The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness w/ Professor Arthur Brooks

Summary

Raising Good Humans with Dr. Aliza Pressman Episode: The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness with Professor Arthur Brooks Date: March 13, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Dr. Aliza Pressman is joined by Professor Arthur Brooks, acclaimed author, social scientist, and happiness expert, to discuss the meaning of life, the search for purpose, and how to cultivate meaning amid today’s “age of emptiness.” Drawing from his upcoming book The Meaning of Your Life, Brooks explores core questions about happiness, meaning, family dynamics, and the impact of technology on well-being. The conversation blends science and spirituality, shares insights for parents, and climaxes with a lively Q&A—featuring questions from Dr. Pressman’s 19-year-old daughter, Penelope, and resonating with the interests and anxieties of younger generations.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Generational Shifts in Values and Rebellion (01:09–04:07)

• Arthur Brooks’ Family Dynamics: Brooks shares about his three children, their surprising choices (early marriage, military service, deep religiosity), contrasting their paths with his own youth.

  • “They’re not rebelling against social stricture. They’re rebelling against a miserable culture in decline...They’re embracing ancient truth.” (Brooks, 02:55)

• Religiosity as Rebellion: Brooks notes a trend among young people tending toward spiritual community and structure as a form of rebellion against modern malaise, not against authority.

2. The Interplay of Science and Spirituality (05:47–08:11)

• Integration, Not Separation: Brooks and Pressman discuss the artificial division between scientific inquiry and spiritual yearning.

  • “If you’re a serious scientist, you better have some...questions about metaphysics.” (Brooks, 07:26)

• Lisa Miller’s Work: Both appreciate Dr. Lisa Miller’s research (The Awakened Brain) which demonstrates the clear benefits of connecting science and spirituality for mental health.

3. Defining Meaning: Coherence, Purpose, Significance (08:11–15:39)

• Three Components of Meaning:

  • Coherence: Why do things happen the way they do?
  • Purpose: Why am I doing what I’m doing?
  • Significance: Why does my life matter?
  • “The first is what we call coherence...the second part being purpose...the last part being significance. Those questions don’t have perfect answers.” (Brooks, 12:16)

• Conspiracy Theories as Cries for Coherence: When people lack traditional sources of meaning, they may turn to alternate (even misleading) narratives to find answers.

• Children’s Why Questions: Brooks details developmental stages where children crave clear answers, but learning to “sit with” the unanswerable is essential for lifelong meaning-making.

4. Experiencing Meaning: Beyond Words, Into Awe (15:23–16:17)

• The Ineffable Nature of Meaning: Explaining deep meaning is inherently difficult; genuine understanding often comes from experiencing awe and the sublime, not from left-brain rationalization.
  • “You can’t do it...What you need to do is to experience the existence and presence of God in your life through meditation and worship. And then you’ll have an understanding that’s ineffable...” (Brooks, 15:24)

5. Parenting in an Optimization Culture (19:36–22:47)

• Tech Culture vs. Complex Living: Modern society’s focus on optimization, metrics, and efficiency neglects the complexity and unpredictability of relationships, parenting, and love.

  • “Your relationship with your kids is complex. You understand it, you love them unconditionally, but you will never solve it.” (Brooks, 20:58)

• Loving the Imperfect Present: Parents must learn to live with unsolved problems, embrace discomfort and suffering, and let go of perfect solutions.

6. Suffering: Its Role and Management (22:55–30:11)

• Suffering as Necessary: Suffering is not just inevitable, but essential for depth and meaning.

  • “Suffering is actually how you understand meaning in life.” (Brooks, 23:44)

• Pain vs. Suffering (Buddhist & Psychological View):

  • Suffering = Pain x Resistance
  • Managing suffering primarily means reducing resistance, not eliminating pain.

• Modeling Coping: Children must see parents managing their own pain and coping healthily—not avoiding or eliminating all discomfort.

7. Genetics, Happiness, and Habit (27:00–34:51)

• Happiness is 50% Genetic: Citing twin studies, Brooks highlights heredity’s role in baseline happiness and emphasizes building strong habits to counter a negative genetic predisposition.

• “The greatest secret to happiness is by bringing the secrets to others.” (Brooks, 29:05)

• Three Macronutrients of Happiness:

  • Enjoyment (pleasure + people + memory)
  • Satisfaction (achievement after struggle)
  • Meaning (see earlier section)

• Find your weak spot and work intentionally on that area (e.g., Brooks struggles with enjoyment).

8. Leisure and Enjoyment (34:51–38:09)

• Leisure as a Serious Pursuit: True leisure is not just relaxation or recharging for more work; it's meaningful activity with no productive “payoff”—learning for its own sake, deepening relationships, faith, or creative effort.

  • “Leisure...is a serious business. You’re just not getting compensated through earthly rewards for it...” (Brooks, 35:57)

• Encouraging Leisure: Both hosts reflect on how hard it is, especially for strivers and their children, to embrace non-productive activities.

9. The Dangers of Tech-Driven, Point-Based Living (41:37–44:35)

• Living in Simulation: Brooks discusses how tech-driven, metric-focused living creates a sense of inauthenticity and emotional emptiness—even likening it to the plot of “The Matrix.”

  • “I feel like I’m living in a simulation.” (Brooks, 42:53)

• Parenting Against the “Matrix”: Parents can resist by modeling and encouraging deep, offline, non-performative experiences.

10. Achievement Addiction and Parental Modeling (45:36–51:27)

• Danger of Conditional Love: Children rewarded primarily for achievement internalize that love is earned and measurable; this wiring can lead to lifelong success addiction and relationship issues.

  • “If you reward your kids for the things they do really well...they will learn that love is earned and...measured. Nothing more nefarious...” (Brooks, 45:46)

• Unconditional Love & True Leisure: Show love for who they are, not what they do. Model leisure and genuine connection, rather than relentless striving.

11. Intergenerational Living & Regret (52:09–55:03)

• Grandparenting as Redemption: Brooks shares his regrets about distant parents and the conscious choice to create an intergenerational home for his children and grandchildren.

• Benefits of Multi-Generational Households: Improved child development, elder well-being, deeper family happiness.

12. Marriage Advice: Four Keys to Reheating a “Cold” Union (55:15–67:13)

• Neurochemical Strategies:
  1. Eye Contact: Foster oxytocin and bonding.
  2. Touch: Always be touching (ABT).
• Psychological Strategies: 3. Minimize Grievance Rehearsal: Less focus on complaints, more on shared fun. 4. Pray or Meditate Together: Deep intimacy from shared spiritual practice.
  • “Sex is way less intimate than prayer. And praying together is super intimate.” (Brooks, 58:52)

13. Q&A (Penelope’s Questions): Young Adult Perspectives on Meaning & Rebellion (67:13–77:19)

Notable Questions and Answers:

• On digital self-limiting:

  • “Disciplines and habits...are not willpower. [Start with] first hour of the day: don’t look at your device. Last hour at night, same...Just that.” (Brooks, 67:58–68:42)

• On Left-Brain Dominance:

  • "The questions that really matter...are not the ones you can answer specifically. They're the ones you have to live with. That's what gets lost." (Brooks, 68:59)

• Coherence without Simplistic Explanations:

  • These are "open form" questions. “If Google can give you an answer, it's not the real answer to a meaning question.” (Brooks, 69:37–70:16)

• Passion vs. Calling:

  • “Passion is part of calling...but if you only did [your calling] when you have passion, you’re relying excessively on the limbic system.” (Brooks, 71:02)
  • Brooks’ formula for calling: “80% excitement, 20% fear, 0% deadness.” (Brooks, 72:10)

• Stability vs. Depth:

  • “You know that [you’re just skating along] because you have a sense of stability without a sense of meaning.” (Brooks, 73:31)

• Finding Meaning While Young/Rebellion as Restoration:

  • “You gotta rebel. And that’s the most fun of all...This is the generation that can actually save humanity by being here now.” (Brooks, 75:07–77:29)

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Memorable Quotes

• “If you want to be happy, you need to get smaller, not larger. You need to be looking at something and standing in awe of something bigger.” (Brooks, 09:19)
• “Our job as parents is to help your child understand how to deal with pain, how to lower their resistance to actual pain.” (Brooks, 24:08)
• “The first principle: heal thyself...It doesn’t matter what you tell them. All that matters is what they see.” (Brooks, 48:07)
• “Love is a free gift freely given; is to will the good of the other, not because of what they do, because of who they are.” (Brooks, 50:09)
• “Leisure...is a serious business. You’re just not getting compensated through earthly rewards for it.” (Brooks, 35:57)
• “To be here now is to love your life and to love other people. And if you miss that, you haven’t been fully alive.” (Brooks, 76:53)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:09] Generational rebellion, Brooks' family background
• [08:11] Defining “meaning”: coherence, purpose, significance
• [15:23] The limitations of explaining awe/meaning
• [20:20] Optimization culture vs. complex parent/child relationships
• [23:44] Suffering as key to meaning
• [29:05] Happiness as habits and teaching others
• [34:51] Enjoyment deficit among strivers, leisure defined
• [41:37] Living in “the Matrix”—the simulation problem
• [45:46] Achievement addiction and conditional love
• [55:15] Marriage “reheating” advice: eye contact, touch, fun, prayer/meditation
• [67:13–77:19] Penelope’s Q&A: Technology discipline, left-brain culture, calling vs. passion, meaningful rebellion

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Takeaways for Parents and Listeners

• Model what matters: Your children internalize more from what you do than what you say—model openness to awe, leisure, and unconditional love.
• Normalize discomfort and suffering: Rather than protecting kids from all pain, help them build resilience and lower resistance.
• Balance structure with spontaneity: Encouraging leisure, creative pursuits, and offline experiences inoculates against emptiness and point-chasing.
• Embrace your own growth: “Heal thyself” is the first step; your own relationship with meaning and happiness will inform your child’s.
• Practice presence: Authentic connection—within your family, partnership, and self—requires being “here now,” not always chasing the next metric or fix.

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For more resources, happiness scales, and further reading, Brooks points listeners to his website: arthurbrooks.com

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

The following podcast is a Dear Media production.

[Podcast Host / Announcer]

Welcome to raising good humans podcast. I'm Dr. Eliza Pressman and I am so honored and excited to share with you my episode with Dr. Arthur Brooks. You might know him from the many bestselling books that he's written, including one with Oprah Winfrey, build the life you want. But in addition to that, he has

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

a new book coming out called the

[Podcast Host / Announcer]

meaning of your life. Also, I love this conversation because not

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

only are we talking about meaning at a time when it is really hard to find it and the concrete ways to really live this life, but also my daughter, my college age daughter Penelope

[Podcast Host / Announcer]

gave me questions because she saw Arthur

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Brooks speaking and she said, I have some questions that I want you to ask as well. So it was really fun at the end of the episode to do like a Q and A in the mind of what a 19 year old wants to know about, not just what we want to know about.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

The number one most popular topic in my MBA class on happiness is falling in love and staying in love. And the second is actually how to get along with your parents.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Really?

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah. Third is making friends. Fourth is finding God. Those are the topics that they really want and they're all about love. They're all love related topics.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

I mean how many kids do you have?

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Three. How old are they married? 27, 25 and 22. My 27 and 25 year olds got married at 22 and 23 and now their first kids at 23 and 24.

[Podcast Host / Announcer]

What are they?

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

What?

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

What are they? What are they? Aliens? They're zombies. They're, they're boys. And my 27 year old, they live with us with their sons in our house. And the 25 year old, he's a, he's a sniper in the Marine Corps. He got a year ago and he.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Oh my God.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, he's, he's a tough hombre. He's six five and he's got two sons and they love the street. And then my daughter is 22 and she's not married. She just graduated from college. She's a second lieutenant of the Marine Corps. So. Yeah, what I know. I mean it's like, it's like my kids are from, they think I'm like some sort of freaked out hippie reprobate.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

That might what a funny.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Like no, they're like judge, they're like looking at list. They're judgmentally. Yeah. Like we're not like you when our twin, you were in your 20s, you and mom, you know, it's like. Well, I Don't know. You're probably smoking dope or something.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

They're like, we're gonna do the opposite completely.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

It's like 1940s.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

That is crazy.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

My kids are all religious. They're all. Yeah, yeah. They all vote differently than me.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Wow.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah. And like, that's so cool. As you'd expect from what I've loved.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Yeah.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Oh, they're awesome. They're awesome. They think for themselves. What the rebellion is for my kids and a lot of their friends is they're not rebelling against social stricture. They're rebelling against a miserable culture in decline. Yeah, they're. They're rebelling against lies and. And they're embracing ancient truth. That's what they're. You know, a lot of my friends, their kids are going to temple. Right? I mean, a lot. A lot, a lot, a lot. And it's like, nobody your age was like, as your kid, it's like, if you'd been going to temple, like, what is your. Is your father a rabbi?

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Actually, my daughters. That's exactly right. My daughter was like, Friday night, everybody, whether they're Jewish or not, they're going to the, like, Friday night Shabbat. At school, I'm like, what I know is happening.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

I know, I know. And so, yeah, we grew up and my kids thrived in an Opus Day Catholic school. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, power to them.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

That's amazing.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Joining the military. Military. I'm a. I'm a musician. My wife dropped out of high school at 16 to sing with a rock band. Moved in with some older Italian guy, and her parents are like, it's cool. Wow.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Yeah, I'm.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

I know. And they think that, you know, we're bad citizens and we're. We're a bad seed, but good thing we got things back on track, my kids think.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

And you brought religion into their lives, though.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, I mean, I'm. I'm. I'm religious, and I have been since I was a kid and my wife wasn't, but she. When she. After she married me. And so we're. We're. We go to mass every day.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Every day.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Every day. Yeah.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

That's incredible.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah. I mean, it's just spiritual structure, spiritual life and masses, you know, it's the. It's. It's the experience of the divine.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

That's incredible.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah. Every morning at 6:30.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Do you.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Went to San Juan Capistrano this morning at 6:30.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

And then when you're. And then otherwise you're in Boston.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

I live in Boston in February, and March. And I live in Virginia the rest of the year.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Oh.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Because my home, my family home is in Virginia. It's where they all live.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Wow.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

And I'm on the road 48 weeks a year, so I'm on the road three days a week, 44 or four days a week.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

So where do you find math? Anywhere.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

It's like. It's like Starbucks.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Yeah, you're right.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

I don't know why. Even product. It's a high quality uniform product like Starbucks.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

How nice though. You know it's going to be there.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Totally. And. And you can always find one at 6:30 or 7, wherever you are. And.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

And did you do that when the kids were little?

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

No. I mean, we've always gone. We've always gone to church, but I started going, my wife started going about 20 years ago every day. And so when the kids were in school and I started going about 10 years ago every day.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Wow.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah. She grew up in an atheist home, a communist atheist home in Barcelona, but

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

longing, I guess, for some grounding.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

It didn't seem very longing to me when I met her, but, you know, she came around.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

That's so wild.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah. I mean, you grow together, you grow up together. We've been together since we were in our early 20s, so.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

So before you even went back to school?

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. I was, I was playing in the Barcelona or I actually moved to Barcelona to try to get her to marry me and learn the language and join the orchestra when I was there. And that's. Yeah.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

What a wild life you've led.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

It's a little unconventional if you, if you ask my kids.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Yeah. Now, do you know Lisa Miller's work?

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Oh, I know Lisa. She's great.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

She was on my dissertation committee.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

She's super observant. She's serious about her faith. She and I went to. I took her to see the Dalai Lama last year.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Oh, really?

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, I took her to Dharamsala with me because I go every year, so.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Oh, that's so cool. I love her so much.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

She's great. She's a great thinker.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

I actually when the reason I had her on my dissertation at Columbia was because everybody knew she was like at the time because now that research is so cool and interesting. Every reason to it. But at the time she was like the nice one and so. But then I reconnected with her years later.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, she's great. If you were the awakened brain.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Yeah.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah. It's a great book.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Yeah. And I had her on the podcast to talk about it.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, she's great.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

And I have to say that the exercises that she kind of covered felt like regardless of whether or not you feel connected to a higher power, it felt like she really clarified.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

The choices that we make and how we can connect to that. And I totally, I felt like, I think it's exciting to make science and spirituality live in the same place instead of always trying to separate them.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

It's so absurd that we were to separate them because you actually don't understand one without the other. It's very hard to understand Picasso without understanding his paintings and very, very meaningless to look at Picasso without knowing the man.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Let's say more.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

The creator and the creation reinforce each other. You can't find the creator in the creation. You'll find zero examples of J.K. rowling appearing in Harry Potter, but Harry Potter would not exist without J.K. rowling. And so if you're a serious scientist, you better have some. If you're going to understand physics, you better have questions about metaphysics. Yeah, but you're not serious about the whole experience of it. You're looking at it through a soda straw on purpose.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Well, it's interesting that you say that, because I want to talk about the meaning, like the three parts of meaning. And I'd love for you to define coherence, purpose, and significance. What I was going to tell you is that I recall many times

[Podcast Host / Announcer]

when

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Penelope, who loves physics and astrophysics in particular, was like, don't you constantly question all of this stuff? And I was like, I didn't before you started to talk about it with me.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

It's funny. That's one of the most popular at Harvard, where I teach and she studies. It's one of the most popular classes for undergraduates is astronomy. And one time I asked one of the undergraduates, why are you all so crazy about this class? Are the professors. And they're like, no, that's not it. And, and this woman said, this young woman said to me, a student, she said, you know, I don't know, but, you know, I'm, I, I, I'll be, like, super stressed out because I had a big argument with my mom or I think my boyfriend's gonna break up with me, or I got a B, which is like the end of the world at Harvard. And, and I go into my astronomy class and I come out an hour later, and I'm like, I'm a speck on a speck on a spec. And it puts my life into perspective. And I don't know why, but it makes me happy. And that's actually one of the cosmic truths of life, is that the Psychodra throws us into, is all me, me, me, me, me. But if you want to be happy, you need to get smaller, not larger. You need to be looking at something and standing in awe of something bigger.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Okay, so I want to talk about how to do that.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, exactly. And that's, you know, that's an experience that uses the brain in a very ancient way that we've gotten away from. And the cost of it is not understanding the meaning of our lives.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

So when you talk about meaning, can you just. Just to put it in context, what is meaning?

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

What's the meaning of meaning?

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

What is the meaning of meaning, please?

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, the meaning of. And this is what people have been asking for thousands of years, of course, but the modern behavioral scientists talk about it in terms of three interlocking why questions. Meaning is about why. All the stuff that's not about meaning is how and what. What we're trying to do all day, but why. And, you know, Simon Sinek talks about that. Start with why. That's really about mission, and it's about meaning. And if you understand the meaning of what you're doing, you'll work with a sense of gusto and you'll actually be able to dig in. People will understand you better. Of course. You'll understand yourself is the bottom line. So the three questions are, why do things happen the way they do? Why am I doing what I'm doing? And why do I matter? Why does my life matter? The first is what we call coherence. Why do things happen the way that they do? And many people answer that with religion, like me. Many people answer it with science, also like me. And some people who are baffled by both or alienated from both, they'll answer it in all sorts of novel ways, like conspiracy theories. If you have a conspiracy theorist in your life who's going down the rabbit hole on the Internet, don't yell at them and say, you unscientific moron, that's unhelpful. That conspiracy theory interest is a cry for meaning. It's actually. It's a cry for happiness because happiness requires meaning and. And meaning requires coherence. And that's a way to get coherence so that you help somebody like that is offering them a different kind of coherence, a different answer to the question, why do things happen the way that they do? Which is why, you know, when people find love and religion, they tend to get less interested in conspiracy theories.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

That's so. Okay. So when young children ask all these why questions about meaning.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Have you ever thought about ways to start opening up those conversations?

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Because you think about those preschoolers that start to realize like death exists or purpose exists or what you love exists. It's just all of these deep questions that they start asking, but they don't really understand what it is.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah. And the truth is, parents struggle with this, with coherence. And the second part being purpose, why am I doing what I'm doing? The last part being significance. Why does my life matter? Those questions don't have perfect answers. And kids, when they're starting to form, when they're forming cognitively, especially at 3 and 4, when they're developing the property of transitivity, which is a very logical property, A is greater than B and B is greater than C. So A is greater than C, all that stuff, that's really a development of the left hemisphere of their brains. And they come to believe that every question worth asking has an actual closed form answer.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Right.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

In other words, they're starting to believe that everything could be. If they don't know about Google yet, I hope, but that Google could answer any question. And the truth is that Google can only answer certain kinds of questions. AI can only answer certain kinds of questions. The big metaphysical questions that we all struggle with are questions that. And this is the test, are you asking a meaning question? AI can't answer it. It's like if you put into chatgpt, hey, what would I give my life for? It'll start by kissing your butt. It'll start by saying, that's a very smart question.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Right.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

You, like Aristotle, are asking the biggest questions. And then it'll give you a bunch of nonsense about how a bunch of different people throughout history have tried to answer that question. It won't answer your question because that's not a question that gets an answer. That's a question that gets an experience of understanding. And that's what kids are uncomfortable with. And that's what freaks parents out, because they don't know what to do. It's like, you know, why are there bad people in the world? You know, why? You know, why are there babies and all that? You can answer that in some sort of biological way, but fundamentally, the kid is asking a metaphysical question and wants a clear answer. And the way to deal with that, to help the child is to say, what do you think? And actually turn it back and have them explore the why part. Because that will exercise the right hemispheres of their little highly synaptically plastic brains. And the more they do that, the more they're going to find and have an inchoate understanding of the meaning of their own lives and set them on the right trajectory to live with these big questions for the rest of their lives.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

I love that also, after a while, it's great to just turn it right back on, always.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Well, it's also to say, nobody knows specifically, here's how I think about it, and then create an image. Part of the reason is because the language centers of your brain are in the left hemisphere. The how and what, the Broca's area and the Wernicke's area of your brain are over there. And so therefore, when you try to take a big, deep mystery or meaning concept and verbalize it, especially when you're not ready, it's going to be awkward and kind of lame. And kids know it. I mean, it'll be like, okay, it's not satisfying, okay. But, you know, it's funny because, you know, I talk to a lot of people in the religious world about apologetics. Apologetics are arguments for the existence of God. That's how apologetics work. They always leave you cold. They never really convince you because they're left brain approximations for right brain truth.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Right.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

And so you can't do it can't be done. What you need to do is to experience the existence and presence of God in your life through meditation and worship. And then you'll have an understanding that's ineffable, that goes beyond your ability to articulate.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

And for some people, that might look like just awe.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, for sure. I mean, standing. That's the reason that people love that astronomy course, because they're actually getting an ineffable experience of the metaphysical. Fundamentally, some people will do that with the Brahma muhurta, which is waking up before dawn and walking without devices as the sun comes up, or listening to Bach or of a passana meditation practice. For me, it's going to mass every day. But the whole point is that we need that in our lives because if we don't, then life gets reduced. It gets reduced to this left hemisphere, how and what world? And we start to marginalize the why world. And the why world is man.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

That's.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

That's where the action is.

[Podcast Host / Announcer]

And now for a quick break. Well, you know how little ones eat and they use their hands and they love good food, and you think about the food they eat. Well, Ello Clean Start is also thinking about what they're eating on. And Ello's new ceramic toddler tableware collection is designed to help families feel good about the choices that they make at the table right from the start because what kids eat from also really matters. And it's made from premium porcelain, ceramic, not plastic. It's got removable food grade silicon bumpers to protect surfaces. And it's naturally non toxic and non porous, so it's not going to absorb odors or stains or leach into foods. And it's of course free from BPAs and PVCs and phthalates and melamine and PFAs, those forever chemicals. And it is microwave safe and dishwasher safe so that you can use it easily every day. It's available in three thoughtfully designed options. They've got the divided breakfast plate which is one large and two smaller sections for those pickier eaters. And then they have an everything plate that's just a modern all purpose toddler plate. And then they have the toddler bowl which is stackable and it's deep so you can actually eat cereals and pastas. So visit elloproducts.com cleanstart and use the code RGH at checkout for 20% off your first purchase. That's E L L O products.com cleanstart and use the Code RGH for 20% off your first purchase. And you know what, Grab a few presents for people with that 20% off because it's a great shower gift. I want to tell you about Experian because it can take the pain out of canceling subscriptions by handling it for you. You keep the ones you want, you put the money back in your pocket and over 200 subscriptions are cancelable or negotiable. And you can save money by letting Experian negotiate your best rate. They keep an eye out for new deals and savings opportunities and they will negotiate directly with your provider on your behalf. And the best part is that you keep 100% of your savings. And here's another thing Experian just did for me last week. I wanted to make it so that somebody couldn't basically do identity theft and start something with a credit score and open up an account and you know, part of adulting kind of thing. And it was a pain free thing to do with Experian. So I really just want you to go check out the Experian app. They have so much to offer and so much savings and also just protection for your credit. So get started with the Experian app. Now, of course results will vary. Not all bills or subscriptions are eligible and savings is not guaranteed. There is a paid membership with connected payment action required. And you can see experian.com for details. And again, you get to keep 100% of your savings.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

I sort of want to talk about the idea and maybe it's because you're talking about left and right hemisphere. So I'm thinking about, and I'm thinking about my kids and also parenting as a concept. It's all optimization right now. And it's all pretty sort of inconsistent with a lot of the things that you're talking about, except that we're doing it because of this, this incredibly meaningful, awe inspiring experience of seeing developing humans. So can you talk a little bit about how to come to terms with this and what is the antidote to kind of optimization culture?

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, so we live in an optimization culture that's highly engineered. And so engineering is fundamentally the discipline that's propelling our economy and culture. And, and anybody doesn't believe that's not paying attention to Silicon Valley. That's where, you know, the big advances are actually coming. And the belief, this neo utopian view, is that they're going to solve all of our problems. What Silicon Valley will do is solve all of our complicated left brain problems. Complicated problems are those that have solutions, but they're really, really hard to find. And once you solve them, they're solved. Like creating a jet engine or writing a piece of software. They'll find you a pizza at 10pm or, you know, all of that stuff is left brain, complicated problems. The right brain deals with complex problems. Complex problems are those that are very easy to understand. Like she loves me, I love her. Very easy to understand. They can't be solved. I've been married 34 years. I have not solved my marriage. I mean, I'm married to a Spaniard. So that's a truly, that's an insoluble, you know, complex problem. But this is why I love my marriage, by the way. Your kids, your relationship with your kids is complex. You understand it, you love them unconditionally, but you will never solve it because you don't know what's going to happen. Because kids are dynamic because they're alive and so are you. And so the result is you need to love it and live it every day. That's the way that it works. But we live in a technologized culture that says that we can solve problems. This becomes a cognitive dissonance that we believe that we're bad parents because we're not solving this problem. That's the most important problem to our lives. And so we're looking for the next book, we're looking for the next app, we're looking for the next podcast that will give us the solutions to these problems as opposed to understanding we need to live with these problems, that we need to love people notwithstanding conflicts that we actually have. And to say, and to get a degree of comfort. Having comfort with these inevitable areas of suffering, of life is really part of being alive. And that's how our brains always were supposed to work. I mean, your great grandfather never came home and said, hey, honey, I had a panic attack behind the mule today because his brain was working the way it was supposed to. He was bored a lot, and he had a whole lot of suffering that he couldn't actually deal with. And he had nobody to answer a whole bunch of big questions. That's the way his brain was evolved. And that's your parent brain, too.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

So when our parent brains panic that our children are experiencing something terrible, like getting bored.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Right.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Or feeling appropriately just like, not happy all the time.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, let's figure out how to deal with that. Yeah, let's figure out how to deal with that. So let me give you a slightly left brain way of looking at that big right brain problem. One of the things that you and I and everybody else listening to us as parents suffers a lot from is the suffering of their children. Yeah, but life, as the Buddha said in his first noble truth, is suffering. Dukkha. Life is suffering. Actually, what he meant, the better translation is life is dissatisfaction. But anyway, close enough.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Really feel like it gets confused.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

It does, it does. But there is tons of suffering in life. You know, and, you know, I'm. And. And I tell my students I'm pro suffering. And the reason is because suffering is actually how you understand meaning in life.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Yeah, it.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

But it depends on how you deal with it. So the Buddhists have a little bit of math about suffering. Suffering equals pain multiplied by resistance. Pain times resistance. Now think about this in our heads, something that you multiply one by the other. You can lower either of them to get less of the product, or one or the other. Both.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Both.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Neither. Et cetera. Most people today in the technologized left brain world believe that they can find an algorithm to lower the pain, thus lowering the suffering. Now, pain and suffering, not the same thing. Pain is a neurophysiological phenomenon, either sensory, ouch, you touch the hot stove, or affective. I don't like it. Whether it's mental or physical suffering. Right. Pain, that's part of the brain, and that's just that we have to have that or we die immediately because we wouldn't get signals. So that's automatic. What's not automatic is suffering, which is the struggle that ensues. What the technologized world has told us about parenting and every other part of our life is that we need to find a way to lower the pain, to lower the kids pain, to lower their suffering. That's impossible. Life is painful and you're going to have pain. And you want your kids to have pain because that's an advanced alarm system to keep them safe. What you want to lower is their resistance. And that's our job. Your job is not to keep your kids safe, to, to proof the world against everything. Your job is to help your child understand how to deal with pain, how to lower their resistance to actual pain. And thus they can have a lot of pain in other lives, which they will, but not as much suffering. This is how you know you're killing it in life, is if your pain is high, but your suffering is low, you're going through divorce, but your suffering is lower than it otherwise would be. You broke your arm or your bedridden, or you're depressed and your pain is very high, but your suffering is low because that means that you've lowered your resistance. And that's what we need to be doing with, with our kids.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

So some kids, just because of their temperament, are going to have a higher propensity toward that, toward pain.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, more pain, more pain or more resistance.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Right.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Some kids have super, super high resistance to pain. And what they hear and what they see from their parents is really important. If you as a parent are going through life trying to avoid your own pain, trying to eliminate your own pain, your kids are going to see that in a heartbeat. Oh, yeah, no, that's painful. I gotta stop. You know, somebody's bothering me, I gotta cut them off, right? Oh, yeah. It's like, oh, mom has no contact with her mom because that's a painful relationship. Okay? So that's an avenue. And these, all of these movements, these, these misguided movements, they're all about lowering pain as opposed to understanding the concept of resistance, which is not a Buddhist concept. That's every religion and every serious philosophy talks about how do you learn and grow from pain such that your suffering can be lower even when pain is inevitably high.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Now, of course, I'm like, as a human, do you feel like you don't have to keep this in the podcast, But I'm so curious.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Everything's fair here.

[Podcast Host / Announcer]

Do you feel like you were.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

You were drawn to meaning making and all of this because it's easier. You, like, have a propensity toward pain and suffering.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, for sure. Happiness is hard for me. Yeah, happiness is hard for me. And you know, about half. Half of your happiness is genetic.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Yeah.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Meaning your mother literally did make you unhappy. We know this from identical twins were separated at birth and given personality tests. You've seen those really interesting tests.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Yes, but tell everybody, because I think it's actually really important otherw otherwise everybody's like, what?

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

What's wrong with me? Yeah, yeah. So identical twins born between the 1930s and 1960s that were separated at birth and adopted as separate families. That doesn't happen anymore, but it did. And it's like a perfect, near perfect quasi experiment for social sciences like me to have their clipboards out. And they were given personality tests, and then you were able to see how differing environment versus identical genes, how it affects your personality later in life. And what that shows pretty accurately is about half of your tendency toward positive affect is genetic. And that's how you wake up in the morning. Some people wake up in the morning and they're like, it's a great day. Folks watching us that you're annoying anyway. And the rest of us are like, gratitude. You need some interventions from the very beginning. And I come from really, really gloomy stock. A lot of mental illness, a lot of trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble. And so good. That means that the other 50%, about half of which is circumstantial, which doesn't last, but another quarter, the last quarter is habits, has to be on point. The reason I study happiness is because I want as perfect habits as I can possibly get, which is still not perfect, which allows me to manage my genetics. There's a lot of things that are genetically you can manage, like alcoholism. You know, this is one big habit. If you have alcoholism in your family that you can adopt, called not drinking. Right.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Yeah.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

And so if you have gloomy stock, if you have gloomy parents and grandparents, you got to live better.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Bless you.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

And I wanted to get. I wanted to be a happiness virtuoso in my habits. And one of the things that I found, by the way, that you've no doubt found this as well, is that the greatest secret to happiness is by bringing the secrets to others. That's why I teach it, because happiness teachers, of course, program their brains to be accountable to the ideas that they're teaching.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

And how challenging is it for you?

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Well, it depends on the day. And you have to ask my wife. But the truth is I've gotten about 60% happier based on the best protocols for measurement that exist out there. And some of them are very, very solid tests that we have. And I administer the tests every year because I'm teaching my students, I take the tests. And in the past seven years since I've been completely dedicated to this, I retired as a CEO. I'm a long time. I academic behavioral scientist. But I took an 11 year hiatus in the middle, and when I came back, I said, I'm going to teach, write and speak about happiness per se, as a scientist for the rest of my life. And I started to. Because I want it. And I started taking the tests. And in the past seven years, my happiness has increased by 60%.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

That's wild. Okay, can you just talk a little bit about those habits? Because I do think it's so cool that we acknowledge genetics because that seems to be like. Also you're not allowed to talk about, like there's some, some of this is just like some of you guys.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

My dad also had a huge nose. I mean, it's like, you know, my dad was also bald. I mean, it's like, thanks, dad.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

But for some reason we resist that when it comes to how we come to be who we are.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, I know. And because we want to be the captains of our own ship, most of your audience is American and you know, as rugged individualists, we want to be in charge of our fate. I get it. And so it's not even just political correctness, it's just how we're wired.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Yeah.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

We want to be in charge.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

You want to feel like you've got

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

agency and you do, but just not all of it.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Right. So I love, I just love what you said about how, okay, for you, these happiness habits are kind of crucial. Maybe for someone else they can be a little bit lazier about it.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah. So it starts with an understanding of what happiness actually is. Because most people think it's a feeling. And if you're chasing a feeling, that's like chasing a vapor.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Because you're just moving all the time.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, yeah. Moving all the time. And because your, your feelings, your emotions are produced by the limbic system of your brain as an advanced warning system about threats and, and threats and opportunities that you've perceived. And the reptilian brain, the brain stem and cerebellum, and the, the lower structures in your brain that have been around for more than 40 million years predating Homo sapiens, they give you all this information that is Below your level of delivered largely to your limbic system where it's made into emotions. Emotions are not there to give you a good day or a bad day. They're there to tell you that something should be avoided or approached. Negative emotions are supposed to be unpleasant. They're supposed to scare you or make you angry or make you sad or make you disgusted so you don't get poisoned or attacked or et cetera. And the positive emotions in the same way to say hey, there's a possible mate or calories or we're still placed to seeing animals. Our brains are the same as they were 250,000 years ago approximately. So that's important to keep in mind because that shows us that this big biological basis for how our emotions work. And if you're looking for a feeling, you're looking in the wrong place. Happiness has feelings in the same way that the smell of your turkey is associated with your Thanksgiving dinner. Happy feelings are evidence of happiness. That means you need to look at the real thing and understand what it is. Happiness has three parts to it. Three macronutrients. So we're going to stay on the metaphor of Thanksgiving dinner. The protein, carbohydrates and fat that you need in balance and abundance for happiness are enjoyment, satisfaction and meaning. So we started the conversation talking about meaning because that's my new book is about how to find the meaning of your life. But the other two are satisfaction and enjoyment. Satisfaction is the joy from an accomplishment after struggle that gives your life goals and direction. Enjoyment is pleasure plus people plus memory. The search for pleasure is not the secret to happiness. That's the secret to rehab. Because all that's doing is tapping the limbic system, very ancient structures of your brain. People who want to feel good all the time, they wind up getting addicted, et cetera, and engage in all sorts of self destructive behaviors. But when you add people in memory to your pleasures, you can manage your pleasures, make them social and permanent and that's enjoyment. So the first thing from my personal search for greater happiness was understanding where I'm weak. I'm pretty strong on meaning part of it because I'm 61 and I've been married for a super long time and I have kids and grandkids and religion and all that stuff, which is some of the things that people typically look for in the right hemisphere of my brain is pretty active, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. My satisfaction is through the roof. A joy from accomplishment after struggle. I'm all struggling. Accomplishment man, where I'm Weak is enjoyment. That's my weak suit. I don't enjoy my life. My enjoyment is at the bottom. I'm at the like the 10th percentile in enjoyment. I've got a test on my website called the happiness scale. We'll put it in the show [e-mail] and people are taking it. I mean, thousands and thousands of people are taking it every week at this point of this happiness scale test, which is a beautiful thing. And you can find out where you're weak in your macronutrient profile for happiness. Me, it's enjoyment. And that's a problem. A lot of strivers suffer with a lack of enjoyment. They're super high on achievement and on satisfaction and they might have pretty good meaning. But I have to do enjoyment boot camp for billionaires and athletes and actors and super strivers. Yeah. And I mean, you and I have the same friends.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

It's so wild because you're totally right. I've only recently just decided that mahjong is my happy place.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

You enjoy mahjong?

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

I just started and I'm so amazed at how, first of all, you become

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

your grandmother on Long Island.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

I literally just became a 90 year old, old, old Jewish lady. But it's so weird because my husband was watching me and also he was like, we are only a year in. We do. I do. This is too soon. But what I was noticing is like the women that I was playing with, we were like. Because I was invited to do this when my kids were younger and I was just like, I am working and raising children. You want me to have a hobby, like to just like hang out.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Right.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

And other than relaxing, which I'm very fond of.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Right. But relaxation is recharging. It's not. Relaxation is actually not enjoyment.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Oh, good. I was good at relaxation. But just for recharging.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, But I could go do more work.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

But just to go do more work. Totally.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

And so leisure is not recharging for work.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Okay. So is my mahjong leisure?

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, for sure. So proud. Joseph Pieper, the great German philosopher from the 20th century. He wrote his. Probably his best book was called Leisure the Basis of Culture. He said leisure is what drives us. But leisure is not chilling on a beach. Leisure is not getting ready to work more. Leisure is a serious business. You're just not getting compensated through earthly rewards for it. And so he puts it in the categories of deepening your religious faith, deepening your relationships, learning something new for the sake of learning it. Those are. That's leisure.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

I genuinely just took up Leisure recently.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

There you go. And, and that, and that's. That's gonna, you're gonna get better at enjoyment as a result of it because leisure leads to enjoyment. If you understand leisure.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

That's very interesting.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Your daughter. Do your daughters. Does your, like, your daughter in college understand leisure and enjoyment?

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

No.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, this is, this is, this is

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

what she needs to learn, in fact,

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

or she'll wind up like me.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Yeah. In fact, my younger daughter very much does. Yeah, she loves just sitting and drawing for hours and painting. And I don't know if that's leisure, if that's considered leisure, but she's.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

No, no. For sure.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Okay. My older daughter is always like. To what end are you doing that?

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Points on the scoreboard. Yeah, points on the scoreboard. Now a lot of people.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

That's why I couldn't believe she liked your dog.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, she came to see me at Harvard and. Well, part of it is because it's an analytical approach and people understand themselves. So my classes are oversubscribed because people understand themselves and people are endlessly fascinated with themselves scientifically. So I'm like the Cosmo quiz. PhD, yes.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Oh, my God, that's so smart. But then what a way in.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, that's the way. And there's so much garbage out there, so much dumb nonsense on the feel good quasi scientific stuff. And if it's real science based on what we're supposed to be doing in the academy, but it's about you incorporated, then it gets really interesting to people. And this is especially true for people who've never understood, why can't I? Why can't I enjoy my life? I'm doing everything I'm supposed to do, but I'm not happy. Oh, that. That's. That becomes an epiphany.

[Podcast Host / Announcer]

And now for a quick break. So you know how you need so much protein? Like, we hear about this all the time. And don't you have trouble getting so much protein? Because I cannot get the necessary amount of protein that I'm supposed to have

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

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[Podcast Host / Announcer]

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[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

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[Podcast Host / Announcer]

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[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

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[Podcast Host / Announcer]

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[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

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[Podcast Host / Announcer]

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[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

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[Podcast Host / Announcer]

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[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

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[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

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[Podcast Host / Announcer]

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[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

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[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

So this feels like a a large challenge Younger and younger. Like we. Childhood used to be quite a bit of leisure.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

And now it feels like a lot of. A lot of stress to strive.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Strive big. And is there a world where you can be a healthy striver and also have leisure and have a proper experience so that you can get into adulthood a little bit more ready to be a person?

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Well, the first part of your point is, is spot on, which is that it has gotten much harder in our technologized culture because in the past you could be a very, very serious person, but your brain would be working the way it's supposed to work. Now. What's going to happen if you're a very serious person, that you're going to be all about countable metrics, using technology, and everything you're going to be doing is how and what, how and what, how and what. And that's all left brain. And with a non integrated brain between why, how and and what, then you're going to be doing everything, but you're going to. But feeling nothing. I have everything, but I feel nothing. I'm empty. I hear this again and again and again. Another thing that I hear a lot from super strivers who are in their 20s is I feel like I'm living in a simulation. And that's when you technologize everything and everything is for points on the board. It's a fake life. You're not living a life in real life. And it's not just because you're online all the time. Well, that certainly hurts. You wake up and the first thing you look at is your phone. And then you look at your phone while you're, you know, you're checking on your messages as you're eating your breakfast and drinking your coffee. And then you go to work on Zoom and then you date on an app and your friends are on social media and then you're doing a bunch of gaming. And you get my point. You can very easily be online 12 hours a day. And that is the Matrix. Yeah, that's. That's almost literally the plot of that Keanu Reeves movie from I'm going to shock you now 27 years ago.

[Podcast Host / Announcer]

Stop.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

I know, I know, I know. So my kids are like, oh, that movie from before I was born. Shut up. But it's an amazing thing because the plot of the Matrix was that there was this artificial intelligence machine, artificial intelligence that was ruling mankind, humankind, and using their energy, attention, kinetic energy, and keeping them in pods, pacifying them with a fake pleasant existence while it took their energy. We're Living that.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

I didn't really understand the Matrix when it came out.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

That's what it was. It was artificial intelligence subjugating humanity and keeping them pacified, which is exactly what's happening right now. And that's the brave new world that a lot of people in Silicon Valley apparently want. And so one of the great things that we can do as parents is deliver our kids from that by getting them interested in things that are not online, that are not for money, that are not for ambition. See, this is the world that we're in is basically technologized, even when it doesn't use technology.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

It's so tricky because I would imagine a lot of people listening have much younger kids. But as kids get older, the pressure gets more intense and the achievement and accolades and all of those things everybody says, well, even colleges and people looking for. I'm like, what's that word? When you work for someone, an employee. Oh my God, I'm losing my mind.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Because you're an entrepreneur.

[Podcast Host / Announcer]

I'm like, what does that look like?

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

But it's like in the job market, what are you looking for? And people say theoretically, like authentic, curious, interested. And you talk about this in your book, the difference between curiosity and what is the word that you use? Maybe it is a simulate, maybe it is simulation. It's like you can be curious and try to do things and accomplish things. But. But how are we getting people back to doing it? For just like, the sake of doing it?

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yes, the sake of doing it and

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

the way that we. Yes, that was my 12 minute question.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

It's a good one. Because this is what a lot of parents are asking. A lot of parents think that being a good parent is pushing your kids to higher and higher levels of ambition, of worldly accomplishment, of measurable excellence. That's wrong. I mean, I understand that you want to give your kids goals, but that's not the way to raise your kids. Because here's what your kids are going to learn. And this is pretty well studied. I mean, you're a developmental psychologist. I'm in your territory right now. If you reward your kids for the things that they do really well, and you give them attention and affection and energy when they bring home a good report card or get first chair in the orchestra or make the baseball team, they will learn that love is earned and that love can be measured. Love is earned and can be measured. Nothing more nefarious could come out of Silicon Valley than that, that love is measured and earned. And so the result is that they will wire their little Synaptically plastic brains to only really get dopamine when they're winning in a measurable way. That's what they will learn. That is the secret to a success. Addiction, self objectification and workaholism. That's what you've set them up for. You've also set them up for bad marriages. Why? Because somebody who's a success addict, who believes that love is earned, what do you typically find? These are men who will work and work and work and work and work, trying to earn their wife's admiration and love through more and more worldly success. I've talked to any number of. I've worked with my wife, and I worked with so many couples over the years. And she'll say, all he does is work. And he'll say, yeah, well, I notice you like all of the fruits of this. And she'll say, I want you, but if I can't have you, I will take the money. And women who try to stay super Young, into their 40s, into their 50s, into their 60s. And why? Because they're trying to give off fitness cues, which is trying to earn somebody's love. And that's just. Where does that start? That starts with the overly technologized accomplishment culture of parents who drive their kids insane.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Okay, it's hard to do in practice, but what do you do when your kids are. When you're trying to live in both worlds? Like, you know, they're here and let's say they're in the United States and they're. You want them to follow certain paths because you think it will lead to a better adulthood. How do you stop yourself while also supporting, like, the basic fundamental skills that they're going to need to develop?

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

So, number one, heal thyself.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Number one, two and three.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Probably, yeah. I mean, it's like it. It doesn't matter what you tell them. All that matters is what they see. You know what? If you wanted. People often ask me, how do I. How do I raise my kids so they'll practice my faith. Religious parents while their kids breaks their faith. And so many kids have fallen away and, you know, their. Their friends, kids don't go to temple or church or synagogue and the mosque, whatever. Your thing is right to me, you want that. All that matters is they see you being religious. And especially the physically most imposing individual in the household being religious, which is in a traditional family, would be dad. If he's big, he's a big guy. I thought my dad was like 8ft tall. And my dad was. He would lift the house on his knees next to my bed. Wow. Every night saying his prayers with me next to my bed. My dad would have been on his knees in front of no man, but he was worshiping something greater than himself. And for me, I was a little dude. I'm like, oh, that's what it means to be a man. That's what it means to be a man. So if you're a success, addicted, workaholic, self objectifying, number counter in the search for worldly accolades, guess what they're going to see and they're going to see. That's what it means to be a meritorious individual. That's what it means to be grown up.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

And if you're a mom, not that this, this is now this will probably have to cut this out, but don't cut it out. But I can see a world where part of the splendor of your accomplishments is what you're producing in terms of like your kid and like getting accolades for being number one mom and at school and in, you know, like you're

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

living through them and living through them and pushing them.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

It's no different.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, well, you're serving your, you're showing your mom if you're, if you're that mom, you're giving them love because of what they do, not who they are. Now, so here's the first principle, heal thyself. Principle number two. Remember what love is.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

What is love?

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Love is a free gift freely given. Is to will the good of the. To will the good of the other. Not because of what they do, because of who they are. Your kids need to know that you love them no matter what. Under all sorts. You can rob a bank. I will still love you. And it's because of you, not because of what you do. If you, if you love them, them disproportionately when they do something really well, they will become human doings, not human beings. Your choice. Because their little brains are wiring up with everything that happens right now. You got to love them as a grace, as a free gift freely given. And then the things that they do that are really fun and excellent, they should incorporate a whole lot of how we just defined leisure. Things that don't pay and the world doesn't clap for, but that are awesome. You know, what do you know? What did you learn? How deep did you go? How healthy are your relationships? And once again, how do they learn leisure from you? They'll watch you in leisure. And if dad's never had a minute in leisure and mom's never had A minute in leisure. Well, I mean, woe be unto us. And by the way, it's like, I'm so perfect in this. Are you kidding me? I'm a super striver par excellence. I was putting points on the board when I was nine years old. I was a classical musician. Anybody who knows classical musicians, like, being a gymnast.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Yeah.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

You know, it is crazy the number of hours that you're putting in from, you know, prepubescent days, and then as an academic and then as a CEO. And, you know, I worked that 14th hour before the first hour with my kids. And the reason is because I wanted to be special rather than happy. I chose special over happy. And my kids got revenge. They grew up right. And. And the result of it, thank God they have a normal mother. I'm a normal person.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Right.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

And. And result of it is there was a whole lot of healing in my own life. I had to do it, and I studied my way into it. So I'm not just giving other people advice. I'm trying to take it myself. And I've become a much more equilibrated person. I still have a lot to do.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

How are you as a grandfather?

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Better. It's the only thing in life that's truly not overrated. But here's the interesting thing about it. Because of that, I never had a close relationship with my parents. It was cordial, fine. But I grew up in Seattle. I moved when I was 18. And I was. I was hustling, man, I was grinding. I was, you know, I was making my way. I wanted to be the world's greatest French horn player. And I was touring Europe, you know, through my twenties, and doing my thing. And I thought, you know, I kind of get to know my parents. My father was a brilliant mathematician. My mother was a painter of some significant renown of Pacific Northwest. And I thought, there's such interesting cultured artistic people, scientists and artists and all that. Yeah, I'll get to knowing it. They died. Oh, yeah. Young. And that was. I don't have very many regrets, but that was a real regret until I realized I get a do over with my kids and grandkids and man, I'm not messing it up. So the result is we actually have an intergenerational family in the same house. We made a family decision like, I eat my own cooking. I read the research and I try to change my life. Information can change your life. Knowledge is power. And intergenerational homes that are not forced. Not just because mom got addicted to drugs and the kids had to be raised by their grandparents. I mean, whatever happens. I'm not talking about this. I'm talking when you voluntarily live together, it's way better for Junior, and it's way better for grandpa and grandma. Yeah, you're gonna live way longer, and the kids are gonna grow up with better cognitive development and more happiness. That's the bottom line. And so we made a family decision. We got moving vans, and we all moved to the same place. Place.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Wow.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

It's not, you know, seven families in one house. I mean, we've got two families in one house, but tons of people. And the other kids live up the street. And. And I didn't have that. I mean, my. My kids. Their one set of grandparents was in Barcelona, and the other kids said a grandparents was in Seattle, and they didn't know them.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

What's your family meal time like?

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

It's cacophony. It's chaos because there's babies and there's lots of babies. There's babies, babies, babies, you know, so my kids have been having kids annually since they got married, and they got married in there early. It's like. I mean, not Exactly. They're like 13 months apart, but that's really close. Raise them Catholic. They do Catholic stuff.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

I was just gonna say they are really hard getting into it, but they're

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

into it because they know part of it is because we're there and we help and we're doing. It's old School. It's 1940 in this way. And it's. Not everybody can do it. I got it. Not everybody can do it. It's not available to everybody. It doesn't a privilege in its way, but it's also a privilege that people could do and pass on is to be parents and grandparents and. And. And just annoy each other and get in each other's way. And. And, you know, there's always rice on the couch. And, you know, it's just. It. It's.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

There's always rice on the couch.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

We're tidier than they are, but it's fine. And. And I hope they never move.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

That's so wonderful. Okay. You have a few pro tips for just good marriages.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah. So the greatest gift that you can give to your kids is a good marriage. And not everybody can have that.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

I know.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Not everybody can have that. I mean, it's like, stuff happens is what it comes down to. And it takes two to tango. Right. It's like you can have all the best intent to have a great marriage. And if you don't have A partner there. And a lot of people can relate to that. But a lot of marriages can be saved. And in the absence of abuse or abandonment or disloyalty, a lot of marriages, they just. They fade. They just get cold. And so for marriages that are just cold, no catastrophe, just cold, just kind of meh, There's a lot of work that shows how you can reheat it quick. This is the microwave of marriage.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

What is it?

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

There's four things. Four things to do. Two are neurochemical and two are more psychological. On the neurochemical side, number one is eye contact. And this is something that a lot of guys and they don't know. Women have three times as much oxytocin as men. And the reason for that is because women bond to babies. And when babies are nursing, you remember when you nursed your children?

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Right, I did.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

And they would stare up at you and it was like the fourth of July. And yes, oxytocin. And that's a neurochemical. It's a neuropeptide that functions as a hormone, and that's human bonding. Women have three times as much as men. Men still have a of lot, and men need it, but women need it more. And one of the best ways to get that is eye contact from your beloved. Especially when you're talking. The big mistake that husbands make is they don't stare at their wives in their eyes when they're having a conversation. They stop making eye contact when they're talking. It's like, guys, if you're listening to this, and I realize there's probably more women, but for guys, pull this one part out is do this without telling her and actually start for a week. Just be staring at her as you're talking to her and watch how she weirdly gets happier. That helps. It helps a lot. And you'll be happier too, dudes. Second is touch. The rule is abt always be touching. Always be touching your soulmate. And you should be connected physically, one flesh. People take that really sexually. What it really is is the right hemispheres of the brain connecting. Because your marriage, your partnership, is an antenna to the divine. If you let it be that. But it really helps a lot when is more physical contact. Men actually need this a little bit more than women. So ladies, when you're with your guy and you're walking down the street, hook your arm in his. That thing will make him feel like he's seven feet tall. Just do that. And so every time you're together, you're touching. Touch, touch, touch. Touch. Watching tv, you're touching. No matter what you're doing, you're touching. I mean, I realize that if there are inappropriate moments, like, you know, you need both hands, for example. But always be holding hands. Always be holding hands. That's second. Second rule. Third rule is less time rehearsing grievance and more time just having fun. So a lot of trouble with couples therapy is it's a rehearsal of grievances. It's like, you did this, you did this. Well, let's talk about why you did this. Well, why did you say this? And you know, and a lot of times it's like, just go have fun. Go ride your bikes together. Go do something that's really fun that you both really like. That just covers a multitude of sins. Having more fun, have more fun. And the last is actually worship or meditate together is pray or meditate together. That's one of the most intimate things that couples miss. Sex is way less intimate than prayer. And praying together is super intimate. I know couples that are religious who are 50 years into their marriage and don't pray in front of each other because it's too embarrassing.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

So.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Or meditation or something.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

I know I do meditate.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Is your husband a meditator?

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

No, no.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

He should start praying.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

But he, he, I think he feels like his workouts are his meditation.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, it's, you know, I can talk about the neurophysiology of how workouts affect our. It's very significant for lowering negative affect. That's one of the ways that I self manage is that I work out a lot because I have very high levels of negative affect, negative emotionality. I mean, I'm a mad scientist. High positive, high negative, which is a quarter of the population. Right. And self management is really, really important. And one of the ways to do that, that I mean, is drugs and alcohol bad? Right. For affect management, workaholism bad. Right. Workouts good. Religion or spirituality good. Or meditation good. And so the fact that he says, I feel a lot better when I work out, that's probably because he's self managing his negative affect levels.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

He won't go a day.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, yeah, right. I can guarantee you right now that he has high negative affect naturally. Naturally. And so that helps because people who have low negative affect, they don't feel better when they work out and they have a hard time staying on an exercise routine.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Yeah.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

So if you have a high negative affect, you'll be like, yeah, I gotta work another way to do that.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

I really feel like it's gotta be Better to have because I work out, because I have. Because I'm 52 years old and like I want to be agile and be there for my grandkids, but my mood is the same either way.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

And I was thinking, my husband's so lucky that he sees a real difference in working out for mood because then he does it.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

His negative affect is high. So he's. What about his positive affect? Is it also high?

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Yeah.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Okay, so he's a mad scientist like me.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

I mean, he's so managed that you would not.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

No, that doesn't. You would not notice how he presents. No, it's.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

But inside, like we were doing, I had him do this sensitivity test because I wanted to prove my point, which is that he's kind of an orchid.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Right.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

And. But he presents as like he a finance guy who's like on the rowing team. And I probably. You would think I was more of an orchid and more highly sensitive and because of what I do or whatever. And actually probably not. We're the total, like he's such an orchid and he's just incredibly self managed.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah. And you're more of a cheerleader, which means you have a higher positive effect and more and, and naturally lower intensity. You have negative affect like everybody else. Lower intensity, yeah. Now the other two profiles are the poet, which is high negative and low positive. Very creative, very romantic. Depressive.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Yeah.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

And then there's the low, low, low affect people. Those are the judges. People want to know what they are. They take the happiness scale at my website, you'll find out what they are. You'll find out that, that. And that's really super important information because then you know whether your bigger challenge is happiness or unhappiness. Whether positive or negative is your bigger challenge. Because if you naturally are high and positive, but you're just trying to drive up the positive and wondering why you still feel unhappy a lot because you're working on the wrong side of the ledger. And so for me, negative is more important. And so I work out every day, but I also follow up my workouts by going to mass every day because they reinforce each other and so spiritual.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

That's what you do when you say to pray. When you pray together, you're literally going to mass together to pray.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

We also pray at the end of the day too. We also have meditative prayer. This is an ancient Catholic meditation called the rosary. Very much like in style, like vipassana meditation. Yeah. And we do that every day too. So couples finding something like that. And a lot of couples who are not religious, but they do believe in God, for example. So pray. So pray together. Why don't you talk to God? If you believe in God, why don't you talking to him? You're building a relationship with somebody or something that you believe in, but you're not practic. That's odd in its way, but that's just because of habits. And so, you know, you believe in God. He believes in God. If that's true, then you could prayer. Pray together.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Even though we are. Yeah. From very different sort of different.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

I mean, you know, I'm a Christian. I'm just like from a minor Nazarene sect of Judaism.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Right, right.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Call it the Catholic Church.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

But Catholics and Jews have a similar situation.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Constitutional situation.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

To understand Jews at. As our older, older sisters and brothers. I mean, you understand us. Yes, you understand us. And we literally believe in the same God. And if we believe that God exists, why aren't we talking to him together? And then it's like sharing. It's on my heart. This thing is on my heart. Because you're talking to your wife, too. And that's real hard, really intimate. But boy, are you wiring your batteries together. And that one is just an absolute, like super glue for.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

And are you talking to each other or facing God?

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

And that's the funny thing. That's an Aristotelian idea. So Aristotle talked about perfect friendships as those that have a third love and where the. Where the friends will walk forward into the future together. Like, walk forward together, facing the thing that they love. It's a very beautiful image.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

And that's what you do.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, because you're talking to God. You're. You're usually sitting next to each other.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Isn't that. I've never thought about. Like, I talk in my head. Like, I have plenty of conversations, but they're not like focused, intentional at a particular moment. But it's never. I've never really known how one does that. Like when you said your father prayed every night.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

I mean, I can see it because you said he got on his knees.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Heavenly Father. I mean, it was like a very traditional Catholic, Christian prayer. Right. And Jews pray in a different way. But, you know, when you go to temple, they're praying to God. It's interesting because I've learned a lot more about this every year. I give at least one talk on a high holy day in one of the temples in Washington or Boston.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Really?

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

They say you're our favorite Catholic. I'm like, yeah, you say that to all the Catholics. Anyway. But it's very interesting because I was actually doing one at one of the big temples, Temple Beth Emanuel in Newton, Mass. Which is a really famous place, as you know. And after afterward there's a really well known Rabbi, West Garden Swartz, who's a great rabbi. He's a famous guy and he's like, would you lead our congregation in prayer? And he exposes. He takes out the. Draws back the curtain for the. And it's like, I'm going to pray extemporaneously in a packed congregation on Yom Kippur.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Oh my God.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Which includes the president of Harvard, by the way, where I'm a professor. And I'm thinking of myself, don't say Jesus. Don't say Jesus.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

I feel like everybody would get.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Was great. It was great. Not the performance, obviously. It was a great experience of wiring my batteries together with my sisters and brothers in the congregation who hadn't eaten in a long time.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Right, right.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

And they were very hungry. The 25th hour meditation that I had. Yeah, it's really beautiful experience.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

That is beautiful. I just, it never.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

How much are you willing to expose yourself, I mean, to the divine? If you believe in the divine or how you understand the divine in with your soulmate.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

And so you sit and you do this every evening.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, and we pray together every day.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Do you have a moment where you're like, it's time.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Well, generally speaking, it's, you know, like all the details. 20 minutes before we go to bed. Okay, yeah, 20 minutes. Half an hour before we go to bed. It takes about 20 minutes.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

So you're not going to bed watching like the Pit?

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

No, I mean, we don't have TV in the room actually. That's, you know, the blue screen is bad.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Yeah, maybe that's bad for another tip.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

You should probably put your phone away for the last hour that you're awake and you know, prayer together, it's just because. And then usually in bed, we'll we. Before we turn the light off, we talk with a direct eye contact for about five minutes and we hold hands because I need it. And that's what we do. I mean, we don't. It's like sometimes we're so exhausted. But we have pretty good hygiene for this stuff. Because we were married 34 years. We want another 34 if we get them. And this is. I mean, I literally want to be staring at her as I take my dying breath in the eyes. Eye contact. My last gift to her will be oxytocin.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

I want to end the conversation here. But I promised Penelope I would ask you her questions.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Just.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Just like cheating a little.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

My student. My student at Harvard.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Yeah. So I'm gonna pull her questions up because she was kind of like, wait a second.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

You're right on. It's like my mom gets direct questions.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

And what's funny is that they're so different from questions that I would have.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, of course.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

But I think they're. They're so interesting.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Okay. She's 19, right?

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Yeah, she's 19.

[Podcast Host / Announcer]

Okay.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

You explain that technology hijacks us because we're biologically wired for connection and reward.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Right.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Given these systems are so deeply ingrained, how do we think honestly about limits without pretending it's just a willpower issue?

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah. And the answer is just disciplines in the same way. So, you know, you get it takes about 42 days to build a workout routine takes about six weeks. And the way to do that, if somebody who's never worked out is really dedicated to their couch. The way four workouts that are identical.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Okay.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

And they're half an hour each and they're not very hard. Zone two cardio. And do only exactly that for seven weeks. Weeks. So that you've done the neural programming for discipline. So the discipline and habits are not willpower. It's first hour of the day. Don't look at your device. That means get a real alarm clock. Go for a walk. When you first wake up, whatever you do, last hour at night. So there's no blue screens screwing up your pineal gland and messing up your inhibiting your melatonin and during meals. Just that. Just that.

[Podcast Host / Announcer]

Okay.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Rapid fire questions from a 19 year old. You argue that modern lynch life over trains the left hemisphere and starves the right. What do you think people most misunderstand about what gets lost when life becomes dominated by optimization and problem solving?

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Smart question. These are great that the questions that really matter the most are not the ones that you can answer specifically. They're the ones that you have to live with. That's what gets lost. You get lost with the magic of doing nothing and being bored. You get lost in what it actually means to have experiences of life that you can't articulate or even understand. And that's the life in life.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Okay. You describe coherence as trusting that life isn't random, even when it's painful. How does someone develop coherence without clinging to overly simple explanations?

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, coherence, once again, is a why question. Is not going to have a simple, simple one. Anybody who says, why do things happen the way they do because God wills it. Well, that's just the very beginning of an understanding. Tell me what that means. Who is God? What does God's will actually even mean? How would you experience it? How would you know that's really where that should lead? In other words, these are not closed form questions like calculus problems. These are open form questions. If Google can give you an answer, it's not a real answer to a meaning question.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Right, right, right.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

You define a calling as work that aligns values, purpose, and being needed by others. How do people confuse passion with calling? And why does that matter in this world? Of all the hyper focusing on expertise, how do we approach steering kids and ourselves in the right direction?

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

How do you know the difference between passion and calling? Passion is part of calling, but it's not all of it. It. Passion is part of calling. You feel passion when there is a calling, because your calling is what you're meant to do that has the word meaning in it. What you're meant to do is your calling. But that's not just passion. That's not just drive. It has a lot to do with. There are a lot of things that people feel like they're meant to do that they don't feel passionate about every day. You know, being a CEO is 80% taking out the garbage.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Right.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

You know, being when you're calling is as a mom. There are a lot of days where your heart just doesn't feel like it's in it. And if you only did it when you have passion, then you're relying excessively on the limbic system. Here's basically what it comes down to. If you're looking for your calling, your gut gives you three sensations when you have an opportunity. So maybe it's a proposal of marriage, maybe it's moving to San Francisco, maybe it's becoming an accountant. How do you know if you should do it? There are three sensations that your gut gives you. There's excitement, AKA passion. There's fear. And there's a sense of deadness.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Deadness.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Deadness. Emptiness. You know, when, if, if somebody, a man you didn't love proposed marriage to you, you'd be like, even if it on paper it made sense. You'd be like, yeah, you feel dead. Yeah, it makes you feel dead inside. You know, people ask me to be, you know, run companies a lot because I've done that before. It makes me feel dead inside. That's how I know not to do it.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Don't do it.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

The right combination to find your call. Calling with a new Opportunity. Penelope, Dear Penelope, is 80% excitement, 20% fear, and 0% deadness.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

I mean, what a great and clear answer that is.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

It's not perfect, because sometimes there's more fear, because that's the option. You know, I've taken jobs that are like 50% fear.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Yeah.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Because I couldn't dial it. But it should always be as close to zero percent deadness as possible. And it shouldn't be a hundred percent excitement, because that's passion, and that will wane.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

And what happens if you are. You're listening to this and you're like,

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

I made a mistake. Yeah, yeah, I know. And then you.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

It sort of depends on what the

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

mistake is, because, you know, you can leave a job. You know, people can change. They can move cities. It's a little bit trickier to get out of a marriage. I get that. In which case, sometimes you need to increase the excitement. I don't. I don't. I don't recommend increasing the fear, per

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

se, but just go back to the earlier part of the conversation. Okay.

[Podcast Host / Announcer]

Last one.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Okay.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

You note that periods of change through uncomfortable often increase meaning. And hell, yeah, everyone needs change. Why does stability alone fail to produce depth?

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, because you could be perfectly stable in an environment that's not deep. You know, people sit. You know, they skate along the top like a bug on a. On water.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

A lot.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

A lot of people do that.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

How do you know if you're doing that or not?

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

You know that because you're actually. You have a sense of stability without a sense of meaning. And so you can say, I'm doing something, and it's very comfortable, but it's not deep. And people know when they lack meaning. People are in very, very stable and easy but loveless marriages. They're in jobs that pay a lot, but they're not actually learning. People are in these environments a lot. That's the reason that I ask people to do these tests on meaning. Meaning. And if your life is stable but not meaningful, that's a sign that you're missing an opportunity.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

What if young people are like, my life doesn't feel meaningful. But they're like, in high school.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, that's why I wrote the book. It's actually, you need to, number one, engage in particular protocols that will stop pushing you to the left side of your brain systematically, AKA use of technology and the way that you're being pushed by culture and maybe your parents. And so there's a lot in there about rebelling against the left side. The left brain. Culture. Get clean in other Words. And then you need to live like your great grandparents a little bit more. Fall in love, go outside, touch grass, Experience beauty. Give of yourself, look for calling. Seek transcendence in serving other people and looking for the divine. Learn how to suffer.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

But you're 61, right? And I'm 52. You're a kid if you're a child, baby. But if there's a, a, you know, 16 year old that's like, I want that, but that's not the culture I live in. How do I access it?

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, the answer is you gotta rebel. And that's the most fun of all. I have a whole chapter of this book on how to rebel on the rebellion culture.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Fabulous.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

You gotta stand. You gotta rage against the machine. And that is super, super fun, is to be your own person. It is a blast. It's the greatest adventure. Rebellion is the best. That's why teenagers love. Love it. That's why teenagers get energy from the act of rebellion. Well, guess what? You know, it's like, I've talked about this with my kids. What's rebellion? You know, we used to rebel when I was in the 1980s against squares and, you know, our parents rules and the whole thing. And my kids are rebelling against a culture that's making them miserable.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Yeah.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Against a culture that's, that's monetizing and productizing them. Against a media that wants us to be mad about politics all the time. About a kind of an academic establishment that's giving these weird new facts, theories about actually what it means to be a real person, that's telling them they shouldn't fall in love, that they should. I mean, it's craziness and. Fight back, man. Fight back.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

I love that. Okay, so what's something that, like a kid is walking into a room. What's a small way they can start to think about being rebellious?

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Turn off your phone and go into the room and be here now. And I don't know what I'm gonna find in this room. The one thing I'm not gonna find is what's on my screen. Screen. I'm gonna be here now.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Take the risk.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

And you know what? It's probably gonna be boring, and that's good.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Was that what Ram Dass was going for?

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Be here now?

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

I mean, what he was fundamentally talking about was, was, was engaging the default mode network of the brain. The set of structures that you and I have studied in which your brain is fundamentally dealing with right hemisphere phenomena. Being bored is how you're designed to be a lot of the time, and

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

that is just gone.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Well, and here's the. Here's the fundamental point. We time travel. We live in the past. We're thinking about the past, we're thinking about the future. Constantly. Castles in the sky. But you can only love in the present. You can only love in the present. You can't be in the future, loving. You can only love now. To be here now is to love your life and to love other people. And if you miss that, you haven't been fully alive is what it comes down to.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

What a beautiful thing to really, really, really, really commit to. Because I just think about all of the young people fighting against.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

Not being here now.

[Dr. Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, I know, I know. And this is the generation that can actually save humanity by being here now. Showing us the rest. The rest of us the way. Thank you, Penelope, for your beautiful questions. Looking forward to seeing you on campus.

[Dr. Eliza Pressman]

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