What Is Your Life For? From Hidden Brain
Revisionist History
Pushkin Industries
4.8 • 61.5K Ratings
🗓️ 31 July 2025
⏱️ 68 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What should you do with your life? There's no one-size-fits-all answer to that question. But there are scientifically-tested methods that can help you to feel more aligned with yourself and the world. This week, we bring you a special episode from our friends at the Hidden Brain podcast. Host Shankar Vedantam talks with researcher Victor Strecher about the science of creating a life full of meaning. It's the kickoff to Hidden Brain's annual You 2.0 series, which this year focuses on purpose and passion. If you’ve reached the midpoint of the year and you’re feeling adrift, alone, or burned out, you can find the episodes in that series in the Hidden Brain podcast feed.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | When we're kids, there are certain things we think we're going to stop worrying about as we get older. |
| 0:16.4 | You're probably no longer frett about falling into quicksand. Maybe you no longer check under the bed |
| 0:21.0 | to make sure those dust bunnies are not, in fact, monsters. And surely, you don't ask yourself, |
| 0:26.9 | what am I going to do with my life? Is this really all there is? Well, okay, maybe you do. |
| 0:32.1 | Onx seems to be one of those things that, annoyingly, can follow us all throughout our lives. |
| 0:38.6 | Luckily, there are people out there studying how we can confront that dread rather than pushing it under the bed, |
| 0:43.4 | along with all the other monsters down there. One of them is a researcher named Victor |
| 0:48.2 | Strecker, who studies the topic of purpose. Victor recently joined my friend Shankar Van Tentam as a guest on Shankar's |
| 0:56.4 | podcast, Hidden Brain. If you don't know Hidden Brain, it's a show that's all about human |
| 1:01.2 | behavior, and because human behavior is endlessly complicated and contradictory, |
| 1:05.9 | Shankar and his team have been at it now for 10 whole years. If you've ever wondered what's happening in someone's mind when they're fantasizing about |
| 1:13.3 | revenge or why humans take pleasure in doing things that are painful or scary, |
| 1:18.1 | Hidden Brain has you covered. |
| 1:20.2 | And in this conversation with Victor, they dive into purpose, why it matters and how to cultivate |
| 1:25.6 | it in your own life. |
| 1:27.6 | So without further ado, here's Hidden Brain's recent episode, What Is Your Life For? |
| 1:33.4 | This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. |
| 1:38.1 | I recently found myself speaking to a group of high school students. |
| 1:42.3 | There were lots of questions about the worlds of podcasting and journalism, |
| 1:46.0 | about the rise of AI, and about physical and emotional well-being. |
| 1:52.5 | But looming over all the questions was the big one. |
| 1:56.5 | What should I do with my life? |
... |
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