Speaker 1: Don't happy be worried. It's one more thing. I'm strong
Speaker 1: and what. I was reminded of the Bobby McFerrin classic
Speaker 1: don't Worry Be Happy the other day as it was
Speaker 1: listed on the Worst Songs of the nineties.
Speaker 2: I guess something like that that's very popular.
Speaker 1: It was a cute little ditty. It's fine. I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's fine. People love, you know, slamming other people's choices
Speaker 1: in music too much.
Speaker 2: You gotta hate on being happy?
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, exactly. But don't happy be worried? Is the
Speaker 1: theme kind of sort of a really interesting study that's
Speaker 1: out researchers from the University of Toronto, Scarborough and University
Speaker 1: of Sydney. The Canuckers joining up with the Australians. Trump
Speaker 1: will be you know, annexing them both soon but anyway,
Speaker 1: for now, we'll let them have their cute little universities.
Speaker 1: But they right. We live in a happiness obsessed world.
Speaker 1: Self help gurus promise paths to bliss. Instagram influencers pedal
Speaker 1: happiness is a lifestyle, and corporations build marketing campaigns around
Speaker 1: the pursuit of positive emotions, but new research suggests a
Speaker 1: surprising twist.
Speaker 2: I doubt.
Speaker 1: I'm if you're not familiar, Yeah, exactly, Trying to are
Speaker 1: to be happy might make you miserable. The researchers that
Speaker 1: the aforementioned universities found that actively pursuing happiness drains our
Speaker 1: mental energy, the same energy we need for self control,
Speaker 1: among other things. Says the researcher, the pursuit of happiness
Speaker 1: is a bit like a snowball effect. You decide to
Speaker 1: try making yourself happier, but then that effort deplete your
Speaker 1: ability to do the kinds of things that actually make
Speaker 1: you happier.
Speaker 2: All right, well, there's the key right there. What kind
Speaker 2: of things actually make you happy? So among my favorite
Speaker 2: books I've ever read in my life the Art of
Speaker 2: Happiness by the Dali Lama, which he says, your goal
Speaker 2: every morning when you wake up should be to make
Speaker 2: yourself happy. You should spend all your time trying to
Speaker 2: make yourself happy. That's what you should do. But it
Speaker 2: gets down to the data on what makes you happy
Speaker 2: and what doesn't. And many, many of the things we
Speaker 2: all do every single day don't make us happy. They've
Speaker 2: never made us happy. We have ample evidence from our
Speaker 2: own experience, let alone other people's experience. That it doesn't
Speaker 2: make us happy, yet we continue doing it, like eating
Speaker 2: bad food or buying stuff, or promiscuous sex or whatever
Speaker 2: it is. It has never made us in the happy.
Speaker 2: It doesn't make other people happy, yet we keep thinking
Speaker 2: that's what's going to make us happy. So pursuing happiness
Speaker 2: every day is okay. You just need to define what
Speaker 2: makes people actually makes people happy.
Speaker 1: Maybe this is the key. Pleasure is not happiness. Fun
Speaker 1: is not happiness, right, it can be part of it,
Speaker 1: very we men seldom. No life of purpose is what
Speaker 1: makes people happy? Yeah? Yeah, happy? Be happy. You wake
Speaker 1: up determined to have a great day, You plan mood
Speaker 1: boosting activities and work hard to stay positive. But by
Speaker 1: evening you're ordering takeout instead of cooking, mindlessly scrolling social
Speaker 1: media and snapping at your partner. Why your pursuit of
Speaker 1: happiness might be the problem. The scientist marketing professor puts
Speaker 1: it bluntly. Quote the more mentally run down we are,
Speaker 1: the more tempted will be to skip cleaning the house
Speaker 1: and instead scroll social media.
Speaker 2: And they're saying the same thing as the Dalai Lama says,
Speaker 2: I just I like the way he words it. It's
Speaker 2: a little more positive, pursue happiness all day, every day.
Speaker 2: That should be your goal in life, that should be
Speaker 2: everybody's goal. But now let's break down what actually makes
Speaker 2: people happy as opposed to saying don't pursue happiness, because
Speaker 2: then it seems like it's a gotta eat my vegetables,
Speaker 2: gotta you know, all negative stuff and maybe there'll be
Speaker 2: a payoff in the end.
Speaker 1: Right. It's like the difference between pursuing money and pursuing
Speaker 1: the skills that will make you money. In a way, Katie,
Speaker 1: do you have something you want to jump in with?
Speaker 1: You look thoughtful.
Speaker 3: I I'm kind of overthinking this, I think okay, to
Speaker 3: be honest, Well.
Speaker 2: It's it's amazing that human beings do things that make
Speaker 2: themselves unhappy all the time, all the time. It's just
Speaker 2: it's just like one of those common things we do
Speaker 2: is make do things that make us unhappy. Eat stuff
Speaker 2: that's going to make us either feel bad in the
Speaker 2: moment or make us feel bad long term, or you know,
Speaker 2: pursue relationships that we know aren't good. But there's either sex, prestige,
Speaker 2: whatever that that makes you do it. Just we regularly
Speaker 2: chase things that we know are bad for us.
Speaker 1: Right right.
Speaker 3: Watching My brain was going with like, things you don't
Speaker 3: want to do, but the payoff in the end is good.
Speaker 2: Oh, the simplest one is the staring at your phone.
Speaker 2: Nobody ever, at the end of the day says I'm
Speaker 2: She're glad I spent that much time scrolling on my phone?
Speaker 2: Nobody ever, not even for one day, right right.
Speaker 1: I was just going to contrast do scrolling on Twitter,
Speaker 1: which I have the compulsion to do and I resist
Speaker 1: pretty well most times, versus the other day. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is as mundane as can be. I cleaned out
Speaker 1: my closet. I went through it thin, the herd of clothing,
Speaker 1: you know, shoes I don't wear, et cetera. It's neater,
Speaker 1: it's better organized. It's just it's better. And that made
Speaker 1: me happy, right like happy? Yeah, like today, I was
Speaker 1: not pleasurable. I would love to lay on my couch
Speaker 1: all day, but I know I have laundry to do,
Speaker 1: and when I get it done, I'm going to be
Speaker 1: happy that it's done.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay.
Speaker 1: I was just reading an obituary of a fella that
Speaker 1: I barely knew, and it was post retirement, I'm pretty sure,
Speaker 1: but he filled his life with the Boys and Girls
Speaker 1: Club of the area where he lived, and it was
Speaker 1: really pivotal in guiding them through difficult financial times and
Speaker 1: growing the programs and stuff like that. I'll bet there
Speaker 1: was very little of that was pleasurable. Some of it
Speaker 1: was because watching kids learn and grow is immensely satisfying,
Speaker 1: but there's a hell of a lot of work there,
Speaker 1: and I guarantee that made him happy to his soul.
Speaker 4: I think the best happiness comes from accomplishments. It could
Speaker 4: be like mowing the grass. Like you're pushing the mower
Speaker 4: and you look back and you see what you've done,
Speaker 4: and then when you're all finished, you look and you think, hey,
Speaker 4: I'm really feeling happy.
Speaker 2: So why then, evolutionary speaking, why are we is our
Speaker 2: body screaming out to now mow the lawn tomorrow? Lay
Speaker 2: on on the couch watching this football game is what
Speaker 2: It's going to make me happy? Even though you're absolutely
Speaker 2: right afterwards, I think, why did I watch? I don't
Speaker 2: even care about these two teams as opposed to you'll
Speaker 2: feel happy after your MOLLI one.
Speaker 1: Well, the greatest minds of our time are devoted toward
Speaker 1: getting you to do things for pleasure, for their profit
Speaker 1: in a way that didn't exist. I mean even two
Speaker 1: hundred years ago there's ad advertisement, but it was not
Speaker 1: nearly as effective, manipulative and scientifically based as modern you know,
Speaker 1: like like Facebook, TikTok. My god, we as a species
Speaker 1: don't stand a chance against that sort of neurological manipulation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've noticed recently. I don't know if my well,
Speaker 2: I just I guess I just started doing the Instagram
Speaker 2: reels thing. I'd never done it before. It's kind of
Speaker 2: the American version of TikTok, I guess. Anyway, what's disappointing
Speaker 2: to me is it's not like doom scrolling or something
Speaker 2: where I think why did I do that? Or it's
Speaker 2: pretty good, it's pretty enjoyable. It feeds me lots of
Speaker 2: stuff I really like, I mean like really like, here's
Speaker 2: some rare concert footage that it figured out I'd be
Speaker 2: into that I've never seen before, and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: But it kills a freaking hour where I should either
Speaker 2: been sleeping or exercising or whatever. So it's actually it's
Speaker 2: actually an enjoyable, like really enjoyable in the time. So
Speaker 2: that's what I got to fight now, is not.
Speaker 1: Even start I am going to further parse language. You
Speaker 1: got pleasure, you got happiness, and Michael, to your point,
Speaker 1: you have satisfaction. Maybe that's another word to think about
Speaker 1: happiness and satisfaction as opposed to pleasure.
Speaker 2: If you don't say you're retired and you don't really
Speaker 2: need to accomplish anything.
Speaker 1: That's when it's the most important, according to everybody I've
Speaker 1: talked to, to have some purpose.
Speaker 2: You don't think you could just look at Instagram reels,
Speaker 2: feeding your stuff that you actually enjoy and be okay,
Speaker 2: or would you be miserable?
Speaker 1: You'll be dead soon. I don't know. I can't state
Speaker 1: that you know with confidence. But that's I've read a
Speaker 1: fair amount about retirement, which is funny because I don't know.
Speaker 1: Probably like my job too much. But yeah, if you're
Speaker 1: the sort of person who just retires and you have
Speaker 1: nothing to do, it makes people miserable.
Speaker 2: Do you mean even if you have things to do,
Speaker 2: you have TikTok, you have something to do.
Speaker 1: And the golf course. I just play golf. I look
Speaker 1: at TikTok. I wake up in the morning, I go
Speaker 1: play golf again that I look at TikTok.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've since I started on Instagram reels. It's the
Speaker 2: TikTok algorithm scares me if it's substantially better. Like I
Speaker 2: was listening to Sarah Iger of The Dispatch saying, if
Speaker 2: you think Instagram reels is addictive, you have no idea.
Speaker 2: Because she got sucked into TikTok and then got it
Speaker 2: off her phone. She says, just so good. It's just
Speaker 2: every day stuff. I love that. I'm super into.
Speaker 1: My daughter did the same thing.
Speaker 2: That's why I feel with Instagram reels, like, man, is
Speaker 2: it good with coming up stuff that I like, s
Speaker 2: and l clips, concert videos, stuff that I just love.
Speaker 2: But you can't, you know, wants to live their life
Speaker 2: doing that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's you know, Lord knows, I've lived a checkered life,
Speaker 1: but one gift that I got somehow or other. And
Speaker 1: this may shock you, folks, I used to take walks
Speaker 1: on the wild side now and again, not in the
Speaker 1: lou Reeds sen it's not gender bending madness, but you know,
Speaker 1: occasionally in the rock and roll world of the eighties
Speaker 1: and nineties, there were substances about and there are a
Speaker 1: couple of experiences I had where I thought, no, I
Speaker 1: like this too much. Yeah, and so it is with
Speaker 1: the tickety talk. From what I've heard, you realize I
Speaker 1: am powerless against this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is like an endless.
Speaker 3: They provide you endless entertainment on there, especially when they
Speaker 3: figure out what you like.
Speaker 2: I mean, you could do that for hours. I wonder
Speaker 2: if that's what happened. I wonder if I spend enough
Speaker 2: time on Instagram that it was able to Okay, now
Speaker 2: we know we got him figured out. Yeah, because it
Speaker 2: just seems like in the last week or so, it's
Speaker 2: like really grabbed me.
Speaker 3: Well, and what sucks about that is because I thought,
Speaker 3: I I'm a dumb ass. I thought I could outsmart
Speaker 3: the algorithm because I thought maybe if I don't inn
Speaker 3: with any pasts.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't like anything, I don't interact with
Speaker 2: any of them, but it picks up your eyeballs.
Speaker 3: Or no, it picks up your watch time. So if
Speaker 3: you so like let's say you're scroll and you stop
Speaker 3: on a video and you spend the time to watch
Speaker 3: that video, the algorithm goes, Okay, we kept him here
Speaker 3: for such and such a second, so he's into.
Speaker 2: That because I didn't click on it. I didn't do anything.
Speaker 2: It was just part of a stream. It's just because
Speaker 2: you watched it.
Speaker 1: I am going to rewatch on YouTube. The Social Dilemma.
Speaker 1: The thing is so good documentary Jack, you gotta watch that.
Speaker 1: You got it, You just gotta.
Speaker 2: Can They put it in twenty second chunks on a
Speaker 2: Instagram reel. Jeez, we can't save him. I was gonna
Speaker 2: say I had one more thing to say about this,
Speaker 2: just I don't know how good it is at figuring
Speaker 2: out stuff that you really really like. It's it's troubling, actually,
Speaker 2: and there's stuff that it would have been hard for
Speaker 2: me to find, like on my own. Oh I was,
Speaker 2: I was thinking about they fixed what used to be.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you're old enough for this or not. Katie,
Speaker 2: you probably are back when you used to You want something,
Speaker 2: You sit down and you think, how do I have
Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty channels and there's nothing I like here?
Speaker 2: You click through and there's nothing you like. They fixed that.
Speaker 2: It's the opposite. Now you like every single thing on
Speaker 2: every channel. They know exactly what you're into. They got
Speaker 2: your sports thing, your music thing, your kid's thing. You're
Speaker 2: just every channel is something you love. As you click through,
Speaker 2: it's the exact opposite of what it used to be right.
Speaker 1: Leggy blonde guitar players playing golf, constant videos, sexy golfing guitarists.
Speaker 1: What's giving me lessons with.
Speaker 2: A dog doing something funny and a kid doing something cute?
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, see If.
Speaker 4: You guys agree with this, false happiness comes immediately, Real
Speaker 4: happiness comes later. You have to wait for real happy.
Speaker 2: Pretty much always is the case.
Speaker 4: Yep, well, I guess that's it.