Speaker 1: As you said, balance is important, but I think we've
Speaker 1: gone too far tot that side of things in this country,
Speaker 1: and I think we need to kind of pull back
Speaker 1: and look at more collective solutions. Welcome to the one
Speaker 1: you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance
Speaker 1: of the thoughts we have, quotes like garbage in, garbage out,
Speaker 1: or you are what you think, ring true, and yet
Speaker 1: for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us.
Speaker 1: We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We
Speaker 1: see what we don't have instead of what we do.
Speaker 1: We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit.
Speaker 1: But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It
Speaker 1: takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life
Speaker 1: worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep
Speaker 1: themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their
Speaker 1: good wolf h thanks for joining us. Our guest on
Speaker 1: this episode is Ruth Whipman. Ruth is a regular contributor
Speaker 1: to radio shows, television, and podcasts, having made appearances on
Speaker 1: shows including NPRS, Brian Lair Show, To the Point, CBS News,
Speaker 1: and Morning Edition, amongst many others. Her book is America
Speaker 1: The Anxious, How our pursuit of happiness is creating a
Speaker 1: nation of nervous rex. Hi, Ruth, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for having me. Great to be here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm so excited to have you on. We're going to
Speaker 1: discuss your book, America the Anxious, why our search for
Speaker 1: happiness is driving us crazy, and how to find it
Speaker 1: for real. But before we do that, let's start, like
Speaker 1: we always do, with a parable. There is a grandmother
Speaker 1: who's talking with her grandson and she said, as in life,
Speaker 1: there are two wolves inside of us that are always
Speaker 1: at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things
Speaker 1: like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is
Speaker 1: a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred
Speaker 1: and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about
Speaker 1: it for a second, and he looks up at his grandmother.
Speaker 1: He says, well, grandmother, which one wins? And the grandmother says,
Speaker 1: the one you feed. So I'd like to start off
Speaker 1: by asking you what that parable means to you in
Speaker 1: your life and in the work that you do. So
Speaker 1: it's really interesting. Ever since you first got in touch
Speaker 1: a couple of months ago and said, you know, it
Speaker 1: was I interested in being on the show, um, and
Speaker 1: you told me about this parable, and I've never heard
Speaker 1: it before, and it's been kind of playing in my
Speaker 1: mind for the last couple of months, you know, I've
Speaker 1: been thinking about it and trying to sort of apply
Speaker 1: it to different situations. And there's something about it that's
Speaker 1: always made me feel a little uneasy, and I was
Speaker 1: trying to work out what it was. And I think
Speaker 1: what I got to is that this parable makes me
Speaker 1: feel insecure, that I'm not always clear which wolf is which,
Speaker 1: and I'm I think that this is the problem with
Speaker 1: the modern world. I think all of our most interesting
Speaker 1: dilemmas in life, all of our most complex philosophical questions
Speaker 1: or ethical questions, spiritual questions, personal questions, are not generally
Speaker 1: questions of good versus evil. I mean, I think we
Speaker 1: know what evil is, and most of us don't believe
Speaker 1: we're evil and are not trying to be. I think
Speaker 1: that accounts with the vast majority of the population. I
Speaker 1: think our most interesting and most complex questions are between
Speaker 1: good versus good, you know, competing goods, and so this is,
Speaker 1: you know, and I'm not always sure which wolf I'm
Speaker 1: looking at you know, in any given situation, I will
Speaker 1: think that a certain thing is the right way to go,
Speaker 1: obviously clearly this, and then you know, a day later,
Speaker 1: I'll change my mind. I think I maybe too neurotic
Speaker 1: for these wolves, you know, I think all my wolves
Speaker 1: are kind of mashed up into some more terrible like
Speaker 1: uber wolf. That it's like a horrible hybrid mutant wolf
Speaker 1: inside me that is a bit of both. And I guess, um,
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe that's what has strut me. I've spent,
Speaker 1: you know, in writing my book America the Anxious, I
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time looking at the happiness industry,
Speaker 1: you know, the ways that you know, commercial entities try
Speaker 1: to sell us happiness. And I think, you know, as
Speaker 1: the self help industry perhaps, And I think this is
Speaker 1: something that's quite specific to the self help industry, that
Speaker 1: everybody is trying to sell easy answers. Everybody is trying
Speaker 1: to sell their thing, their idea, as the key to happiness,
Speaker 1: the key to righteousness, the key to good. And I
Speaker 1: think what I realized is that what we need to
Speaker 1: do when we look at all these things is sort
Speaker 1: of maintain a quite a questioning attitude and really to
Speaker 1: be quite I mean, cynical is probably the wrong word,
Speaker 1: but skeptical to employ a bit of skepticism and not
Speaker 1: jump in and think, right, this is the good world.
Speaker 1: Here we go, you know, you know, I think we're
Speaker 1: all quite prone in the modern era, you know, to
Speaker 1: to to jump on the next good wolf each time, right, right,
Speaker 1: And we do. We all want easy answers because life
Speaker 1: is incredibly complex, and it's very difficult, and it is
Speaker 1: hard to to know and figure out, and so we
Speaker 1: want easy answers. And I'm struck by how convincing the
Speaker 1: easy answer is. Even and I I found this in
Speaker 1: in your book too. With you you would say I
Speaker 1: don't believe this, A, B, and C. And then you
Speaker 1: would find yourself going, but boy, the allure of it
Speaker 1: is really strong, and so I'm being pulled towards it.
Speaker 1: And and so I am deeply mistrustful of easy answers.
Speaker 1: And yet when I find myself in a certain amount
Speaker 1: of struggle, I start looking at things that I previously went,
Speaker 1: that's too pad of an answer, and going did I
Speaker 1: overlook that? And usually the answers no, I didn't write.
Speaker 1: Life is complex, But but we do have this desire
Speaker 1: for things to be simple and easy, you know, to
Speaker 1: to use, you know, an example from your book, right,
Speaker 1: we all want to to be as simple as I
Speaker 1: will be happy if I just write down three things
Speaker 1: I'm grateful for every day and that's it. I'm done.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that. That was a classic example, the
Speaker 1: glassitude journal. I mean, we've all heard about this gratitude
Speaker 1: journal that we're all supposed to be keeping. You know,
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, write down three things
Speaker 1: you're grateful for, or you know, write yourself a gratitude letter,
Speaker 1: or you know, there's different versions of it, and then
Speaker 1: you'll be happy. I mean, if that were the case,
Speaker 1: then we could set save absolutely billions worldwide and antidepressant
Speaker 1: use in medical bills, in human heartache. I mean, we
Speaker 1: know that it's not that simple, and yet people make
Speaker 1: a lot of money from selling us these easy answers,
Speaker 1: and it is an impulse. And I think the more
Speaker 1: vulnerable we feel, and the self help industry does tend
Speaker 1: to prey on people who are quite vulnerable, often not always,
Speaker 1: but often, you know, the more unhappy and uncertain we feel,
Speaker 1: the clearer we want our answers to be. And I
Speaker 1: think being able to sit with a certain amount of
Speaker 1: complexity and be able to sit with the idea that
Speaker 1: you know, actually things aren't simple and that's okay, is
Speaker 1: really helpful. Yeah. It's one of the things that most
Speaker 1: deeply drew me to Buddhist teaching early on was this
Speaker 1: idea where the Buddhas said, like, don't just take what
Speaker 1: I'm saying on my authority, try these things in your
Speaker 1: own life and see what happens. And I find that
Speaker 1: to be such a deeply profound teaching because we are
Speaker 1: all so different, our life circumstances are so different, our
Speaker 1: genetics are so different, how we were ray. I mean,
Speaker 1: there are so many factors that that what we think.
Speaker 1: You know, even when we read a study, and we
Speaker 1: can talk about how flawed so many of them are,
Speaker 1: but even when we read a study that says this
Speaker 1: is a good thing, I think it's like, well, try
Speaker 1: and see what works. It's interesting, absolutely right. And I
Speaker 1: think the thing about studies is interesting in and of itself.
Speaker 1: I mean, we rely very, very heavily on studies. And
Speaker 1: I'm certainly somebody who believes in the in science and
Speaker 1: in research and all the rest of it, in evidence
Speaker 1: based things, but at the same time, what is a study.
Speaker 1: It's two hundred college students who have been told to
Speaker 1: do A or B and what happens to them. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is a very specific population that take part in
Speaker 1: these studies, and usually it's you know, a difference of
Speaker 1: two or three people. You know, if you get a
Speaker 1: hundred don's you can get statistical significance with just a
Speaker 1: handful of them doing something slightly differently on one side
Speaker 1: of the other. And then we take this thing that
Speaker 1: you know, a couple hundred college students did a few
Speaker 1: years back in a room on a certain day, and
Speaker 1: we use this as some kind of sense of destiny
Speaker 1: for our own life. You know, I think we need
Speaker 1: to have a little bit of skepticism about what all
Speaker 1: these things are for. I agree. I mean doing this
Speaker 1: show has been a journey for me, right, and I
Speaker 1: have been on it, and I think earlier in the
Speaker 1: process I really was like, oh, all these scientific studies
Speaker 1: and and you know it must be true and and
Speaker 1: again I think some of them point in interesting and
Speaker 1: useful directions. But to your point, they are usually very small,
Speaker 1: they are done on a very specific population and people
Speaker 1: in that in those fields that are honest we'll also
Speaker 1: talk about what they call the reproducibility crisis, which is
Speaker 1: absolutely none of these the same thing doesn't seem to
Speaker 1: work when we run the study again and so so again.
Speaker 1: I think, and I think with this some as complex
Speaker 1: as people's psychology, a study is only going to be
Speaker 1: so useful anyway, because it works for me, could be
Speaker 1: wildly different from you, even if you control for a
Speaker 1: few things, because you can't control for the huge complexity
Speaker 1: of people's psychological and spiritual lives. Absolutely, And the other
Speaker 1: thing about study. There have been published, probably over sixty
Speaker 1: four thousand research studies into what makes human beings happy.
Speaker 1: And I started, you know, when I was researching my book,
Speaker 1: I started reading all this stuff, which you know is
Speaker 1: fundamentally quite a joyless thing to do, you know, really
Speaker 1: academic happiness studies. It's not a fun way to spend
Speaker 1: your weekend. But what I found pretty quickly was the
Speaker 1: studies are incredibly contradictory. I mean, you can find a
Speaker 1: study to say pretty much anything and also the exact
Speaker 1: opposite of that thing. So you can find a study
Speaker 1: that says that money makes no difference to happiness, But
Speaker 1: you can also find a study saying that it makes
Speaker 1: a huge difference to happiness. You know, you can find
Speaker 1: a study that says that feminism has made women unhappy,
Speaker 1: but also that feminism is women's saving grace. You know
Speaker 1: that mindfulness is great and mindfulness does nothing, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 1: So often the studies end up revealing more about the
Speaker 1: agendas of the people funding the studies than they do
Speaker 1: very much about actual human beings and how they live.
Speaker 1: So caution with studies. That that was what I learned.
Speaker 1: Having said all that, I'm going to be very hypocritical
Speaker 1: hire for a moment, which is that you know, as
Speaker 1: I was writing my book at one point, which I
Speaker 1: got into quite a dark place in the middle of
Speaker 1: writing it because I found so much inconsistency in the
Speaker 1: studies and so many hucksters and so many people selling
Speaker 1: false messages and all the rest of it, that I
Speaker 1: started to get to the point where I thought, oh God,
Speaker 1: you know, this book is going to the conclusion of
Speaker 1: this book is going to be nobody can be happy,
Speaker 1: don't even bother trying. There's nothing you can do. It's
Speaker 1: all a disaster. And I was like, no one's going
Speaker 1: to buy this apart from anything else. And you know,
Speaker 1: and it was kind of slightly it was a slightly
Speaker 1: depressing message. But then I started to realize that there
Speaker 1: was one thing that was very consistent across all the
Speaker 1: research and across people's experiences that I spoke to, And
Speaker 1: it was the sort of one factor that really seemed
Speaker 1: to be pretty rock solid no matter who was conducting
Speaker 1: the studies, who was funding them, almost to the point
Speaker 1: where it was so solid that, um, if researchers were
Speaker 1: studying anything else, they had to control this one thing
Speaker 1: out of the studies. And that is the importance of
Speaker 1: human relationships. Social relationships and connection really is a huge,
Speaker 1: huge factor in our happiness. And you know, when I
Speaker 1: started to identify that, I saw it was such a
Speaker 1: pattern that social support and community really is so key
Speaker 1: to our well being. So I guess if there is
Speaker 1: a good wolf to feed, you know, that's the one
Speaker 1: community and relationships. Listeners have heard me say this before,
Speaker 1: but when I started the show, I really thought what
Speaker 1: I was going to hear and learn was more of
Speaker 1: just go within. Happiness is inside, you know, you do
Speaker 1: that right, And and I am a believer that there
Speaker 1: is a role for that and of course there is
Speaker 1: a lot on this show that we talked about that.
Speaker 1: But the part that's been surprising to me and to
Speaker 1: your point, just comes up over and over like a
Speaker 1: hammer to my head. Is the role of our connection
Speaker 1: to other people. How critical that is. And and I
Speaker 1: actually would say even more than just connection to other people,
Speaker 1: connection to all sorts of different things, but other people
Speaker 1: is one that is so clearly, like you said, in
Speaker 1: in all the science over and over, and I think
Speaker 1: in our own experience and we look at who people
Speaker 1: are happy, right, all that all of it sort of
Speaker 1: confirms that good relationships help. And it's interesting because you
Speaker 1: talk about how our pursuit of happiness in the US
Speaker 1: is so individualistic. Yes, absolutely mean I think, um, you know,
Speaker 1: the US and the UK to a certain extent, but
Speaker 1: that the worst. But you know, the US particularly is
Speaker 1: a very very individualistic society, and we believe in, you know,
Speaker 1: pursuing our own goals and doing our own thing. And
Speaker 1: I think the self help industry really pushes this message,
Speaker 1: which is happiness is a personal journey. You know, find yourself,
Speaker 1: be yourself, self help, self care, self knowledge, focus on
Speaker 1: the self, you know self self self self self and actually,
Speaker 1: when you look at what the research actually says about
Speaker 1: what happiness is, it really is completely back to front.
Speaker 1: I mean it's really the self help industry is really
Speaker 1: pushing us in this very individualistic direction when actually happiness
Speaker 1: does absolutely come from social connection. You know, it's quite
Speaker 1: misleading that the the agenda that they're they're pushing in
Speaker 1: a way. Well, I think it's interesting too because I
Speaker 1: might be wrong about this, but I think that one
Speaker 1: of the earlier uses of the self help movement actually
Speaker 1: was alcoholics and that is one of the early uses
Speaker 1: of oh it's a self help because it's not professionals,
Speaker 1: but but a A is so fundamentally social and so
Speaker 1: fundamentally about other people. So I think even the term
Speaker 1: over time has gotten a little bit perverted. Just to
Speaker 1: add to your point, I mean, the a A thing
Speaker 1: is a great example. I think one of the reasons
Speaker 1: why historically self help has been so incredibly popular in
Speaker 1: the US is because there's much less of a social
Speaker 1: safety net. You know, there's less help from anywhere else,
Speaker 1: so you know, you kind of got to help yourself
Speaker 1: because there's no one helping you in a way. You know,
Speaker 1: you get very little support in terms of support with
Speaker 1: maternity leave or childcare or you know, welfare or subsidized
Speaker 1: services or you know, these sorts of things which you
Speaker 1: know smoothed the passage of life for people in Europe, Scandinavia, wherever.
Speaker 1: Um that, I think you know that there's a real
Speaker 1: American tradition of self reliance which is great in many ways.
Speaker 1: So the other point that you bring up in your book,
Speaker 1: which is a very interesting one that I think is
Speaker 1: worth talking about because I um, I feel very similar,
Speaker 1: is the whole idea in the self help space that
Speaker 1: we are kind of completely responsible for how we feel,
Speaker 1: We are completely responsible. And while I find it's of
Speaker 1: that message to be incredibly valuable and incredibly important, and
Speaker 1: a lot of my background comes from people, uh comes
Speaker 1: from the recovery movement, where personal accountability and responsibility is
Speaker 1: so crucial, like actually going like I'm the problem here,
Speaker 1: Yeah that's me, Yeah, it's on me. Yet I also
Speaker 1: agree with you that I find so much of what
Speaker 1: is really appalling to me in parts of the self
Speaker 1: help or the law of attraction world or all of
Speaker 1: that to be this fundamental sort of victim blaming. Yes,
Speaker 1: I think it absolutely is, because you know, I think
Speaker 1: you've probably seen the memes which you know happiness is
Speaker 1: a choice, which kind of implies that if you're not
Speaker 1: making that choice, then you know, it's just a simple
Speaker 1: method of you know, you're not choosing, you're not working
Speaker 1: hard at it. You know that, and you see it
Speaker 1: in the positive thinking movement, you know it's just because
Speaker 1: you're being negative. For even in the mindfulness movement, you know,
Speaker 1: the problem is you because you're not being mindful enough
Speaker 1: for positive enough, or grateful enough, or you're not doing
Speaker 1: enough um you know, meditation or self help workshops, all
Speaker 1: the rest of it, and it does become a kind
Speaker 1: of victim blaming, and it's sort of this inability to
Speaker 1: acknowledge that there are systemic reasons why people are unhappy,
Speaker 1: you know, which are everything from your genes to your
Speaker 1: circumstances to your environments. I mean, one of the strong
Speaker 1: messages in positive psychology. I don't know if you've seen
Speaker 1: this very famous pie chart. I have. I've referenced it
Speaker 1: before too, So please this is this is good because
Speaker 1: it is something that has come up on the show before,
Speaker 1: and so I would I would love to have you
Speaker 1: discussed it. So there is a academic positive psychologist, a
Speaker 1: professor called Sonia Lubamerski, and she has done this kind
Speaker 1: of graphic, which is a pie chart, which sort attempts
Speaker 1: to break up you know what the different components of
Speaker 1: our happiness are. And so in the pie chart she
Speaker 1: attributes about fift to your genes and your genetics, and
Speaker 1: then about ten so this tiny little sliver to your circumstances,
Speaker 1: and that includes everything from you know, your your demographic information,
Speaker 1: your race, your gender, your social class, your income, to
Speaker 1: everything that happens in your life that's beyond your control.
Speaker 1: So you know, whether you lose your job, or you
Speaker 1: have a miscarriage, or you break up with your partner
Speaker 1: or those sorts of things. So that's your circumstances ten only.
Speaker 1: And then for she attributes to your personal effort. You
Speaker 1: know that the fort is under your controls. So in
Speaker 1: her theory, it's four times as important to to make
Speaker 1: a big effort than it is you know what actually
Speaker 1: happens to you in your life. So you know this narrative.
Speaker 1: So I went back and had a look at where
Speaker 1: this data actually came from, and I found this thing
Speaker 1: was just absolutely riddled with errors and nonsense. And you
Speaker 1: know it's just basically not true in any meaningful sense
Speaker 1: at all for a start, but also it's really quite
Speaker 1: a damaging narrative, you know if you say that, just
Speaker 1: you know, just this tiny part of your experience and
Speaker 1: how happy you are as you knows your circumstances and
Speaker 1: everything else is your own fault. Basically, you know, you're
Speaker 1: choosing how happy to be, so kind of mask gaslighting
Speaker 1: really of people's actual circumstances, and it really kind of
Speaker 1: encourages this lack of compassion for people. I think, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I found the pie chart idea to be helpful for me, um,
Speaker 1: and it's I'm glad to hear you go back and
Speaker 1: sort of unpack the data that says, you know, you
Speaker 1: based on what the original studies, where you could have
Speaker 1: really drawn that pie chart lots of different ways exactly.
Speaker 1: I initially found when I first saw fifty it was
Speaker 1: kind of what is called the happiness set point. Right.
Speaker 1: I originally was both depressed by that and relieved by that. Right.
Speaker 1: I was depressed because I come from a history of
Speaker 1: depressive people, right, And so I was like, oh, well
Speaker 1: that explains and so so in that way. But on
Speaker 1: the other hand, I was like, oh, well, maybe I
Speaker 1: can stop feeling like this is my fault that I'm
Speaker 1: this way and so then so fifty percent of it
Speaker 1: is that, right, which again you can take that messages
Speaker 1: is um depressed or positive? You can say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: I can control fift of it, and I'll use the
Speaker 1: word control there in quotes, right, and then there then
Speaker 1: the rest of it breaks down into this narrative of
Speaker 1: only a little bit of it is your circumstances, and
Speaker 1: the rest of it is the effort you put in
Speaker 1: two volitional activities. Now, the way I have heard that
Speaker 1: talked about before, though, is that things volitional activities would
Speaker 1: be things like spending more time with other people, which
Speaker 1: we know to be a predictor of happiness. And so
Speaker 1: I think all those percentages can be debated. And I'm
Speaker 1: a big fan of another Buddhist teaching that listeners are
Speaker 1: surely here is tired of hearing me bring up which
Speaker 1: is the middle way, which says that any extreme I
Speaker 1: am wary of. So people who say, like, your happiness
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with your circumstances, right, you can
Speaker 1: be happy in any circumstances, Well, that's nonsense, right, And
Speaker 1: people who say it's only about your circumstances, because that's
Speaker 1: where a lot of us focus all our effort. If
Speaker 1: I just change this circumstance and that circumstance, yeah, and
Speaker 1: if you're just you're a prisoner of what happens to you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then and then you know, yeah, if you get
Speaker 1: the right job, the great person, all that you'll be
Speaker 1: happy to which I also recognized to be a mistruth. Right,
Speaker 1: I've had good things happen in my life, and I
Speaker 1: very quickly adjust to them and can go back to
Speaker 1: my usual sad sack self if I know, if I
Speaker 1: don't watch it right. And so so I find I
Speaker 1: find either of those narratives to be very limiting. Like,
Speaker 1: of course, our circumstances matter, and of course, you know,
Speaker 1: people who have really difficult life circumstances suffer more than
Speaker 1: other people. Whether those circumstances are um, social or economic,
Speaker 1: or the way you were raised or the trauma you suffered.
Speaker 1: I mean, of course those things matter. And of course
Speaker 1: the efforts, the things that we do to try and
Speaker 1: live a good life also matter. Yes, absolutely, And I
Speaker 1: think you're right, And I think part of what kind
Speaker 1: of riled me up about this particular pyechat was what
Speaker 1: was in that that they were advocating, So you know
Speaker 1: that what was in the part that you can do
Speaker 1: for yourself? Because I think it was all these things like,
Speaker 1: you know, right, your your gratitude journal, your three good
Speaker 1: things that happened today, and you know, do some optimism
Speaker 1: maximus as exercises and do your mindfulness practice and you know,
Speaker 1: and I thought, really, are you really saying that it's
Speaker 1: four times more important to you know, write down three
Speaker 1: good things that happened that day then that you know,
Speaker 1: your marriage broke up, that you're living in poverty, that
Speaker 1: you you know, these huge things. And I think part
Speaker 1: of the problem is it's this quite right wing narrative essentially,
Speaker 1: you know, it's this very um I think there's always
Speaker 1: been this tension in politics between you know, whether people
Speaker 1: are constrained by their circumstances or whether this kind of
Speaker 1: meritocratic idea, which is, you know, anybody can make anything
Speaker 1: of themselves, the American dream, just work harder and you
Speaker 1: put yourself up by your bootstraps, which doesn't acknowledge that
Speaker 1: we're not all starting from the same place. And I
Speaker 1: think this is this kind of narrative. You know that
Speaker 1: bootstraps idea applied to the emotions, which I think is
Speaker 1: often not that helpful. But yes, as you said, of
Speaker 1: course there is something very liberating about the idea that
Speaker 1: we can rise about, a rise above our circumstances, and
Speaker 1: still be happy in adversity for sure. Yeah, well I
Speaker 1: found it fascinating. This I did not know right um
Speaker 1: about the positive psychology movement is that how much of
Speaker 1: it has been funded by the Templeton Foundation, which I
Speaker 1: also knew almost nothing about except that they seemed to
Speaker 1: fund what to me were interesting things about happiness, and
Speaker 1: so that was my extent of it. But but tell
Speaker 1: us about the Templeton Foundation, because I think that will
Speaker 1: tie together your statement just a second ago about some
Speaker 1: of these ideas can be very right wing. I think
Speaker 1: we need to make that connection. So I mean, Barbara Arnwright,
Speaker 1: who wrote a book called Smile Orde, started looking at
Speaker 1: this a while back, and then, you know, I also
Speaker 1: looked at it in my book America the Actors, which
Speaker 1: is that the vast majority of the academic positive psychology
Speaker 1: movement in the United States is funded by one organization
Speaker 1: called the Templeton Fan Nation. Now the Templetum Foundation was
Speaker 1: set up by a man named John Templeton Jr. And
Speaker 1: he was a very right wing man and a massive
Speaker 1: donor to the Republican Party, to anti gay marriage causes,
Speaker 1: to the Christian right to all. I mean, he was
Speaker 1: a huge donor to right wing political causes. And he
Speaker 1: also had the Temperatu Pup Foundation, which is on the
Speaker 1: face of it and a political group. It's not a
Speaker 1: you know, it's not party political in on the face
Speaker 1: of it. But everything that they have chosen to fund,
Speaker 1: you know, they are looking at the causes of happiness,
Speaker 1: and everything they have chosen to fund us is studies
Speaker 1: about how we can just try harder at being happy.
Speaker 1: So there are a lot of studies which are all about,
Speaker 1: you know, getting people who are poor or in bad
Speaker 1: circumstances and just making them try a little bit harder
Speaker 1: at being happy to change their attitudes rather than their circumstances.
Speaker 1: And there are no studies funded by the Templeton Organization
Speaker 1: about whether social justice would make a different, whether about
Speaker 1: materially improving the lives of these people, about listening to
Speaker 1: people's concerns and and acting on them. You know, these
Speaker 1: studies do not exist. Or they're not they're not being
Speaker 1: funded by this movement. And I think it's set the
Speaker 1: terms of the debate before we've even get out got
Speaker 1: out of the gate. It's set up a whole academic discipline,
Speaker 1: and it's framed the terms of how we look at
Speaker 1: this question, you know, from a very right wing perspective
Speaker 1: before even starting. Yeah, so interesting. I never really connected
Speaker 1: those dots in my mind, and as a show, we
Speaker 1: generally stay away from getting too political. But I think
Speaker 1: it's a very interesting connection that all those studies are
Speaker 1: funded by an ideological perspective that says, yes, your happiness
Speaker 1: is your own responsibility, your life is your own responsibility.
Speaker 1: We can all just pull ourselves up and points away
Speaker 1: from something that you say very very well at one
Speaker 1: point in the book, and you say we need to
Speaker 1: think of well being as a shared resp answer ability
Speaker 1: rather than individual quest, and to develop a discourse of
Speaker 1: happiness that engages with people's problems rather than dismisses them.
Speaker 1: And I think that is such a I think it's
Speaker 1: a great summary for the entire book, and and so
Speaker 1: well said. And that's a way to frame up what
Speaker 1: we were just talking about with the Templeton foundation, right,
Speaker 1: I think so, because, yeah, this isn't a party political issue.
Speaker 1: There are people of all political persuasions who are generous
Speaker 1: and compassionate and all the rest of it. But I
Speaker 1: think this is just a way of framing the question, which,
Speaker 1: you know, it's really important to realize where these ideas
Speaker 1: come from, you know, And I think when we're you know,
Speaker 1: I think if you go too far down there, it's
Speaker 1: your fault, it's your responsibility, it's your fault narrative, then
Speaker 1: it's very easy to lose compassion. You know. A big
Speaker 1: theme in the in the self help movement is the
Speaker 1: law of attraction. Yes, oh god, it's one of those
Speaker 1: things like if I again, if I take the middle
Speaker 1: of the road, you know, the middle road approach, I go,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of there's a lot of ideas there
Speaker 1: that are true. Like I don't know, I don't I
Speaker 1: don't necessarily think there's a mystical um component happening. But
Speaker 1: if we focus on what's important to us, and we
Speaker 1: put our time and energy towards it, and we keep
Speaker 1: it in the front of our mind, we're going to
Speaker 1: get more of that thing. Like I think there's some
Speaker 1: truth in there, but the implications of you take that
Speaker 1: theory very far are horrific. That the children being abused
Speaker 1: right now, they somehow attracted that to themselves. I think
Speaker 1: it's a it's a profoundly horrible idea, right. And you know,
Speaker 1: so that book The Secret where the Laura attraction came from.
Speaker 1: I went back and look, because she was promoted what's
Speaker 1: her name, Rohnda Byrne. I think she was promoted very
Speaker 1: heavily by Oprah at the time. And I went back
Speaker 1: and searched on YouTube and found the old episodes of
Speaker 1: Oprah where they were talking about that book and some
Speaker 1: of the stuff that they were coming out with. I
Speaker 1: was thinking, you really wouldn't be able to get away
Speaker 1: with that now. You know. There was stuff where you know,
Speaker 1: you know, there was this one word and she'd been
Speaker 1: fired from her job and um, you know, she had
Speaker 1: her boss had been really unfair and I can't remember
Speaker 1: the exact circumstances of it, and she had a young
Speaker 1: child who was a single mom, and you know, Oprah's
Speaker 1: advice on the sort of you know, as part of
Speaker 1: this whole secret thing was for her to go and
Speaker 1: write a gratitude letter to her boss for firing her,
Speaker 1: you know, not any sense that there should be kind
Speaker 1: of a you know, any kind of employment protection for
Speaker 1: her job, or that you know, perhaps she'd been unfairly
Speaker 1: treated or anything, you know, was that she should go
Speaker 1: and be grateful to her boss for firing her, without
Speaker 1: looking at any of the circumstances of the case. And
Speaker 1: I was thinking, you know, this really is or another
Speaker 1: woman who her husband had left her, you know, had
Speaker 1: been gambling, I think, or had got into all this
Speaker 1: debt and had left her, you know, with all this
Speaker 1: debt for the wife was not her fault at all.
Speaker 1: And they were kind of pretty much blaming this woman
Speaker 1: for this whole situation and telling her that she ought
Speaker 1: to write a gratitude letter to her husband for all
Speaker 1: of this happening. And I was thinking, you know, this
Speaker 1: is just absolutely nuts. This is some kind of emotional basis,
Speaker 1: you know, and I think that our ideas on it
Speaker 1: have moved on over time. But yeah, it's as you said,
Speaker 1: balance is important, But um, I think we've gone too
Speaker 1: far to to that side of things in this country,
Speaker 1: and I think we need to kind of pull back
Speaker 1: and look at more collective solutions. That is an unequivocal
Speaker 1: uh statement that I can agree with it. We do
Speaker 1: need to look at things more collectively, and it needs
Speaker 1: to be more of of a wee thing. I mean,
Speaker 1: I I look, you know, my sort of quote unquote
Speaker 1: self help journey, you know, started with my recovery from
Speaker 1: heroin addiction, which was profoundly shaped by the people that
Speaker 1: were around me and by the support that was available
Speaker 1: to me. And you know, all that stuff was made
Speaker 1: possible by a social support system as well as then
Speaker 1: all the people that I found that were there. And
Speaker 1: I do think that that's such an important piece. The
Speaker 1: thing about that idea of like write a gratitude list
Speaker 1: of the person who fired you sounds completely nuts, right.
Speaker 1: It makes me think back to an idea though that
Speaker 1: I used to hear in in twelve step recovery, which
Speaker 1: was pray for the person that you have a lot
Speaker 1: of resentment towards. And part of me is like, well,
Speaker 1: part of my reaction was well that is crazy, and
Speaker 1: then the other part of it to me was well,
Speaker 1: if I continue to hate this person, I'm the one
Speaker 1: who's ultimately probably suffering from that, and learning to let
Speaker 1: go of that somehow is probably a good idea. But
Speaker 1: I think going as far as I'm going to write
Speaker 1: gratitude gratitude to somebody who has fired me in a
Speaker 1: in a cruel and unfair way, stretches that, Uh, that
Speaker 1: concept a little bit beyond its usefulness, right, absolutely, And
Speaker 1: I think you also have to look at the power
Speaker 1: structures our pricing behind all that, because I think it's
Speaker 1: one thing. You know, if you're in a pretty equal
Speaker 1: relationship with somebody and you know there's a breakdown of
Speaker 1: trust or you resent them for something, that's one thing
Speaker 1: and to let go of that resentment, I think is
Speaker 1: healthy and it's going to do a big favor if
Speaker 1: you do that, And to forgiveness is just such an
Speaker 1: important piece of social connection. I often think about this
Speaker 1: idea of responsibility and blame, yes, right in our own lives,
Speaker 1: like where am I taking responsibility in a useful way?
Speaker 1: And where my taking blame for something? So I just
Speaker 1: think it's an interesting idea to be curious your thoughts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's a really good distinction, I think, um, And
Speaker 1: I think absolutely. I mean, personal responsibility in our relationships
Speaker 1: is so key to having healthy relationships. You know, to
Speaker 1: admit when you've been wrong to to accept your own
Speaker 1: part in things, to not blame the other person or
Speaker 1: the rest of it. So I think that is a
Speaker 1: great way to be um to be in a relationship,
Speaker 1: as long as that relationship is basically one of equals.
Speaker 1: I think when that, when you are looking at something
Speaker 1: where there is this you know, complicated dynamic of of
Speaker 1: of power and you know, somebody having a whole own bed,
Speaker 1: then I think that that becomes quite a different equation.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting. I have these conversations with my son
Speaker 1: a little bit who is in college and very studying sociology,
Speaker 1: the sociology of race um a lot of environmental stuff,
Speaker 1: and and we talk a little bit about, you know
Speaker 1: how he sort of staring down these really big problems
Speaker 1: all the time and the moment, yeah, and and so
Speaker 1: it what, you know, what is the what is the
Speaker 1: proper relationship to all right, there are these fundamental structural
Speaker 1: problems with the world that I want to change, and
Speaker 1: what is the relationship then with my own mental health
Speaker 1: around those things? And it gets back to this idea
Speaker 1: a little bit of responsibility and you know, recognizing how
Speaker 1: much responsibility we have, what we can actually change, what
Speaker 1: we actually can't change is such a such a big thing.
Speaker 1: It makes me think of what you said very early
Speaker 1: when we talked about the two wolves, and you said, well,
Speaker 1: I think part of the problem is I can't. The
Speaker 1: wolves look pretty close right, like I can sort I
Speaker 1: can sort out, like, yeah, I can sort out the
Speaker 1: wolf that tells me to go stab my downstairs name
Speaker 1: because they're making too much noise. I can. I can
Speaker 1: clearly dismiss that wolf. I think it's sort of like
Speaker 1: the serenity prayer, which I think is one of the
Speaker 1: wisest things ever, and yet it's the reason why. It's
Speaker 1: like we're praying for the wisdom, because my God, it's
Speaker 1: hard to find. It's so hard to know where should
Speaker 1: I push, where should I change, where should I accept?
Speaker 1: And it's so gray. Yes, it's so great. And I
Speaker 1: find that especially. You know, I'm a parent of three children,
Speaker 1: and mine are younger, but I find that all the
Speaker 1: time with parenting. I find that's like the absolute source
Speaker 1: of all of my biggest philosophical, moral, emotional conundrums. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't know which one is the good wolf. I
Speaker 1: can read something which says, you know, be stricter, and
Speaker 1: I think Okay, that's the way to go. And then
Speaker 1: I'll read something which says be you know, be less strict,
Speaker 1: be kind of you know, more understanding, and I think, okay,
Speaker 1: well that's the way to go, you know. And all
Speaker 1: of these can make a very very good case for
Speaker 1: being the right way to go, and all of them
Speaker 1: come from a good place. I mean, we all want
Speaker 1: to raise healthy, happy kids. But it's just, you know,
Speaker 1: how do you do that? That's that that's the question.
Speaker 1: You know. It's not, as you say, no one's you know,
Speaker 1: no one's really advocating that you beat your kids or
Speaker 1: you starve them whatever. It's just, you know, between these
Speaker 1: these good wolves, you know, people presenting themselves as the
Speaker 1: good wolves, which one is the way to go? And
Speaker 1: as you said about you know this this question with
Speaker 1: your son about how do we deal with these terrible
Speaker 1: things that happened in the world and these huge issues
Speaker 1: to deal with, and especially now, I think we're at
Speaker 1: the kind of peak anxiety at the moment politically and socially, Um,
Speaker 1: how do we deal with that and still preserving our
Speaker 1: own mental health? And I think that is a huge question.
Speaker 1: And I think are the the younger generation the generation
Speaker 1: of college students now I really admire because I think
Speaker 1: they are willing to tackle the big questions in a
Speaker 1: way that my generation was too busy getting drunk and
Speaker 1: ignoring it, you know, and letting the world kind of burn.
Speaker 1: And you know, so I think it's a tricky one
Speaker 1: because I think the easy thing would be to say,
Speaker 1: I will just switch off from it, but you know,
Speaker 1: to preserve your own mental health. But that's not going
Speaker 1: to help. You know, we have to be informed citizens,
Speaker 1: you know, and we have to find a way to
Speaker 1: stay engaged and to you know, to make changes and
Speaker 1: to fight for what's right and at the same time
Speaker 1: take care of ourselves. Yeah, and I think not only
Speaker 1: are college students wrestling with this. I mean I hear
Speaker 1: this from listeners all of the time. Like I'm watching
Speaker 1: this political train wreck and I can't turn away from it.
Speaker 1: And yet this staring at it all day long is
Speaker 1: just making me sicker and sicker and sicker. And you know,
Speaker 1: where what is the what is the right amount of
Speaker 1: engagement with that that is actually useful? And you know,
Speaker 1: I think we're all trying to figure this out. In
Speaker 1: my own life, I've hit a point where I'm like,
Speaker 1: if what I learned is going to cause me to
Speaker 1: do something, then I think it's worth continuing to engage
Speaker 1: and learn and and and listen. And if, on the
Speaker 1: other hand, it's just going to reinforce the same things
Speaker 1: that I already know, that I already feel, then it
Speaker 1: may not be a useful thing for me. That the
Speaker 1: constant outrage about something that I'm not planning to do
Speaker 1: anything about feels to me like very corrosive, very corrosive
Speaker 1: for no good, right, It just corrodes me and the
Speaker 1: people around me. Um. Whereas you know, I think if
Speaker 1: it's if it's something I'm going to that I'm going
Speaker 1: to engage in and do something about, then you know,
Speaker 1: I think it's really important. And so that's kind of
Speaker 1: where I have been sitting with it lately. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: an interesting way, because I think there's two trends which
Speaker 1: are going on. One is that the objectively is just
Speaker 1: a lot of very anxiety producing stuff that's going on
Speaker 1: in the news right now. I think that's just kind
Speaker 1: of a given. And the other thing is that we
Speaker 1: just have access to far more information than we ever have,
Speaker 1: you know, we have just you know, with our phones
Speaker 1: and just devices, and you know, social media and just
Speaker 1: constant trip trip rip drip drip access to the news.
Speaker 1: I think we're absorbing information in a very different way
Speaker 1: than we already have. So these two trends together, I
Speaker 1: think is just completely and utterly overwhelming. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think what you said is really interesting for me. I
Speaker 1: think I've probably set the bar slightly differently because I
Speaker 1: think I accept that there will be many things that
Speaker 1: I will want to know about and be informed about
Speaker 1: that I probably won't be taking any very direct action on.
Speaker 1: I think I just because of where I am in
Speaker 1: my life. I think, you know, I've got three very
Speaker 1: young children, I have a job. So I think, you know,
Speaker 1: I can't quite set the bar at that the point
Speaker 1: that you've set it, which is, you know, if I'm
Speaker 1: not going to take action on something, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to know about it, because there are only so many
Speaker 1: things I can take action on. You know. I do
Speaker 1: call my senator, I do, you know, sign my petitions,
Speaker 1: and I do make political donations, and I do do things,
Speaker 1: but you know that there are limits on it. And
Speaker 1: so I do think being informed in and of itself
Speaker 1: is doing something you know, I don't think it's nothing.
Speaker 1: But you know, I, like everybody else, really struggles to
Speaker 1: find the right balance. And you know, I do find
Speaker 1: myself getting overwhelmed and feeling very anxious and toxic. And
Speaker 1: I have tried to sort of compartmentalized by time and say, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to look at my phone or look
Speaker 1: at the news until such and such a time. And
Speaker 1: you know, I've tried different ways. I don't think I've
Speaker 1: hit on the right thing for sure. Yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: think there is any any right answer. And I'm I'm
Speaker 1: not quite as uninformed as that just sounded. But sorry,
Speaker 1: I probably made it sound worse than it yet. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: but no, I think it is. It is that balance
Speaker 1: of like how much time do I need to hear
Speaker 1: sort of the same the same. The other thing that
Speaker 1: I think is happening, which I think is a really
Speaker 1: interesting phenomenon, is that on one hand, we are very
Speaker 1: anxious and things look really grim, and you know, climate
Speaker 1: change is really bad, and on the other hand, by
Speaker 1: all sorts of different measures, the world is becoming a
Speaker 1: much better place. That is true in some sort of
Speaker 1: in some semi staggering ways, And so I think that
Speaker 1: that that is another narrative that we mostly miss. We
Speaker 1: we might get fed schmaltzy feel good stories that sometimes
Speaker 1: are helpful, But I don't know that we hear enough about,
Speaker 1: you know, how much better life is for the average
Speaker 1: human than it was a hundred years ago. Yes, I
Speaker 1: think that's such an important point, and it's such an
Speaker 1: important thing to remember. And you know, just as you're talking,
Speaker 1: I'm just kind of wondering, you know, something like climate change.
Speaker 1: This is fun that I go back and forth on myself,
Speaker 1: because on the one hand, you know, if you hear,
Speaker 1: if you read one thing about climate change, you know,
Speaker 1: you know it's coming, then you're an informed citizen. And
Speaker 1: you know, do you need to read it fifty times
Speaker 1: a day in fifty different ways? And I don't know,
Speaker 1: is there something about the drip drip, drip, drip drip
Speaker 1: that actually is the only thing that will get us
Speaker 1: to actually do anything about it? Or is it is
Speaker 1: it the kind of thing you can know once and
Speaker 1: and forget about. I don't know. I think part of
Speaker 1: the anxiety does help me do lots of little things
Speaker 1: to kind of, you know, in my daily life. It
Speaker 1: does sort of serve as a reminder. But yes, it
Speaker 1: is definitely in competition with my mental health. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: back to what we talked about earlier. Everybody is different, right, like,
Speaker 1: you know, because the far extreme for a lot of
Speaker 1: people of too much of this is then becomes complete disengagement,
Speaker 1: right like now I'm done, Yes, in your life, I
Speaker 1: can't fix anything, and I just fall into a state
Speaker 1: of depression and apathy. And so everybody's going to engage
Speaker 1: with these things differently, and sort of back to an
Speaker 1: earlier thing that we talked about also, you know, with
Speaker 1: studies and like what works for me? You know, what,
Speaker 1: what is it for me? That is the balance that
Speaker 1: seems to work that allows me to move forward? And
Speaker 1: I was thinking about social media. You certainly have some
Speaker 1: chapters in the book. And by the way, I've not
Speaker 1: said this in the interview, I'm gonna say it now
Speaker 1: for list is your book is wonderful. It is hilarious.
Speaker 1: I highly recommend it. Um and I can't I can't
Speaker 1: cover even one percent of of how much UM good
Speaker 1: stuff and how much I laughed during the book. But
Speaker 1: you talk all about the challenges of social media, and
Speaker 1: there's all sorts of studies that show that night. So
Speaker 1: I'll get listeners like should I give up social media altogether?
Speaker 1: As social media bad? And I'll go, well, I don't
Speaker 1: know what is it for you, like like what's your
Speaker 1: relationship to like what's doing in your life? Because I
Speaker 1: don't know that there's an answer for every yes and
Speaker 1: also not. You know, there's different answers at different times.
Speaker 1: You know, at some points in my life social media
Speaker 1: has been really helpful and other points it's just been
Speaker 1: a complete ship show. Sorry, can I say that? Yeah?
Speaker 1: You can? You know, so, I think it's sort of
Speaker 1: it really depends where you are in your life and
Speaker 1: you know what's going on for you as to how
Speaker 1: you respond to all that stuff. Well, Ruth, this has
Speaker 1: been a wonderful conversation. I feel like I could do
Speaker 1: it for a whole lot longer, but we are at
Speaker 1: the end of our time here. So I want to
Speaker 1: thank you so much for coming on the show and
Speaker 1: talking with me. Oh it's been such a pleasure. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much for having me. You're welcome, Bye bye bye.
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