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- [00:00]
Jonathan Fields
So you reach a point in life where you just thought you'd feel different. You checked all the boxes of achievement and happiness and even success and still something is missing. It's a quiet restlessness that age or achievement, they just can't seem to quiet. And what you're missing may well be meaning. My guest today is Arthur Brooks. He's a Harvard professor, number one New York Times best selling authority. His new book, the Meaning of youf Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness. And today we're exploring the myths that we tell about how we find meaning and how they delude us into doing things that actually keep meaning out of our lives. We talk about the neurological reason why your phone is actually blocking your ability to feel a sense of purpose and joy. We explore the three real keys to meaning and mattering and finally feeling alive that nobody ever really talks about or tells you about. We talk about something called the Arrival Fallacy that explains why all the success in the world won't make you feel like you want to feel. And we explore how to use a specific morning protocol to just kind of reprogram your brain for mystery and wonder. And finally we drop into the counterintuitive reason you actually want suffering or pain in your life. It's a deep, research backed look at how to move from not just getting by to truly flourishing. So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields and this is Good Life Project.
- [01:36]
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- [02:09]
Jonathan Fields
Golight Project is sponsored by Bill, an intelligent finance platform that helps businesses and accounting firms scale with proven results. So if you run a business, you know the sneaky way money tasks multiply. One invoice turns into 10 follow ups, a simple payment turns into a spreadsheet, a login, and eventually a little knot in your stomach. Bill is trusted by nearly half a million businesses and their accountants, and it's securely processed over a trillion dollars in transactions. To put it simply, it helps you manage, move and maximize your money so your attention can go back to the work that actually matters. So stop the guesswork and start scaling with a proven ch. Head over to bill.com proven to connect with a payments expert and get a $250 gift card as a thank you. That's bill.com proven or just click the link in the show notes. Terms and conditions apply. See Offer page for details. Go Live project is sponsored by Bioptimizers. So most nights I try to land a sleep plane. Lights lower, phone away a few pages of a book and I just want my body to get the memo that we're safe to rest. And I kept hearing about how magnesium can help. That is why I'm just super excited to try Magnesium Breakthrough. A lot of magnesium supplements, they use one or two forms. This one actually combines seven different forms of magnesium plus cofactors that help your body absorb and use it. So the invitation here is simple. Try it with me for a few weeks. Track your sleep. Notice how you feel in the morning and through the day. More relaxed, more steady, more rested. And there's basically no risk. Bio Optimizers backsit with a 365 day, no questions asked money back guarantee. So if you've been craving a smarter nighttime ritual, give Bioptimizers a try. Go to bioptimizers.com goodlife and use our exclusive code goodlife15 to get 15% off any order or just click the link in the show notes. Make 2026 the year you finally start sleeping great again. Excited to jump in with you. You spent years studying happiness and flourishing, all different aspects of flourishing. And what you're now really focusing in on is this notion that something deeper has been missing in the conversation. It's not necessarily about success, not even about joy, not even about happiness, but something more fundamental. The real crisis is what you are describing as a crisis of meaning. Take me into this.
- [04:35]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah, you know, when I left academia for a little while in 2008, I'm a lifelong academic. My father was an academic. His father was an academic. And one of the things you find about college life is it generally has traditionally been happier than the rest of life. It's when people make their closest friends, it's when they fall in love. It's fun. Actually. I left in 2008 to go run a company and I came back 11 years later and it was completely different than when I had left. Something happened between 2008 and 2019 that changed university life. Now that's what I saw. It turns out it was all over society, but the mood had really darkened. And what I found as a behavioral scientist is what Everybody saw, which is that clinical depression had tripled. Anxiety, generalized anxiety had doubled. People were lonely, people were angry. I mean, all the things that we talked about, the trouble that we talked about on campuses, it came down to this epidemic. I'm not talking about COVID This was before COVID actually. And then Covid, of course, made it much, much worse. And so I thought to myself, okay, okay, I'm a behavioral scientist. Let's figure this thing out. So I started talking to people on campuses, and one of the words that kept coming up again and again and again and again was the word meaning saying, I don't know what I'm meant to do. I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing. I feel empty. My life feels meaningless. And it turns out that the number one predictor of this depression is feeling like your life is meaningless. Now, that's weird for a guy my age, because nobody asked about that when I was 20 years old, you know, what's the meaning of my life? And we would ask it in a late night dorm room conversation, perhaps, but it wasn't the thing that we went around worrying about. Something actually changed in the way that we live after 2008. And here's the punchline, because, you know, the solution is not that interesting. It's actually, what do we live? How do we live differently that makes this. That we need to pay attention to. We solved an actual problem, which is the problem of boredom. And we created a major crisis, which was we stopped being able to sense the meaning of life because we solved the boredom problem.
- [06:37]
Jonathan Fields
Why is boredom a problem in the first place? Was this a problem that needed solving?
- [06:42]
Arthur Brooks
Well, it's an annoyance is what it comes down to. You know, nobody likes to be bored, actually. But we finally got to the technological place where, you know, where. Where this comes along, where we're actually able to eradicate the boredom from our lives. And it fundamentally changed the way that we used our brains when technology took over our lives after 2008, the first iPhone was delivered in 2007. Everybody had one by about 2008, 2009, apps were on all the phones by 2010, 2011, by 2012, the dating apps were on the phones. People started to spend a lot of time on it. And today, the average American adult checks the phone 205 times a day. And the times that you check the phones are the moment that you feel the slightest amount of boredom. But when you do that, you immediately use your brain differently. You stop using the hemisphere of your brain that you naturally use. When your mind is wandering, when you're thinking about meaning, when you're thinking about the bigger why questions of life, and you shove yourself into the part of your brain that's all about technology and how to. And what questions. So the problem is that we have changed brain activity to the point where meaning has become inaccessible.
- [07:48]
Jonathan Fields
You know, in doing that, it's sort of like we've moved ourselves away from spending time in the questions and the activities that really make us flourish in a completely different way.
- [07:58]
Arthur Brooks
You know, my great grandfather, Leroy Brooks, probably never went home to Mary Ellen, his wife, and said, honey, I had a panic attack behind the mule today because his brain was working the way his brain was supposed to work. You know, his brain wasn't malfunctioning in the way that a lot of people's brains are actually malfunctioning. It's not their fault. The problem is that actually they're just going along and getting along in a world that's eradicated boredom and in the process has eradicated the pathways that we can actually find in the meaning of our lives.
- [08:25]
Jonathan Fields
Draw for me the most linear line that you can between then us, effectively annihilating the possibility for boredom from our lives. And also this pervasive feeling of meaninglessness.
- [08:37]
Arthur Brooks
The way that it works is that. That we are designed to be creatures of meaning. And meaning is a very abstract concept. But we have two hemispheres for our brain. One for the complicated stuff of, you know, technology and analysis and efficiency and how to. And all the little ordinary problems that we face every day. How to drive a car, how to push a plow, whatever it happens to be. But then we have another hemisphere of our brain, the right hemisphere of our brain. That is all the mystery and meaning and love and happiness. All the things you can't quite articulate, but that you care about the most. On the left side of your brain is the complicated parts. On the right side of your brain is the complex things. You understand the essence of them really well, but you'll never solve these problems. So, you know, my marriage is very, very complex. Meaning, I get it, what it means to have a happy marriage, but I'll never solve it once and for all. I'm going to have an argument today with my wife, I guarantee you. We've been married 35 years. We argue every day. If I'd solved my marriage, that wouldn't happen. But the reason I love my marriage is because it's a complex thing. My cat is a complex thing. You can't predict actually what it's going to be when you're online all day, when you're working with technology all day, when you're in the hustle and grind culture of solving complicated problems all day. You're sitting in the wrong hemisphere of your brain is what it comes down to. And you simply aren't in the space that you actually need to even ask the questions of mystery and meaning and love and happiness and fulfillment.
- [09:58]
Jonathan Fields
Yeah, it's like you're crowding out the part of your brain that would really allow you the opportunity to dive into that. As you're describing that. I'm thinking of reflecting on a conversation I had. This is years back now with Jill Balte Taylor, who if you know her name, you probably know it because she had this huge TED talk many years ago. She had a stroke and she describes it basically as she was forced into the right hemisphere of her brain to effectively just spend to dwell there. She said, well, this was a brutal experience for her. It was also stunning and profound and deep. And she's been trying to find ways to get back to the place of access that she had and live from that place of just almost abject wonder for the rest of her life.
- [10:41]
Arthur Brooks
That's right. We need that. We absolutely need that. Which is why. And you know when you're in that space, you hear a song that you haven't heard in a long time and it makes you feel emotional. There's a memory of something you can't quite articulate. There's a feeling of love that you have for somebody that actually eludes words. That means that you're having a right hemispheric experience. And the more you're spending time with brutal technology, you know, you're not seeing beauty, you're looking at a screen. Whatever it happens to be, the less you're actually doing that your brain's not working right. We have two hemispheres for a reason, but we've reduced ourselves in modern life is what this comes down to. So what this book talks about is like, here's a problem. Then I talk about what is the thing you're actually looking for? What does meaning mean? And then where do you find it in your brain? And then most importantly, 2/3 of this book is what do you need to do? This is basically a six part plan to reorganize your brain again to find your meaning in six months.
- [11:37]
Jonathan Fields
Yeah. So I want to drop into what meaning is with you, but before we get there, let's do a little bit of myth busting, actually. Meaning and achievement. Right.
- [11:47]
Arthur Brooks
So achievement is actually what we're seeking for satisfaction. So let's back up a little bit to happiness, which is what I teach. So I'm a behavioral scientist dedicated to the study of human happiness. And the definition of happiness is. It's not a feeling. Feelings are evidence of happiness, like the smell of your turkey is evidence of your Thanksgiving dinner. When people seek happy feelings, it's like seeking a vapor, and they're. They're consigning themselves to hoping things are better the next day. Happiness is a real thing. I mean, your turkey dinner, by the way, is a combination of three macronutrients, protein, carbohydrates, and fat. And your happiness has three carbo. Has three. Has three macronutrients as well. They are enjoyment, satisfaction, and meaning. Those are the three things that we actually seek, that we need. We need to get better at, and those are the things that we actually need to pursue. And, and that's what I teach is how to enjoy your life more, how to take more satisfaction with your achievements and accomplishments, and how to find the meaning of your life. So the second one is satisfaction. And that's all about achievement. It's about. It's actually not just about that. It's achievement with struggle. Humans want to struggle, and if you don't have any struggle, the achievement won't be sweet. So there's no satisfaction. And that's the important thing. It's what we try to teach our kids. The good things to come to those who wait. And you need to struggle for good things. You need to pass up on your. On the. On the, you know, the, the. The ways that you can. Shortcut, et cetera. You got to work hard is what we tell them, because we want the struggle and the sweetness of the achievement. Meaning is in another channel. Meaning is this idea of the concept of. Of the why of your life, the big why questions of your life. And that's a. That's an entirely different discipline. It's a complimentary one, but it's a different kind of pursuit.
- [13:26]
Jonathan Fields
When we think about the pursuit of meaning, then, because a lot of us think, okay, so when I reach X, when I like, when I succeed at this particular level, when I go and pursue something that, you know, is. I've been striving for, or I've been told is the thing that will give me the feeling that I want to feel, right? So many of us actually get there, you know, and you hear this variation of a theme which is, you know, like, look, I was told from the. The youngest deities that you Know when I. I should work really hard to go do this thing, I'm willing to suffer in the name of doing it. I'm willing to struggle, and I'm doing it. I've done it. It was really hard. I got knocked down and stood back up and knocked down a thousand times, and 20 years later, I'm here. I did the thing, and the feeling that I was promised, I don't feel.
- [14:20]
Arthur Brooks
I know. Mother Nature is such a tyrant. And the reason that we feel that is because Mother Nature promises you that the little satisfactions that you get from progress toward your goal will be massive when you actually hit your goal. And that's wrong. That's called the arrival fallacy. We are built for progress, not for arrival at the goals. This is why the Buddhists, they talk about intention without attachment. You want intention toward goals. You want to make progress every day, but you have to have detachment from the actual object of your goals. And that's a really, really super hard thing to do. Well, I've worked with Olympic athletes who almost always suffer a clinical depression in the months after they win their gold. And the reason is because they just assumed, you know, the good feelings that I'm gonna have when I have this great accomplishment, they're gonna last forever. And then they don't. You know, people get very depressed often right after they get married because they got to their wedding day and they thought that this great thing is gonna give me this permanent sense of ebullience, of elation, and it doesn't either. That's not how emotions are supposed to work. Emotions are signals of. Of threats and opportunities. You're not, you know, Mother Nature isn't there to give you a permanently fun day. Mother Nature wants you to be ready for whatever's gonna come your way. And you've just misunderstood emotions if that's actually the case. So I have to work with my students about this all the time. What you want is really, really good goals. And you have to recognize that, you know, achieving a particular worldly achievement is not gonna bring you the be all and end all. I've worked with billionaires. After their first billion, they say, I didn't feel it. I guess I need another billion. And they stay on the treadmill for the rest of their lives.
- [15:50]
Jonathan Fields
Yeah, it makes no sense. And yet that is how so many of us live our lives. I remember conversation with Matthew Crossman, who teaches this class of Life Worth Living at Yale, actually. And he said, it's the most frustrating class that all these kids will take because they have worked so hard to get to the place where they can actually sit in this classroom in this esteemed university. And the entire class is questions and no answers. And so one of the single biggest questions that he asks is what's worth wanting? Not, not what do you want, but what's worth wanting? And it is a brutally hard question to explore.
- [16:21]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah, yeah, that's the notion that's about another Buddhist notion of right desire, which is behind all major religions. It's not a question of what you want. The question is what you want to want or what you should want. It's what it comes down to. And achieving right desire is one of the greatest ways to understand this concept of meaning that we're talking about. Meaning, the meaning of your life, which is why things happen the way they do, a sense of coherence, why you're doing what you're doing, which is your goals and purpose. Right. And of course, why your life is significant. You know, why does your life matter and to whom? Is what it comes down to. And you have to do a lot of work to actually find the answers to these questions. But you have to be fully alive. And you can't get the answers online.
- [17:01]
Jonathan Fields
You're not going to AI your way into them.
- [17:03]
Arthur Brooks
You can't, because you know the. All they answer. All AI does, by the way, is answer questions in the left hemisphere of your brain. How to. And what questions? If you ask, for example, here's a big, big, big meaning question for what would I give my life? If you know what you die for, happily, then you know what you're living for. And that's a. That's a meaning question. So if you put into AI, I challenge everybody watching us to put into AI. What would I die for? The first thing it'll do is you'll kiss your butt for a little while. It'll say, that's a really profound question, Arthur. Well, some of the smartest people in the world have asked that question. I compliment you on this question. Now let me tell you how five different people have answered this question. They're giving you nothing. They're giving you nothing. And the reason is because these AIs have been trained on what people have said in the past. They have nothing having to do with the meaning and the mystery and the creativity that's going on in your brain. If you can ask Google or ChatGPT a question, it's not a meaning question.
- [17:59]
Jonathan Fields
I mean, that's all speaks to this one other sort of like, myth that you explore, which is this notion that we can solve for meaning or we can optimize our lives for meaning. And you're really just saying it doesn't work that way.
- [18:12]
Arthur Brooks
It doesn't. And the reason is because complicated questions have solutions, complex questions don't. And all the things we care about the most are the complex questions. Love is complex. It is. Meaning is complex. These are things that we know what they mean, but you'll never solve them definitively. You have to live them. My marriage is something I have to live and I come to understand, not that I'm going to solve like a math problem. Can't be done.
- [18:41]
Jonathan Fields
So if these are the questions that we care or should care about the most, yet invest the least amount of energy and time in, I guess my curiosity is why. I mean, it seems like life is so much centered around. Let's identify all the other questions on the other side of the spectrum and spend the vast majority of our waking hours really trying to delve into them. And you're saying, well, sure, but that's actually not going to give you any of the feelings that you're aspired to have. So why do we spend the vast majority of our waking hours there instead of the deeper questions?
- [19:14]
Arthur Brooks
So that's a keys under the lamppost question. You know, the drunk who's friend comes along and finds him on his hands and knees under a lamppost at night, and he says, what are you doing? He's been drinking. He says, oh, I've been drinking here, but I lost my keys. And he says, right under the lamppost? He says, no, I'm over there in that dark alley. But the light's better here, so I'm looking here. That's why people are actually looking in the complicated things, because they're just hoping, hoping, hoping that maybe the keys are there, even though they know they're kind of not. You know, that's why they keep looking for the perfect algorithm. They look for the perfect Internet influencer, they're looking for the perfect body, they're looking for the right supplement routine. They're looking for the perfect app, the perfect dating app. That's what they're looking for. Even though they know deep down that that's not where the truth is going to be found.
- [19:59]
Jonathan Fields
I mean, do you feel like a part of this also is a desire to avoid having to live in the domain of the unknown? Because we are just brutal at handling that with any level of anonymity.
- [20:16]
Arthur Brooks
We don't like it. We certainly don't like it. What we like is neatly tied up things and we're being promised neatly tied up answers. Look, you're not going to make very much money with complexity. You're going to make a lot of money with complication. And so what's offered to you, you're offered an education that's going to solve, you know, the problems that you face and make you a whole bunch of money. And that bunch of money is going to make you successful and that success is going to make you happy. That's what you're being sold the bill of goods or your parents are being sold. If you're going into college, if you're going on the Internet, they're not talking about, you know, being, you know, the, the idea of being in communion with the divine. And with your friends, they're talk about buying a product. And that product will solve a particular problem. Will solve a problem is what it comes down to. And so the truth is that we want the easy answers and we're being sold the easy answers and they don't exist. It's a bill of goods. It's a ripoff is what it's coming down to. We don't need to buy a particular thing. We need to live in a different way.
- [21:14]
Jonathan Fields
And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.
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Jonathan Fields
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Arthur Brooks
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Arthur Brooks
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- [22:59]
Jonathan Fields
so let's talk about what meaning is then. If all these things that we're talking about is not it, you have a. A framework for this with effectively three. Three discrete elements. Take me into this.
- [23:10]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah. Three why questions. So what and how to questions are not meaning questions.
- [23:15]
Jonathan Fields
Okay.
- [23:15]
Arthur Brooks
Deep why questions are what you get at meaning. And this actually comes from the work of Mike Steger, who is a social psychologist near you and yours in North Colorado. And the first question is coherence. Why do things happen the way they do? Like things are happening all the time. A lot of them I don't like much of it is out of my control. Why? And you have to have an explanation for this. Why do things happen the way that they do? Some people say it's the mind of God. Some people say it's the force of nature. Some people who don't trust science or religion, they talk about conspiracy theories. It's shadowy forces and a cabal of powerful people. That's just a cry for coherence, which is the cry for meaning, which is a cry for happiness. That's all that is. If you have a relative who's going down the rabbit hole on. On conspiracy theories, that's what's going on. And confronting them with facts and saying you're a moron will not get the job done. The second is purpose. The second part, and that's a why question. Why? Why am I doing what I'm doing? If the answer is I don't know or for no reason, then that's a big meaning problem. Purpose means goals and direction with students. When I can give them just a minor goal in their life, they start getting immediately happier because this purpose thing starts to come into view and they start to feel like their life is purposeful as a matter of fact. And last but not least is is is the significance question, why does my life matter and to whom? That's the love question, which is why when people cultivate relationships or get to know God, or build friendships or get closer to their families, that life starts to feel more meaningful as well. Those are the three parts of meaning is why do things happen? Why am I doing things? And why does My life matter.
- [24:57]
Jonathan Fields
So if we're going to go into. And those distill down to coherence, purpose and significance.
- [25:02]
Arthur Brooks
Exactly. Right.
- [25:03]
Jonathan Fields
Significance. I mean, there's a. I don't want to skip over something that you added in there, which is why do I matter and to whom?
- [25:10]
Arthur Brooks
Right.
- [25:11]
Jonathan Fields
That last part, I think is really important, that even if we consider the question, like we often leave off that last part.
- [25:17]
Arthur Brooks
Oh, yeah, totally. I mean, it's like, why does my life matter? And so you look for. By the way, people look all online all the time for the significance question. So why does my life matter? Because I have a million Instagram followers. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? People will look for the left brain complicated solution to the right brain complex problem. If you find a complicated solution to a right brain problem, it's going to make it worse. You know, remember, let's go back in time. Facebook, which was invented my university. The promise was it was going to solve loneliness, which is a complex problem with a complicated computer algorithm. And guess what happened? Man, it got worse. I mean, every hour you spend on social media, beyond the first hour, you will get lonelier.
- [26:01]
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- [26:01]
Arthur Brooks
As you and I are sitting here, that's the truth. I've seen the data and everybody knows it's true. You'll get lonelier because you wanted a cat and people kept giving you a mechanical cat and it just made you feel emptier. And lonelier is the way that this whole thing works. And so the whole problem with significance is that you're saying, I want to be significant, I want to mean something, but the only tool at my disposal is a simulation of love, a simulation of real life. You can't simulate meaning. And so when you're looking for your significance online, it's going to make you feel worse.
- [26:33]
Jonathan Fields
So we think about coherence, purpose and significance in the context of everyday life. And asking this question in the context of everyday life. I think what a lot of people look to try and again, solve for this. And I know we already know that there's an issue for that, but I think one of the prime domains of life that we look at when we're looking for the feeling of meanfulness, and also when we're trying to. Even if we know the questions, we're looking for coherence, we're looking for purpose, we're looking for significance from the domain of work in our lives. Take me into how you feel about
- [27:08]
Arthur Brooks
that, about finding, finding those things in the, in the, in the realm of.
- [27:12]
Jonathan Fields
Of work.
- [27:13]
Arthur Brooks
Your job.
- [27:14]
Jonathan Fields
Yeah.
- [27:15]
Arthur Brooks
Well, I've studied work a lot. And, and, and as a, as a, as a behavioral scientist, it's a really important thing because you're going to spend a lot of time at work. Most people do. And by the way, we're not just talking about paid work. I mean, if you're staying home and taking care of your children, that's work. If you're retired and you're doing something productive, that's work too, is what it comes down to. So I'm not just talking about working for money. I'm talking about doing something absolutely productive. It's incredibly important. But the whole idea behind is the concept of work as a calling. That's what it comes down to. And I've studied calling a lot. The sense that your work is kind of a holy vocation. And there's two things to look for in your work. You won't find significance, purpose and coherence through position or prestige or pay. You won't. What you'll find them through is two things. And this is what to look for in a calling. Number one is the fact that you're earning your success. That I'm creating value with my life and I'm creating value in the lives of other people. And I'm rewarded and accomplished and acknowledged for that. That's why merit based systems in the workplace are so critically important. And that like tenure based systems and loyalty based systems are just terrible for people. They're awful because you don't know if you're actually creating value or not. I've worked a lot with people who inherited a lot of money, for example, and a lot of them won't admit it. And the reason is because they never know, you know, if that person likes me romantically for me or for my money, if that person is laughing at my jokes for me or for my because they're funny or because I got money. I'm not trying to make rhymes, but you get the point that I'm actually trying to make. Earned success is everything. And more important even than earned success is is serving other people. The belief that you're lifting people up, that you have the dignity of being needed. Those are the two things to look at. As you raise your children, as you volunteer, as you work for pay, am I earning my success authentically and am I serving other people? This is kind of like the whole ikigai framework. What does the world need? What will they pay me to do? What am I good at and what do I love? And the center of that is earned success and serving Other people, those are the priorities in finding your career.
- [29:28]
Jonathan Fields
I mean, it's really interesting, the earned success side of that. Also you brought up the notion of the concept of tenure. You know, sort of like in the world of academia, if you're in, it's terrible, it's awful. But this is the golden ring that you're to aspire to. Like Publisher Parish. You do all these things in the name of getting this like, anointment of tenure. And then all of a sudden, yes, this is like, now I can breathe now life.
- [29:52]
Arthur Brooks
I remember when I got it. I remember when I got it. I'm like. And it was the arrival fallacies. Exactly what we talked about 15 minutes ago, which is that, oh man, I'm making progress, I'm making progress. I'm publishing my papers, I'm getting good teaching evaluations. Dude, I'm going to get this, I'm going to get the permanent contract and it's going to be so sweet. And I got my, I got my tenure and I. I nailed it, baby. I nailed it. I got a unanimous vote. It sailed through the provost's office. And that night my wife and I went out to celebrate and we spent the whole night fretting about the fact that our 3 year old son had bitten 3 kids at the preschool that day.
- [30:26]
Jonathan Fields
Doesn't change that.
- [30:27]
Arthur Brooks
Tell me about it. Fortunately, he's now, you know, he turned into a U.S. marine. And so his bellicosity has been turned out on America's enemies.
- [30:37]
Jonathan Fields
Yeah, it takes me back. In a very, very, very past life, I was a lawyer and I spent a hot minute at a large firm in midtown Manhattan and I walked away from both the firm and the career. And one of the reasons that I did, because people were kind of like, wait, what? Like, this is the thing that everyone.
- [30:53]
Arthur Brooks
How do you do that in the field?
- [30:54]
Jonathan Fields
You worked so hard, you went to school. And part of the reason that I did it was that I basically was looking at the lives that I saw the senior partners living. And I was kind of like asking myself the question, do they seem to feel the way that I want to feel when I'm at that point in my life and career? And do they have a lot more money? Did they have financial security? They had prestige and satisfaction. Sure. Check, check, check, check, check. Something me looked at that and said, I, I will work really hard. I'm okay suffering. I'm okay, like pouring myself into something, making hard choices for a long time, but in the name of something I don't feel like a, is actually being delivered at the end of the day. And also I want to feel like you're describing. I kind of want to feel pieces of that along the way because who knows what's going to happen at the end of the day.
- [32:00]
Arthur Brooks
Well, congratulations on the equanimity and the wisdom of that. But a lot of people didn't make that choice, and a lot of people listening to us right now didn't make that choice. And so let's talk directly to them about this. I've studied strivers my whole career, and I'm guilty, dude. I mean, I'm guilty. And what workaholics and success addicts they all have in common, almost all have in common, is the following. So right now, when I say congratulations on making these wise choices, let me compliment your mom for the following reason. Kids who are super, super, super strivers, what they find often is that they only get attention and affection from grownups when they do something really unusual, really extraordinary, like straight A's on the report card, first share in the orchestra, starting pitcher of the baseball team, and their little synaptically plastic brains come to the following conclusion. And a lot of people are tracking with me right now who are watching, who are listening to this podcast. Love is earned. Love is earned. You learn the lesson that love is earned. Now that's wrong, by the way, because true love is a free gift, freely given. It's a grace. If it's earned, it's not love. And I'm not making some weird philosophical argument. This is as old as the hills. And we all know it's true. If somebody makes you earn their love, they don't love you. That's what it comes down to. If you have a good marriage, your spouse loves you on your worst day. Because love is a free gift, freely given. That's it. That's what it comes down to. Withheld love is not love at all. But you don't realize that. And so the result is that you're going to trying to earn love and you work on that for the rest of your life. And you wind up at age 50 years old saying, am I lovable yet? Okay, I'll go work a little harder, I'll make partner. I'll get a big bonus. Am I lovable yet? You'll go to the grave doing that, man. You will never be able to get up off the bicycle. You'll never be able to relax. And so I wind up counseling people all the time on that particular pathology. It leads to self objectification. It leads to an addiction to success. That's literally recognizable in brain activity. It leads to workaholism that ruins relationships. It's the kind of thing where, you know, husbands who are the partner will never be home and have constant fights with their wife and, and under. And don't figure, can't figure out why their wives don't understand them. I have all these obligations, it's like, yeah, but I never see you. Well, I noticed that you sure like the money I bring home. And she's like, I'll spend the money, but what I really want is you. And he doesn't believe her or she's trying to earn his love all the time by being more beautiful, by being more youthful, by being something more. You can't earn his love. It can't be done. And that's a pathology we have to get over.
- [34:49]
Jonathan Fields
Yeah. As you're describing, that's interesting because I'm nodding along thinking there has never been a time in my life where I felt I needed to earn my parents love. It was just all there for me. And one of the things that I've come to learn now that I'm 60 years into this life is how unusual that is and how unfortunate it is that that.
- [35:09]
Arthur Brooks
Oh man, it's really great. It's great. Kudos to your mom. Is she still alive?
- [35:14]
Jonathan Fields
Yeah.
- [35:15]
Arthur Brooks
Call her for me and tell her that she did a great job. Great job.
- [35:21]
Jonathan Fields
Let's wrap up on work. Does work have to be meaningful? And part of the reason I ask this is actually it's triggered by curiosity. This fabulous book that I revisited so many times called Daily Rituals. And it kind of looks at the 24 hour cycles of many of the world's greatest X, Y and Z. And what you see is this interesting pattern recurring in a number of them, which is the work that they became known for to others. Their stunning work in the world, whether it's writing or art or whatever it may be, or music. That was actually the work that they did at the 5 to 9 at night or on the weekends. They worked in the post office. They had kind of like a mundane everyday job. It wasn't awful, wasn't great. It was just there. It provided for them, it took care of the family, took care of their needs, met their values for security and providing. And they never had any desire to stop doing that and just do the thing that eventually became their great work, their calling. They were actually good with that balance. Yet it seems like the common lore is that's not okay.
- [36:25]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah, I know. And that's a workaholic culture. You know, anybody who says that you actually can't, that you have to live to work as opposed to working to live, doesn't actually understand the, the integration of how life and work are supposed to work together. I mean, this leads to all sorts of dumb ideas like work, life balance, which says that your work isn't part of your life. That's such a dumb idea. Your work is part of your life.
- [36:47]
Jonathan Fields
I always struggle with that. It's like, yeah, it's not possession.
- [36:50]
Arthur Brooks
No, no, it's an integration that your work and your non work should actually. It should be iron sharpening iron, as they say in the proverbs. That's the critical thing that we need to be thinking about. And that means that you have to be excellent at leisure and excellent at things that the world doesn't actually reward you for and excellent at your relationships. And, you know, that's really critically what it's all about.
- [37:11]
Jonathan Fields
You brought up the notion of suffering earlier in a conversation, and I want to revisit that. And that is something that you actually dip into a bit more in the new book as well. The relationship between suffering and meaning is complicated because here's the thing that most people think, okay, so I'm going to pretty much live my life to try and minimize or avoid as much of this capital S suffering type of thing possible. And I've been told that that is part of the goal of life. You don't really agree with that?
- [37:37]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah, it's wrong. It's wrong. And first, let me give you the science, just a little tiny bit of science. And it won't hurt, right? So there's a guy named Richard Davidson at University of Wisconsin in Madison. You know Richie Davidson, right. And his work is completely, is completely visionary. And one of the things he looks at is where suffering, how the brain reacts when we're unhappy. What he finds is, is largely a right hemispheric experience. The right hemisphere, that's the complex hemisphere, that's the hemisphere that we need actually to process meaning. As we've talked about already in this conversation, it's not a coincidence. When you're trying to eliminate suffering from your life, you're gonna eliminate meaning from your life. Now, I'm not saying. And my students will be like, professor, are you saying I should go looking for suffering and say, don't worry, it will find you.
- [38:22]
Jonathan Fields
It's coming.
- [38:23]
Arthur Brooks
The question is, what do you do when it visits you? You know, pain, for example. And I don't mean just physical pain, I mean affective pain. There's Two kinds of pain, sensory and affective. One involves nerve endings and inflammation, and the other involves this little thing in your brain called the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex that throbs when you're feeling rejected and when you're feeling sad. It exists for a reason, so that you can understand actually what's happening, so you can understand what's happening in your life. That's affective pain. When you actually try to eliminate that pain, when pain is the enemy, you're probably going to fail because that happens to you on purpose. If you didn't have any pain, I mean, man, if I weren't afraid of rejection, I would be divorced in a week. I would be friendless and fired. Are you kidding me? I mean, I need aversion to this. And if I weren't afraid of physical pain, I would just like leave my hand on a hot stove and there would be big consequences to that. The truth is, I need that particular pain and pain is going to find me because it's a natural part of life. However, suffering is different. Suffering equals pain multiplied by the resistance to pain. That's the important thing to keep in mind. And if you try to avoid your pain, if you're assiduously medicating yourself against all pain, and by medicating, I mean passing the time scrolling social media to distract yourself, you're not in a state of non resistance, you're not going to be able to get into the zone of meaning. Here's how you know. Here's how you know. And I learned this from the Dalai Lama himself, with whom I've been working for the past 12 years. If your pain is high and your suffering is low, then you're finding the meaning of your life, because that means that you're facing your pain without resistance.
- [40:08]
Jonathan Fields
And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Good Life project is sponsored by Gab Wireless. So our executive producer, Lindsey was telling me about juggling weekday routines with her two young kids and she wanted them to play outside and gain independence but still have a reliable way to just check in. So she got her 9 year old a gab watch 3e and said it really hit the sweet spot. He can tap to call or send a simple message. And Lindsay can see basic location info without any of the endless apps that steal attention. This isn't about control. It's a gentle, practical step towards independence. Think of it as slow technology connection at the right pace so kids learn freedom and parents keep peace of mind. Mornings feel less frantic. Quick neighborhood trips feel calmer and the everyday logistics that used to just nag at her headspace have eased. So if you want a straightforward tool that keeps kids connected without social media, give Gab a try and see how family life shifts for the better. Visit gab.com goodlife and use the code good life for a special offer that's G A b-b.com goodlife or just click the link in the show Notes.
- [41:15]
Arthur Brooks
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- [42:34]
Jonathan Fields
The way that most of us explore pain, which is by trying to reduce it. What you're effectively saying. And again, we're not talking about physical pain.
- [42:42]
Arthur Brooks
We could be. There are kinds of cases. And I've studied back pain, for example.
- [42:45]
Jonathan Fields
Yeah.
- [42:46]
Arthur Brooks
And back pain specialists say that if you try to eliminate your back pain, your back pain is going to get worse.
- [42:51]
Jonathan Fields
Yeah.
- [42:51]
Arthur Brooks
The reason is because you're going to baby it.
- [42:53]
Jonathan Fields
Yeah. And some of the similar research actually has come out of uc, like.
- [42:57]
Arthur Brooks
Right.
- [42:57]
Jonathan Fields
Right over. And I'm a big believer in that research. Right. So. But I want to make sure I'm getting this right. What you're inviting us to do then, is to focus less on ameliorating suffering and focus more on reducing resistance.
- [43:11]
Arthur Brooks
That's right. And then the suffering will take care of itself and the suffering that remains will be generative. It will lead to growth. So, you know, there are a lot of people listening to us right now who are probably dealing with relationship problems. There are probably people who've had a bad breakup recently. Maybe you've gone through divorce. There's no way around that. There's only through that. I've studied relationship issues and I've counseled people for many, many years. You only go through that. And the way that you do that is by saying, okay, okay, bring it on. Okay, bring it on. You don't do that. You don't drink away your pain, the suffering, the rejection, the anger, the betrayal. You can't drink that away. You can't scroll that away. You can't. Because if you do, you're trying to reduce the pain as opposed to reducing your resistance to the pain through which the resulting suffering will make you a stronger person and a better person and a happier person and a person who's ready to love again.
- [44:10]
Jonathan Fields
Where does faith come into this conversation, if at all? And what of those who don't have any particular spiritual orientation?
- [44:21]
Arthur Brooks
So faith falls into a category that's called transcendence, which is all about not focusing on yourself. Transcendence is critically important because we're made to be the star of our psychodrama. You know, my job, my car, my food, my television programs, my kids, my preoccupations. Me, me, me. It's just. Man, it's just so boring. We're just looking in the mirror all day long.
- [44:49]
Jonathan Fields
And.
- [44:49]
Arthur Brooks
And. And by the way, it's not our fault. Mother Nature makes us that way. But mother Nature, she doesn't care if we find meaning. She doesn't care if we're happy. She wants us to pass on our genes and find mates miserably, if that's what it comes to. So what we need to do is what William James calls to get into the I self. William James, the father of modern psychology. I self, not the me self. The me self is the mirror. And there's nothing wrong with a mirror, but we do it too much. The I self is to observe the outside world and to stand in awe. There's two ways to do this. By looking up to the divine and looking outward to serve. That's what it comes down to. Those are the two ways so, you know, to stand in awe. This is not necessarily religious. This might be through the Stoic philosophers. This might be by studying the works of Johann Sebastian Bach and standing in awe of the greatest composer who ever lived. Or walking for an hour before dawn every day before devices of the sun. Comes up, which is just this transcendent experience or a vipassana meditation practice, which I've studied and strongly recommend, or is the faith of your youth. I'm a Catholic. I go to mass every day. Right. That's not everybody's path, but it's my path because I transcend. And then serving other people and then actually loving other people without compensation, that kind of. That's this kind of transcendence that really, really changes the life. And when you do that, that focus that's no longer on yourself, it's just. It's just peace. It's so funny because, you know, at my university, the most popular class is Astronomy 101. And it's like, I always wonder because they're not astronomers. I mean, not physicists. They're just like English majors or something. And I asked a student one time, he's like, why do you all love the astronomy class so much? Why are you lined up out the door for the astronomy class? And this girl, she says, you know, I don't know, professor, but you know, on Thursday morning, you know, I go into my astronomy class at 9, and I just had a big argument with my mom and I think my boyfriend is going to break up with me. And I just got a B in a class, which is like a big crisis at Harvard. And then an hour and a half later after my class, I come out and I say, I'm just a speck on a spec on a speck. And that's paradoxical, right? Because you think, especially when you're. You're buried in your phone and you're looking at your follower count and you're looking at your notifications and you're waiting for a text that you're the center of everything. And then when somebody satisfies that desire to be center of everything, then, then. Then you'll feel what you want. And that's exactly wrong. Paradoxically, that's exactly wrong. You need to transcend yourself.
- [47:28]
Jonathan Fields
I mean, that also speaks to. And I like the way that you tee this up also because we're not attaching it to any one particular tradition or even to belief in God. But it is really about how can I transcend just the internal focus on just constantly me, me, me, me, self, self. What will break me out of that pattern? One of the other things. And this relates to one of the other things I've heard you talk about and you write about. It's this nature of aesthetic experience. Or you call it beauty for shorthand.
- [47:57]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah. Yeah, that's right.
- [47:58]
Jonathan Fields
Used the word awe before you know, Dr. Kelton, there's great research on this. I'm blessed to live where I am and to like seven minutes out my front door, I'm hiking in the most stunning, majestic mountains. I often do the same trails on a regular basis. And every time it's different and gorgeous. And no matter what's going on in my head, no matter how stressed out I am about what was going on, two hours later I come back and I'm like still going on, but I'm different.
- [48:27]
Arthur Brooks
Well, what's happened is that you were stuck in the left when you went out on the hike. Out on the hike, you moved to the right hemisphere of your brain. So you were starting to contemplate the big questions of meaning and mystery and beauty and love and happiness. And that's what you needed and that's what beauty does. Beauty moves you. I mean beauty is assessed. Now there's three kinds of beauty. What I'm not talking about is, you know, a beautiful member of the opposite sex that's attractive to you. That's a different part. Those are different parts of the brain. There's three kinds of beauty that actually matter. There is natural beauty, which you're getting in Boulder, Colorado, where you're privileged to live and many other places by the way. There's natural beauty every place, but it's not on your screen. And the average 12 year old kid spends between four and seven minutes outside a day and between four and seven hours behind the screen. That's a complete inversion of what their brains need. Second kind of beauty is artistic beauty. So for me that's music. I was a professional musician for many years and for me, you know, beauty, I mean natural, I mean artistic beauty in the form of music is highly, highly synesthetic experience, which is to say that I have a big blending of patterns and senses. So I see a lot of color when I hear sound. And many professional musicians have actually the synesthesia experience. And so, and that's a very right brain phenomenon. And many people, some people it's poetry or literature or painting. My mother's a painter and she suffered all her adult life with psychotic depression, which was completely debilitating and misery provoking. What saved her life was that she was a painter of some actual renown in the Pacific Northwest. And she would wake up in the morning with the demons and the demons and the demons and she would go up to her studio and then she'd find relief because that's what she needed. And last but not least is moral beauty. When you, when you witness acts of moral beauty, it's. It's completely transformative. It's funny because in the, in the 1960s and 70s, there was this. There was a. A journalist in, in England named Malcolm Muggeridge that many people remember that name. The reason he's famous today as a journalist because he sort of discovered Mother Teresa for the world, who was this completely unknown 4 foot 10 Albanian nun living on the streets of Calcutta, lifting up the poorest of the poor, lepers, homeless people, people who were dying in the street. She would bring them into her convent where she would nurse them and hold them and love them and pray for them as they die, as they died. And he was completely inspired by this. And so he wrote a series of articles and then a book about Mother Teresa and then he did a documentary for the BBC and she became this huge rock star. And then people all over the world were inspired by Mother Teresa. Why? Because of moral beauty. So I have this great, great friend of mine is Rainn Wilson, the actor. We grew up in the same part of the world. We both grew up, we're the same age. Grew up in Seattle. And his uncle is one of the most distinguished psychologists in the world on moral beauty is a Harvard psychologist by the name of Rhett Deisner. Stuff's really great. I cite his stuff all the time. And he shows that physiologically you react to witnessing acts of moral beauty. And that's what we should look for every day. When you have those emotional experiences that you can't explain, that's your right hemisphere. That's what's happening. That's how you know. So, for example, there's a certain number of topics. Everybody has a certain number of topics that they have to be very careful when they discuss because they'll start crying. Men, women, everybody, right? There's certain things. For me, it's when I talk about my kids.
- [51:54]
Jonathan Fields
Yeah.
- [51:54]
Arthur Brooks
It's my love relationships, when I talk about when I listen to music and when I talk about my faith. Those are the big three. I can talk about anything else. Anything else. I'm not going to get emotional, but those three. Careful.
- [52:07]
Jonathan Fields
I hear you.
- [52:08]
Arthur Brooks
Because I move over to the right hemisphere of my brain and I can't stay away from that. Which means, by the way, that when I'm looking for the meaning of my life, those are the three places I go.
- [52:16]
Jonathan Fields
I love that. Let's get really practical as we wrap this up. Somebody's joining us for this conversation. They're kind of nodding along saying, yeah, this all makes sense. To me, how do I wake up tomorrow and like, what are some practical things that I should think about? Questions that I should ask, like, what can I do tomorrow morning when I get up, when I think about how to live this day, that would help invite me more of the experience and meaning into my life.
- [52:41]
Arthur Brooks
So I'm a practical guy because I'm trained as a scientist. And so one of the things that I do with my students is to give them actual protocols that will take willpower out of their life so that they can live in such a way that meaning can find them. Because this is the funny thing, you don't find the meaning of your life. You put yourself in a position where meaning finds you. You open the aperture, you have openness, and then meaning actually finds you. And I realize that's super mysterious sounding, but it's not because you need to live in a particular different way. So here's what I recommend to my students. I recommend to everybody. Tomorrow morning when you get up, don't look at your phone for the first hour. That's the when you neurocognitively program yourself, that's when your brain is getting programmed and what should you do instead? I would recommend you go for a walk and you watch the sun come up without devices. That's in Indian philosophy called the Brahma Muhurta, which in Sanskrit means the creator's time. And there's a ton of research that shows that this really works. It's really, really good for you. Then what I would recommend is that you do a couple other things with your phone as well. I would recommend that you put it away, you eat with somebody and you put it away and that you don't eat with your device and then you stash it an hour before you go to bed. Just those three things. Why? Because you will turn on the default mode network in your brain. You'll start asking the big questions your mind at the most critical moments, which is the first hour that you're awake and the last hour as you're spending ideally with somebody that you love, that your brain will be thinking about mystery and meaning in a particular way. You don't have to worry about the right question to ask. You don't have to worry about it. What you need to do is to put yourself in the position where the right questions will enter your brain. And in so doing, meaning will find you love.
- [54:29]
Jonathan Fields
That feels like a good place for us to come full circle as well. So I was wrapped with the same question in this container of Good Life project. If I offer up the phrase to live a good life.
- [54:39]
Arthur Brooks
What comes up to live a good life is to love and be loved. To live a good life is to live in the space where happiness and meaning, which are contained in love, can actually be a constant part of your life and most importantly, never to chase it away.
- [54:55]
Jonathan Fields
Thank you. Hey, before you leave, be sure to tune in next week for our conversation with Jenny Lossop. She's a number one New York Times bestselling author who has made millions of people laugh with her writing, and she also lives with treatment resistant depression and anxiety. This conversation is one of the most honest, funny, and unexpectedly hopeful that we've had on the show in a while. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss an episode. This episode of Good Life Project was produced by executive producers Lindsay Fox and me, Jonathan Fields. Editing help by Alejandro Ramirez and Troy Young. Chris Carter crafted our theme music and of course, if you haven't already done so, please go ahead and follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts. If you found this conversation interesting or valuable and inspiring, chances are you did because you're still here. Do me a personal favor, a 7 second favor and share it with just one person. If you want to share it with more, hey, that's awesome. But just one person? Even then, invite them to talk with you about what you both discovered, to reconnect and explore ideas that really matter. Because that's how we all come alive together. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields signing off for Good Life Project.
- [56:09]
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Jonathan Fields
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Arthur Brooks
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Arthur Brooks
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Jonathan Fields
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Arthur Brooks
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