Finding purpose often requires embracing discomfort, pain, and sacrifice.
Embracing the reality of death fosters a sense of connection, responsibility, and appreciation for life.
Deep dives
Happiness is a Feast with Three Macro Nutrients
Happiness is like a meal with three macro nutrients: enjoyment, satisfaction, and purpose. While enjoyment and satisfaction are important, purpose is the key ingredient for true happiness. Finding purpose often comes through periods of unhappiness, such as loneliness, loss, or adversity. Purpose is essential for happiness, but it requires embracing discomfort, pain, and sacrifice.
Befriending Death and Embracing Suffering
B.J. Miller, a hospice and palliative care physician, emphasizes the need to be at peace with death and suffering. Death is not the enemy but a natural part of life that can provide a context to appreciate joy and beauty. Embracing the reality of death helps us understand the limitations of our own lives and fosters a sense of connection, responsibility, and appreciation for life.
The Problems with the Healthcare System
B.J. Miller discusses the shortcomings of the healthcare system and its role in causing unnecessary suffering. The medical establishment often pathologizes normal human experiences, leading to shame and undue suffering. Miller advocates for a shift in the healthcare system towards palliative care that focuses on quality of life and understands the naturalness of sickness, suffering, and death.
Managing Fear and Finding Happiness
Arthur Brooks suggests managing fears and embracing difficult experiences to find happiness. Rather than avoiding or denying pain, he encourages facing fear directly through an exercise known as the maranasati death meditation, which helps remove the terror of death. By embracing the inevitability of death and other losses, fear diminishes, allowing for a fuller enjoyment of life and the choice of happiness.
As we wind down this series, a paradox remains in our pursuit of happiness—joy comes to those who have known pain. In order to overcome struggle—breakups, illness, even death—we must first accept and acknowledge its inevitability. Exploring the darkness of our suffering may seem counterintuitive, but often it’s the only way to see the light.
In this week’s episode, Arthur C. Brooks sits down with BJ Miller, a palliative-care physician, to uncover how we can face our deepest fears, why we should accept our natural limitations as human beings, and how to make peace with the ebb and flow of joy and suffering in human life—an experience we all share.
This episode was produced by Rebecca Rashid and hosted by Arthur Brooks. Editing by A.C. Valdez. Fact-check by Ena Alvarado. Sound design by Michael Raphael.
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Music by Trevor Kowalski (“Lion’s Drift,” “This Valley of Ours,” “Una Noche De Luces”), Stationary Sign (“Loose in the Park”), and Spectacles Wallet and Watch (“Last Pieces”).
