What Are the Macronutrients of Happiness?

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Happiness is like a meal, and there's lots of ways to answer the question. Faith, family, friendsd and meaningful work are the dishes an your happiness. One of the biggest mistakes that we make in our lives to day is that we spend a huge amount of our energy trying to avoid unhappiness. If you want to be happy, you need to open up to all types of experiences in life. Don't be afraid of pain; don't treat it as if it feels bad.

Arthur Brooks is a bestselling author, social scientist, and the President of the American Enterprise Institute. He teaches Leadership and Happiness at the Harvard School of Business.

In this episode, Eric and Arthur discuss happiness as well as his book, Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America From the Culture of Contempt.

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Arthur Brooks and I Discuss What It Takes to Find Happiness and…

His book, Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America From the Culture of Contempt
The four extrinsic things that feed off fear are money, power, pleasure, and fame
The four intrinsic things that feed off love are faith, family, friendships, and meaningful work
How happiness requires meaning and having meaning requires challenge and/or difficulty
The three aspects of meaning are coherence, purpose, and significance
How writing out the thing you learned from a bad experience can bring meaning to it
Learning to find significance in the small things
How we need to stop living in the future and appreciate being in the present
The freeing idea that nobody really cares like we think they do
The more you judge others, the more you will feel judged
The therapy for feeling insecure is to stop judging and start observing
The link between humor and happiness
How we should reject grimness
Rejecting the expectations of the holidays can lead to more happiness

Arthur Brooks Links:

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If you enjoyed this conversation with Arthur Brooks, you might also enjoy these other episodes:

Jonathan Rauch – The Happiness Curve

Ruth Whippman on The Complexity of Happiness

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