: Your Life. The memoir features powerful quotes from sick gurus,
Speaker 1: difficult encounters with intolerance and outright hatred, and brutally honest
Speaker 1: anecdotes about Simron's own triumphs and failures. But there was
Speaker 1: one image that wouldn't leave my mind when I first
Speaker 1: read the book. It was the story of young birthday
Speaker 1: boy Simmeren being taught a radical lesson about the value
Speaker 1: of sharing with others. The practice in our household growing
Speaker 1: up was you don't keep all the birthday presents you get,
Speaker 1: so you have you have the big party, like that's fun.
Speaker 1: Everyone shows up and it was great, and we do
Speaker 1: it in our backyard and I always look forward to it.
Speaker 1: And then and then the next day you go through
Speaker 1: the birthday presence and you keep one sometimes two, and
Speaker 1: the rest are for donation. And so it was I mean,
Speaker 1: it was painful as a kid, But but the practice
Speaker 1: that that engendered for us was, you know, your birthday
Speaker 1: is not just about you, Like this is an opportunity
Speaker 1: to think about others as well. And I mean, I'll say,
Speaker 1: my younger daughter's birthday was just two days ago, and
Speaker 1: my wife and I've developed our own practice around this.
Speaker 1: She gets to keep her presence because I don't have
Speaker 1: the heart to take them away. But one of the
Speaker 1: things we've developed with her is on her birthday, we
Speaker 1: give her a list of charities that we developed throughout
Speaker 1: the year, and she gets to pick which charity she
Speaker 1: wants to give amounts of dollars too that we assigned
Speaker 1: to her, And what that creates is a similar kind
Speaker 1: of dynamic, right Like you even on days that where
Speaker 1: culturally you're told the day is all about you, Like
Speaker 1: even on those days where we're not doing this this
Speaker 1: approach of like self centeredness, where we're going to think
Speaker 1: about others as well and we're going to give. And ultimately,
Speaker 1: like you know, people hearing this might think that this
Speaker 1: is about charity or about I don't know, fe feeling
Speaker 1: good about yourself, which I mean in a way yes,
Speaker 1: And ultimately it's about happiness, right, Like what do I
Speaker 1: want for my kids? I want them to be happy.
Speaker 1: And my experience and what I've learned is generosity is
Speaker 1: a real driver of happiness. And so I want my
Speaker 1: kids to learn and really feel what generosity is like
Speaker 1: in their daily lives, so it becomes something that they
Speaker 1: carry with them forever. And this is something we talk
Speaker 1: about a ton on this podcast. Right, there's so much
Speaker 1: evidence that serving other people's happiness is a way to
Speaker 1: serve our own happiness, Like the best way to spend
Speaker 1: money to feel good yourself, to experience happiness yourself is
Speaker 1: suspend on other people. It's just we kind of don't
Speaker 1: realize that. And I think this is the problem with
Speaker 1: serving other people, as we think it's a chore, but
Speaker 1: it can be a path to feeling good ourselves, even
Speaker 1: when serving other people who you might not necessarily want
Speaker 1: to serve or who might not react well to your service.
Speaker 1: And here's where I wanted you to tell the story
Speaker 1: of the woman that you helped on the street, because
Speaker 1: not all of our attempts to serve others go well.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they just reinforce, you know, some of the discrimination
Speaker 1: that you know many marginalized groups are facing. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is this is another one of those that's I mean,
Speaker 1: racism is so funny in a lot of ways. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you if you're willing to look at it that way,
Speaker 1: it's just so ridiculous. So this this moment with this
Speaker 1: woman on the street, she was older, We're living in
Speaker 1: New York City. She fell in the middle of the
Speaker 1: crosswalk as she was crossing so so on a street, busy,
Speaker 1: busy Manhattan Upper East Side, and she's laying there and
Speaker 1: she can't get up, and I just run over and
Speaker 1: put on my hand to help her up, right, Like, no,
Speaker 1: no big deal, like anything anyone would do. And so
Speaker 1: she reaches up to grab my hand and then she
Speaker 1: looks up and she sees my face and she immediately
Speaker 1: jerks her hand back and she's like she just shouted.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was so weird. She goes go back
Speaker 1: to where you came from. And I'm, I mean, I've
Speaker 1: dealt with all kinds of situations like this before, but
Speaker 1: actually nothing nothing like this where the person who's being
Speaker 1: racist towards me actively needs help and they're in a
Speaker 1: dangerous situation. I mean, it's it's New York. Cabs aren't
Speaker 1: going to start going to stop for her, and so
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not quite sure what to do. And
Speaker 1: in a way, right, this is the story of racism
Speaker 1: in a nutshell, right, and people would rather people rather
Speaker 1: be hurt than to take help from from others who
Speaker 1: they who they don't like for whatever reason. But I'm,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm sort of stuck in this in the
Speaker 1: situation and unsure of what to do, and we don't
Speaker 1: have that much time, and in my head I'm thinking
Speaker 1: she needs help. I'm also thinking she doesn't want to
Speaker 1: help from me. And a really natural reaction, and I
Speaker 1: acknowledge this would be to just walk away and be
Speaker 1: like whatever you you hate me, like, I don't care
Speaker 1: what happens to you. But I think, I think the
Speaker 1: practice of service as I developed it over the years
Speaker 1: had helped me understand that actually service is not about
Speaker 1: yourself and what you need to feel good. It's about
Speaker 1: other people and showing up for them. And so the
Speaker 1: the the immediate thought in my head was help this
Speaker 1: person in a way that is comfortable for them, in
Speaker 1: a way that meets the urgency of the moment, but
Speaker 1: without making it about myself. So I mean, the quick
Speaker 1: response then is get other people over who she's willing
Speaker 1: to take help from um and bring her to safety
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways, It's it's a really simple story.
Speaker 1: It happened very quickly. It's probably what a lot of
Speaker 1: us would do in situations like this, right, But some
Speaker 1: of the particularities of the story that made it challenging
Speaker 1: for me helps me understand what it would look like
Speaker 1: for us to show up for one another in moments
Speaker 1: of need in ways that aren't necessarily self centered and
Speaker 1: could really apply generally to social progress. The reason I
Speaker 1: find this story so amazing is it's not just kind
Speaker 1: of not being so self centered. You're helping a person,
Speaker 1: but you're really doubling down on humanity during a time
Speaker 1: when you're experiencing like really awful discrimination yourself. And I
Speaker 1: feel like, you know, this is kind of really getting
Speaker 1: back to this idea of Ekoknar, right, like where it's like,
Speaker 1: these are the moments when you have to remember this
Speaker 1: radical connectedness. But if you can, then you can use
Speaker 1: these moments not just to be these awful moments of racism,
Speaker 1: but you can really educate people about your heritage and
Speaker 1: about what you're about in these kind of awful moments.
Speaker 1: And I love the book because in the book you
Speaker 1: talk about so many cases where you've done that so elegantly.
Speaker 1: My other favorite story in the book was when you
Speaker 1: experience yet another racist incident in New York, this time
Speaker 1: involving some teen boys, but you were actually able to
Speaker 1: teach them and so tell me a little bit about
Speaker 1: this story. Yeah, yeah, thank you. I mean, one of
Speaker 1: the things I try to do in the book is
Speaker 1: just share with people what it's like to walk around
Speaker 1: in my shoes and in my skin every day, but
Speaker 1: in a way that you know, I want to be
Speaker 1: honest about my experience and not overstate. I mean part
Speaker 1: of the way that I experience, as you can probably
Speaker 1: tell from my tone and tenor is you know, these
Speaker 1: these moments are hard, but they're not the worst moments
Speaker 1: in my life. They're not the worst things in the world.
Speaker 1: I can I can manage them. I can I can
Speaker 1: find even happiness within them. So it's it's fine. And
Speaker 1: I think that's that's an important thing for me to
Speaker 1: acknowledge too. And in this moment with these kids when
Speaker 1: I'm running also in New York City, happens actually just
Speaker 1: after I start a practice of taking ten seconds every
Speaker 1: day to see the humanity in strangers that I see
Speaker 1: on the street. Part of part of the goal there
Speaker 1: was to move beyond this feeling of strangeness and to
Speaker 1: develop a sense of familiarity with with people who I
Speaker 1: didn't know. And so I've started this practice, and pretty
Speaker 1: soon after I'm running on the West Side Highway in
Speaker 1: New York and I hear this this guy shouting at me.
Speaker 1: He's calling me Osama, and he has a couple of
Speaker 1: additional descriptive, colorful words coming with it, and I'm so annoyed.
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to enjoy my run. It's a beautiful
Speaker 1: day and this guy's ruining it. And so I keep
Speaker 1: running at first, and as I run by, I see
Speaker 1: him and he's probably eighteen twenty years old. And as
Speaker 1: I pass by, I had no intention of, you know,
Speaker 1: saying anything or stopping or anything. But as I pass by,
Speaker 1: this practice kicks into my head and I look at him, like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, he is just like one of my students,
Speaker 1: same age, right, same same background, all the things right, Like,
Speaker 1: it's so interesting for me to observe him in this way,
Speaker 1: in this moment, and I decided to stop and to
Speaker 1: see him and treat him as one of my students.
Speaker 1: And so I go over to him and we end
Speaker 1: up having a really brief conversation. He must have been terrified.
Speaker 1: He must have been like, oh, I'm sorry, sorry, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: This was like a combination of teacher mode and dad
Speaker 1: mode because I go to him and he's like, sorry, sorry,
Speaker 1: I was just kidding, And I knew he was trying
Speaker 1: to dismiss it and I would have to, but my dad,
Speaker 1: my dad in me, is like, oh no, we're gonna
Speaker 1: have a quick conversation about this, like it's not it's
Speaker 1: not that easy. And at first, you know, again it was.
Speaker 1: It was probably thirty second conversation. So in the first
Speaker 1: ten or fifteen seconds, he was just trying to get
Speaker 1: out of it, like waiting for it to be over,
Speaker 1: like any teenager would. But as I, as I shared
Speaker 1: with him why it was what he said was so hurtful,
Speaker 1: I could I could see his eyes often like he
Speaker 1: got it in a way that he hadn't thought about
Speaker 1: it before. And then and then with the sincerity he
Speaker 1: was like, I'm sorry, like I wish I hadn't done that.
Speaker 1: And again it's like this really Mike Rome moments, right,
Speaker 1: it wasn't the worst thing in the world. By engaging
Speaker 1: with him, I didn't change the world or fix the world.
Speaker 1: But again, like thinking about my dad after a nine
Speaker 1: to eleven, like what does it mean for us to
Speaker 1: meet these moments with our values, to reclaim our agency
Speaker 1: in ways that give us hope to say, actually, like
Speaker 1: the world doesn't just happen to me, like I can
Speaker 1: contribute to it. I can have a positive impact, And
Speaker 1: for me, that meant I could enjoy the rest of
Speaker 1: the beautiful day, right, like I walked away being happy
Speaker 1: with how I dealt with it, rather than being annoyed
Speaker 1: or frustrated as I would have been. I just ignored it.
Speaker 1: And and same for him, right like he got something
Speaker 1: out of it too, rather than just being enabled to
Speaker 1: continue in the way that he had. So to me,
Speaker 1: it's it's just this really simple practice of seeing people
Speaker 1: for who they are in a world where we're often
Speaker 1: bogged down by by the fear of engaging with people
Speaker 1: who are different or people we don't know. And it
Speaker 1: made all the difference in that moment for me. And
Speaker 1: these moments of connection don't just you know, bring you
Speaker 1: happiness in the moment, I think in ways that we
Speaker 1: don't expect, right because to put that emotional labor in
Speaker 1: is a pain in the butt, and that kind of
Speaker 1: thing falls on marginalized individuals. But if you can do
Speaker 1: it from a place of this idea of connectedness, sometimes
Speaker 1: you can get happiness out of it. But but beyond that,
Speaker 1: you can be that one moment or at least one
Speaker 1: person is taught like it's a small act, but it's
Speaker 1: kind of moving in the right direction. And this leads
Speaker 1: to the you know, the metaphor that I know the
Speaker 1: story you use that for which you named your book,
Speaker 1: this idea of the lantern story. So I'm wondering if
Speaker 1: we can end with that today, just kind of sharing
Speaker 1: that story and how it's been a philosophy that you
Speaker 1: use to try to do more good in the world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's a parable a Punjabi voge tale that I
Speaker 1: learned from one of our greatest human rights leaders named
Speaker 1: just Fansancola, and it's about a lantern in a village
Speaker 1: that is it with a collection of lanterns, and as
Speaker 1: the sun starts to set in the evening, they start
Speaker 1: to feel fear and they wonder what's going to happen
Speaker 1: to us as the darkness comes, like we're not going
Speaker 1: to be able to see anything. And one of the lanterns,
Speaker 1: as the darkness sets in, announces I challenge the darkness,
Speaker 1: and it flicks on its light and you know, there's
Speaker 1: no intention of anyone else doing the same. There's there's
Speaker 1: also no intention of conquering darkness entirely, but it's it's
Speaker 1: just this one little lantern saying I'm going to do
Speaker 1: what I can. But what happens after that is the
Speaker 1: other lanterns around it start to feel inspired and recognizing
Speaker 1: that they can do the same, and that there is
Speaker 1: a real possibility and challenging the darkness continually. And then
Speaker 1: all of the lanterns, one by one flick on their
Speaker 1: their lights. And I think part of what I love
Speaker 1: about this parable is that it encapsulates the humility and
Speaker 1: the possibility at the same time, right that the two
Speaker 1: are often attention, but both both are true. And I
Speaker 1: think what else I love about it is that it's
Speaker 1: so easy to feel the overwhelming darkness in our lives.
Speaker 1: I mean all the time. I feel it all the time,
Speaker 1: and I know so many people feel it constantly, And
Speaker 1: to know, in the way that we're taught in my
Speaker 1: tradition and in so many others, that that light is
Speaker 1: already inside of us, and what we really need to
Speaker 1: do is to see it, to recognize it, to take it.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think there's profound implications for our for
Speaker 1: what we're facing today, whether it comes to you, the
Speaker 1: crisis around mental health, depression rates, I mean, so much
Speaker 1: of that could at least be affected if we could
Speaker 1: learn to see the light within ourselves and really see
Speaker 1: our own inherent value that's already there. But it's it
Speaker 1: is really hard to see, so this parable is a
Speaker 1: nice reminder for me about that as well. I hope
Speaker 1: you've found some light in all the episodes we've shared
Speaker 1: together in this season of Happiness. Lessons of the Ancients,
Speaker 1: the philosopher's texts and thinkers we've examined are all, in
Speaker 1: their own ways, small lights that have helped guide people
Speaker 1: on the path to happiness for centuries. But it's time
Speaker 1: to step out of the past and into the present.
Speaker 1: So when The Happiness Lab returns, we'll be back to
Speaker 1: presenting some of the latest research to come out of
Speaker 1: happiness science. So I hope you'll join me for more
Speaker 1: well being light in the weeks to come, and return
Speaker 1: once again for the next episode of The Happiness Lab
Speaker 1: with me Doctor Laurie Santos. The Happiness Lab is co
Speaker 1: written by Ryan Dilley and is produced by Ryan Dilley,
Speaker 1: Courtney Guerino, and Britney Brown. The show was mastered by
Speaker 1: Evan Viola and our original music was composed by Zachary Silver.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Greta Kone, Eric Sandler, Carl Migliori, Nicole Morano,
Speaker 1: Morgan Ratner, Jacob Weisberg, My agent Van Davis, and the
Speaker 1: rest of the Pushkin team. The Happiness Lab is brought
Speaker 1: to you by Pushkin Industries and by name doctor Laurie
Speaker 1: Santos