0:02 Welcome back. Joining me now is Harvard
0:04 professor Arthur Brooks, who studies and
0:07 teaches the science of happiness and is
0:09 the author of the upcoming book, The
0:11 Happiness Files. Professor Brooks,
0:14 welcome back to Meet the Press.
0:16 Thank you, Kristen. Thank you so much
0:19 for being here to be a part of this
0:21 conversation. You just heard my past two
0:23 conversations in which we talked about
0:26 the epidemic of loneliness and anxiety.
0:28 And with you, I want to talk about the
0:30 other side of this, which is the
0:32 happiness formula. You are the professor
0:35 of happiness and you have developed a
0:38 happiness formula. Can you lay it out
0:40 for us, Professor Brooks?
0:43 Of course. You know, one of the biggest
0:44 mistakes that people make is thinking
0:45 that happiness is a feeling and they're
0:48 chasing a feeling, which is not the way
0:49 emotions work. Emotions don't they're
0:51 not there to give you a good day.
0:53 They're there to give you alerts to
0:55 things that are opportunities and
0:56 threats around you. The thing to
0:58 understand about happiness is that it's
1:00 more tangible. The the the feelings are
1:02 evidence of happiness. Actual happiness
1:05 or the happiest people have a
1:06 combination of three very concrete
1:09 things in their lives. It's enjoyment of
1:11 their life. It's satisfaction with their
1:14 activities and accomplishments. And most
1:16 importantly, it's a sense of the meaning
1:17 of their existence, the meaning of life.
1:20 And that last pillar, that last
1:22 macronutrient of happiness, meaning
1:24 actually lies behind the problems that
1:26 we see today. When I'm looking at a
1:28 large group of people and I see a big
1:30 unhappiness problem, I'm going to look
1:32 for a barrier to one of those three
1:34 things, enjoyment, satisfaction, and
1:35 meaning. When I'm working with a an
1:37 executive or or just anybody for that
1:39 matter, I'm going to find a blockage.
1:41 And that's what we find with people,
1:43 especially under 30 years old today is a
1:45 lack of a sense of the meaning of their
1:47 lives. While they're looking for the
1:50 meaning of their lives, they're doing
1:51 all sorts of counterproductive things
1:52 like scrolling on their phones, etc. But
1:55 technology is not the root. technology
1:57 is a is a is part of the doom loop of
2:00 meaning which is actually leading to the
2:02 mental health crisis that we see today.
2:04 Well, let's talk about a book that you
2:06 actually co-wrote with Oprah. It's
2:08 called Build the Life You Want: The Art
2:10 and Science of Getting Happier. And you
2:13 say happiness is actually something that
2:15 you need to work at. What is the first
2:18 step toward that happiness journey?
2:23 Well, to begin with, happiness, pure
2:25 happiness is not a is not a goal that we
2:27 that's that's that's that we can
2:29 reliably actually try to hit in our
2:32 lives. On the contrary, we have negative
2:34 emotions for a reason. We have negative
2:36 experiences as part of an ordinary life.
2:38 And so, the first thing that I teach my
2:39 students is you can't be perfectly
2:41 happy. Don't say I want to be happy. Say
2:44 I want to be happier. And the way to do
2:46 that is by looking, for example, at the
2:48 formula that we just laid out and
2:50 getting strategies and habits in your
2:52 life to get more enjoyment,
2:53 satisfaction, and meaning. Is there
2:55 anything that you learned from Oprah
2:57 about being happy and that experience of
3:00 writing the book with her?
3:02 Oh my goodness. Yeah. What a wonderful
3:03 friend she has become over the last few
3:05 years. And what I've learned from Oprah,
3:07 it's funny because in my work I have the
3:09 opportunity to work with a lot of people
3:10 in public life. People with huge media
3:13 personas, for example, and and they're
3:14 generally different in public than they
3:16 are in private. Um it's necessarily I
3:19 mean you have a private life and you
3:21 have a public life. Oprah is the same
3:23 person. And this is part of her formula
3:26 for happiness that we can actually all
3:27 learn something from. The reason that as
3:30 she sees it, she enjoys a lot of the
3:32 world's earthly rewards of, you know, of
3:35 money and and and and power and the
3:36 admiration of millions and billions of
3:39 people around the world. She sees that
3:41 that has been granted to her as an
3:42 opportunity to lift other people up. And
3:45 as such, she has a peace about her. So
3:47 on the days when I'm a little bit
3:49 stressed out and anxious, sometimes I'll
3:51 text Oprah. So, and it helps me because
3:54 she's the kind of person that I would
3:56 like to be more well, I'd like to be
3:58 more like her. Well, it's incredible
4:00 that two of you have this book that you
4:03 co-wrote together. I want to ask you
4:04 about something that you raised,
4:06 Professor Brooks, which is this issue of
4:09 technology, of social media. You heard
4:11 me talking to Congressman Kennedy about
4:13 it, to Dr. Murthy about it as well. The
4:16 average internet user in the United
4:18 States, I can't believe this, will end
4:20 up spending about 20 years online across
4:25 the course of their adult life. It's
4:27 hard to process that. Is there a way to
4:30 be online and to be happy?
4:34 There is. But here's the basic formula
4:36 in any technology just not just the
4:39 internet not just any any sort of
4:42 computing or or or non-faceto-face
4:44 technology all the stuff that we have
4:45 around us if it's a complement to your
4:48 in-person relationships it's beneficial
4:50 if it's a substitute for your in-person
4:52 relationships it's a problem that's a
4:54 lot of what Dr. Murthy was talking
4:55 about, but that's the formula to think
4:57 about for your kids and your own life.
4:59 Is Zoom actually substituting for my
5:02 ability to be with people in person? Is
5:04 social media substituting for my real
5:06 friends? If the answer is yes, you have
5:08 a problem. On the other hand, if it's
5:10 making actually your your your
5:12 relationships richer, which means it has
5:13 to be within certain bounds, you can't
5:15 be doing it all day long, then it can
5:17 actually be part of a more rewarding
5:19 life and it won't turn into this doom
5:21 loop where I'm bored and I'm lonely, so
5:23 I turn to the internet. I turn to the
5:25 apps and that makes me more bored and
5:27 lonely. I can I can I have a harder time
5:29 finding the meaning of my life and down
5:31 and down it goes. That's like what what
5:33 Congressman Kennedy was talking about
5:35 with alcohol and drugs. Alcohol and
5:37 drugs are part of the doom loop in life.
5:38 But you got to know why you're using
5:40 first of all. Well, profound way to
5:43 think about it. In one of your columns
5:45 in the Atlantic, you cite a survey that
5:48 suggests that more than half of young
5:50 people actually say they want to be
5:52 influencers. And you write that that can
5:54 actually make you unhappier because to
5:57 be so focused on oneself is not
6:00 necessarily a healthy thing. What is
6:03 your advice to young people in that
6:05 space? How do you navigate that desire
6:08 if you want to be an influencer versus
6:10 the reality that it might not be the
6:11 best thing?
6:14 Well, understanding the truth is very
6:16 important about this. the the the the
6:17 truth of the matter is that we have we
6:19 have to understand ourselves as other
6:21 people see us, but we have to be looking
6:22 out and observing and experiencing our
6:24 own lives as well. And the more that
6:26 we're on our phones, the more
6:27 effectively we are looking in a mirror.
6:29 And there's a ton of evidence that shows
6:31 that when you're looking in the mirror,
6:33 you are not happy. You're less happy
6:36 because precisely you're focusing on
6:38 yourself. And so the mirror of it all is
6:40 the biggest problem that people actually
6:41 face. Being an influencer is like
6:44 standing in a mirror, you know, all day
6:46 long. And that's just the that's the
6:47 sort of the secret, the fast path to
6:49 depression and anxiety. Understanding
6:51 that is the key to it. When young people
6:53 actually understand what's going on in
6:54 their brains, which is a lot of what I
6:56 teach, I talk an awful lot about the
6:58 neuroscience of these problems. And when
7:00 they understand that that psychology is
7:02 biology, they have a lot more power. And
7:04 that's one of the things we need to
7:06 bring to the to the education for young
7:07 people today. You know, Professor
7:09 Brooks, you also talk about faith and
7:11 the fact that more and more Americans
7:13 say they actually don't follow any
7:15 organized religion, but you say it's not
7:17 necessarily about that, that you can
7:19 have faith, you can be faithful, and
7:22 that that can be an important component
7:24 to finding happiness as well.
7:28 That's true. And the the falling away of
7:30 faith and all things like faith is a
7:32 major contributor to this lack of life's
7:35 meaning, as you can imagine. Now, when I
7:37 talk about this with my students, I
7:38 acknowledge I'm a Catholic. It's the
7:39 most important thing in my life, as a
7:41 matter of fact. But really, what we're
7:42 talking about is transcendence away from
7:45 looking in the mirror, being bigger than
7:47 just you, standing in awe of the
7:49 universe. And there are many things that
7:51 people can actually do to get this
7:52 transcendence to to get away from the
7:54 tedium of the psycho drama of your own
7:57 life. You know, for some people that
7:59 means walking in nature or studying
8:01 great music or starting a meditation
8:03 practice or going back to church if
8:07 that's actually what is part of your own
8:08 life. But you need something. You need
8:10 to transcend your ordinary life because
8:12 if you won't, you'll be too much with
8:14 yourself and that's just not healthy.
8:17 Well, Professor Brooks, it's such
8:18 important information, such an important
8:21 part of this broader conversation. Thank
8:23 you so much for being here today. We
8:25 really appreciate it.
8:27 Thank you, Kristen. Thank you for your
8:29 attention to this. And we can solve this
8:31 problem. We just have to do it together.
8:33 All right. I appreciate it very much.
8:36 Thanks for watching. Stay updated about
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