This is the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris.

Hello, my fellow suffering beings, how are we doing today? Even if you're pretty convinced that you have a reasonably good life, there are still moments for all of us where we feel stuck, flat, dull, bored, whatever, you get the picture. And sometimes those moments turn into protracted periods of time. If you're in the middle of one of those ruts,

by the way, I'm sorry. But here's the good news. My guest today is filled with practical

strategies for spicing up your life. And not only that, he has practical suggestions for turning

all of the inevitable adversity we all face into a source of strength.

Shigahiro Oishi is the Marshall Field, the fourth professor of psychology at the University

of Chicago.

His new book is called Life in Three Dimensions, How Curiosity, Exploration, and Experience

Make a Fuller Better Life.

We talk about how our obsession with productivity is

flattening and dulling our lives. Man, I relate to that. The definitions of both happiness

and meaning, both of which have until now been considered the main paths to a good life.

We cover the potential downsides of pursuing both happiness and meaning. These downsides

are often referred to respectively as the happiness trap and the meaning trap. Then he introduces

his third path to a good life, psychological richness. From there, we cover skills for developing

psychological richness, including building your curiosity muscle, finding

richness in the familiar, and some tools for becoming more playful.

And finally, we talk about the difficult balance between detachment and healthy ambition,

adverse experiences, and we talk about some restoring tools for reframing the hardship

in your life.

If you want to go deeper on this subject,

this episode comes with a custom guided meditation called How to See Your Life

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