How to Build a Happy Life: Live When You’re In Pain

How to Age Up

The Atlantic Monthly Group, LLC

Education, Social Sciences, Science, Society & Culture, Self-improvement

4.0 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 9 November 2021

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

As we wind down this series, a paradox remains in our pursuit of happiness—joy comes to those who have known pain. In order to overcome struggle—breakups, illness, even death—we must first accept and acknowledge its inevitability. Exploring the darkness of our suffering may seem counterintuitive, but often it’s the only way to see the light. In this week’s episode, Arthur C. Brooks sits down with BJ Miller, a palliative-care physician, to uncover how we can face our deepest fears, why we should accept our natural limitations as human beings, and how to make peace with the ebb and flow of joy and suffering in human life—an experience we all share. This episode was produced by Rebecca Rashid and hosted by Arthur Brooks. Editing by A.C. Valdez. Fact-check by Ena Alvarado. Sound design by Michael Raphael. Be part of How to Build a Happy Life. Write to us at howtopodcast@theatlantic.com or leave us a voicemail at 925.967.2091. Music by Trevor Kowalski (“Lion’s Drift,” “This Valley of Ours,” “Una Noche De Luces”), Stationary Sign (“Loose in the Park”), and Spectacles Wallet and Watch (“Last Pieces”). Click here to listen to every full-length episode in the series. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is how to build a happy life, the Atlantic's podcast on all things happiness.
0:11.9	I'm Arthur Brooks, Harvard professor, and the happiness correspondent at the Atlantic.
0:20.1	When you teach happiness like I do, one of the biggest questions that people have initially,
0:24.6	what is it?
0:25.6	I mean, we all think we know what happiness is until you think about it.
0:29.5	A lot of people they assume that happiness is a feeling.
0:33.5	A better definition of happiness is it's like a meal with three macronutrients.
0:39.9	Just as a meal has macronutrients or protein, carbohydrates, and fat, happiness is a feast
0:47.8	with three macronutrients, and they are enjoyment, satisfaction, and purpose.
0:56.2	I want to focus right now on that third macronutrient on purpose.
1:01.3	I probably don't have to convince you that finding purpose or meaning in your life is required
1:06.3	for you to be a happy person.
1:08.0	You may have spent certain times in your life really having a great all-time, lots of pleasure,
1:11.5	lots of enjoyment, but kind of aimlessly, and you most likely didn't find that you were
1:17.4	really, really happy.
1:19.7	This is the weirdest of all of happiness's macronutrients, because it contains a paradox.
1:26.4	Here's what it is.
1:28.5	If you feel like you know your life's purpose, and I asked you, when did you learn it?
1:33.8	Almost certainly, you would not tell me, it was that weak and ebitho with my friends.
1:40.2	It was those annual vacations to Disney World.
1:43.5	That's not when you, those were fun, but that's not when you found your life's purpose.
1:48.4	Most likely, you'd talk about something that was pretty hard, a period in your life where
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Atlantic Monthly Group, LLC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Atlantic Monthly Group, LLC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.