Hi, welcome to Radio Headspace and Monday Morning.
I'm your guest host for the week, Arthur C.
Brooks. I'm a social scientist, a Harvard professor, and the best -selling author of several books on happiness and wellbeing.
Over the years, I've dedicated my work to understanding what truly makes us happy and how we can cultivate joy even in challenging times.
As we find ourselves in the thick of an election season, it's easy to feel overwhelmed, stressed, and even unhappy.
But today, I want to talk about how we can navigate these stressful periods by focusing on what I call the four pillars of happiness.
These are the elements that, when nurtured, can keep us grounded in content no matter what's happening around us, whether it's a personal challenge or something as widespread as an election.
Today I'll be sharing practical strategies to strengthen these pillars in your daily life, and I'll even dive into how they've helped me through some tough times.
So let's explore how we can maintain our wellbeing during stressful periods and ensure that our happiness isn't just a fleeting feeling but a sustained state of mind.
This time of year, people are actually, usually, if they're paying attention to politics, unhappier than they are in other parts of the year.
There's a lot of research that actually backs this up.
And you might be saying to yourself, well, wouldn't we all be happier if we didn't have any elections?
Well, I don't know about that.
But I do know that, during elections, if your candidate loses, you're quite a bit unhappier.
And if your candidate wins, you're actually not much happier at all, meaning that elections, while they're good for democracy and no doubt good for our society, are not necessarily so good for our happiness.
One of the reasons is that there's just so much disappointment that happens when you want a particular candidate to win.
You're all tied up in the ideas that the candidate presents to the public.
You've been convinced by the media and by the candidate her himself that it's a catastrophe if that person doesn't win.
And then they don't.
Well, that's going to bring you down.
And that's one of the reasons that people are unhappy during this part of the year.
Politics is both scary and tense.
And also, let's be honest, kind of boring.
It's all around us all the time in the news and social media and the conversations around the water cooler.
And so we're getting this content that we don't really like, but we can't really turn away from.
And that's no good when people want to be happier, which is, you know, pretty much all the time.
We don't need to find some political savior.
We don't need to find the ultimate social media app.
Those are mistakes.
That's the wrong way to go.
The happiest people, well, they have a lot in common.
They're mostly focused on four habits.
Faith, family, friendship, and work that serves.
Now I need to be a little bit more specific when I'm talking about faith.
I don't need my faith.
I'm a Catholic and I like it fine, but I'm a scientist and I'll tell you that there are lots and lots of roots to getting this.
Some are religious and some are not.
Faith is just kind of a catch all for things that are transcendent to you.
Any spirituality or faith or life philosophy for that matter that gets you out of your own head, that makes you small and the universe large, will give you the peace and perspective that you need to be a happier person.
So here's how it works.
Mother Nature doesn't care if you're happy.
What she wants is for you to pay attention to yourself all day long and all night long too.
You might notice that you're the star in every single one of your dreams.
That's called the psychodrama.
The way that you turn off the psychodrama is to look at bigger things, to look at deeper things, to stand in awe of the universe.
How do you do it? Lots and lots of ways to do that.
Maybe you would study the Stoic philosophers with real seriousness and try to live according to the precepts that they teach.
Maybe you should get up an hour and a half before dawn and go for a long walk.
Maybe you should start a Vipassana meditation practice.
This works for so many people, I strongly recommend it.
Or maybe you should return to the faith of your youth that will give you the solace that you need, but you need something.
That's faith. You need it every day.
Second is family life.
Now I could explain the biology of why you're so tied to your family members.
It has something to do with a neuropeptide in the brain that functions as a hormone called oxytocin.
You probably heard of it before.
It binds us to our kin.
It makes us get intense pleasure from being with ours and them with us.
Find ways to repair relationships with your family members and build stronger bonds.
You'll be a happier person.
Third is friendship.
Now friendship is funny because these are the most intimate relationships that we have ordinarily.
We tell things to our friends that we never tell to our parents.
But these are relationships of choice.
The best ones are not the ones of transaction.
These are not just people you work with and people that you need.
Those are deal friends.
I'm talking about real friends.
You're real friends.
I guess you'd say they're useless.
They're beautifully useless.
These are the people who just love you.
Last but not least is work itself.
What brings happiness through work?
I've studied this for years.
I was trained as an economist.
I always wanted to know do high paying jobs bring more happiness than low paying jobs?
Nope, not really. Blue collar, white collar.
Doesn't matter. The only things that matter are earning your success and serving other people.
Earning your success means you feel like you're creating value with your life and value in the lives of other people.
So see if you can find a job that actually rewards merit so you can earn your success.
Hard work and personal responsibility.
But most importantly where you feel like you're serving people who need you and then you will be practicing the fourth habit, which is meaningful work.
So don't forget the four pillars of the happiest life, faith, family, friends and work.
Practice those things.
Pursue those things.
Do them every day. Watch your happiness rise.
Happiness actually isn't a destination.
It's a direction. We're always going to have unhappiness in our lives.
We're going to have negative emotions and negative experiences.
That's part of being alive.
And so looking for perfect happiness, that's a big problem.
You'll never succeed doing that.
But you can do is get happier.
You can get happier and happier.
It's a direction, not a destination.
That's it for me today.
Do you want to learn the science backed insights that are the real keys to a life of meaning, purpose and ultimately happiness?
Go to ScienceOfHappier .com.
That's all one word.
Science of happier .com.
And use the code HEDSPACE for an exclusive discount.
For even more of my insights, visit arthurbrooks .com.
And if you find yourself struggling with election anxiety, check out the How to Stop Worrying About Politics meditation on the HEDSPACE app.
It offers practical exercises to help you navigate this stressful time with ease.
I'll see you back here soon.
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