Rubin Report - Dave Rubin - A New Crisis Has Begun, & We’re Running Out of Time | Arthur Brooks
Aired: 2026-04-04
Duration: 45:24


=== Why Happiness Isn't Constant (08:29) ===

[00:00:00]  If you believe there are questions that can't be fed into ChatGPT, you're on the right track.
[00:00:05]  The machines have taken over our private life.
[00:00:07]  Our machines have taken over our relationships, our work life as well.
[00:00:10]  And there's one thing, Dave, you can't simulate, and that's the meaning of your life.
[00:00:14]  People under 30 in general.
[00:00:15]  You know, since about 2008, depression is up by about a factor of three.
[00:00:19]  Generalized anxiety has basically doubled.
[00:00:22]  Higher levels of loneliness, higher levels of addiction and self harm.
[00:00:25]  Life, when it's meaningless, feels like you're stuck in an airport lounge and the flight, you're not getting in information, but it's just really late.
[00:00:31]  You're just waiting and waiting and waiting for something to happen.
[00:00:34]  Most actually will just like shrink into themselves and scroll social media.
[00:00:39]  The big problem, however, is that it's not real life.
[00:00:42]  And so the result is that the neurochemistry of the human brain only works, the sense of mystery and meaning in life only works when we are in real life with other real life humans.
[00:00:52]  Do you find undue pressure as someone that studies happiness and is sort of an expert in happiness to be happy?
[00:00:59]  The meaning of life is really the answer to three big questions.
[00:01:02]  Number one is the coherence question, the second question is, Purpose and the last is significance, which is why does my life matter?
[00:01:09]  And the simulation doesn't cut it.
[00:01:11]  I think people can see clearly why I wanted to have you on so soon.
[00:01:22]  I'm Dave Rubin and joining me today is a Harvard professor and author of the new book out today, The Meaning of Your Life, Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness.
[00:01:32]  My friend Arthur Brooks, welcome back to The Rubin Report.
[00:01:35]  I love being on The Rubin Report.
[00:01:36]  How are you, Dave?
[00:01:37]  I am doing just fine, sir.
[00:01:40]  I, uh, I see you virtually every day, one way or another on Instagram, constantly telling people to be a better version of themselves, dress right, look the part, live your best life.
[00:01:51]  Seems like you're doing it up over there, always smiling.
[00:01:55]  So far, so good, I have to say.
[00:01:58]  But, you know, the truth is that the secret to getting happier is actually teaching happiness.
[00:02:03]  You know, the, it's the most amazing thing.
[00:02:05]  We kind of know that.
[00:02:06]  If you want to be a better golfer, I mean, learn about golf, go play a bunch of golf and teach it to somebody else.
[00:02:11]  And, you know, that's actually the reason I got into the business in the first place.
[00:02:14]  I have questions that I want the answers to.
[00:02:16]  And so I learn about it and teach it to other people.
[00:02:18]  And my own happiness is 60% higher than it was seven years ago.
[00:02:22]  Can you believe it?
[00:02:25]  How does one quantify their happiness?
[00:02:27]  You have a happy meter.
[00:02:28]  Is there something strapped to your finger right now?
[00:02:30]  What's going on over there?
[00:02:31]  The biometrics aren't solid on this, but what we found is actually over about the last 45 years of research that asking people over time to self evaluate with respect to their well being when they compare themselves to all the other people that they know, you get very solid and stable answers.
[00:02:47]  Now, you don't want to answer this in front of your spouse because, you know, it's like, I don't know about you, Dave, but I'm not sure I would tell the truth.
[00:02:57]  You got to have people.
[00:02:58]  It depends on the day.
[00:02:59]  Anonymous, but, but, you know, when I actually take these tests, because I'm giving them to my students again and again and again, and we have a really good one on my website called the happiness scale that's been validated with thousands, like tens of thousands of people.
[00:03:12]  And you can actually see your own progress.
[00:03:13]  And I see mine.
[00:03:16]  Do you find undue pressure as someone that studies happiness and is sort of an expert in happiness to be happy?
[00:03:23]  I mean, how do you, how are you able to regulate your own emotions properly in a sort of pool that's supposed to be happy all the time?
[00:03:31]  Yeah, no, that's a good question.
[00:03:32]  What I find is that.
[00:03:33]  The expectation, the legitimate expectation is that I'm somebody who's taking my own advice, whether I'm happy all the time or not.
[00:03:41]  Because one of the things that I teach is you're not going to be happy all the time.
[00:03:44]  You couldn't be happy all the time.
[00:03:46]  We're not made to have pure happiness.
[00:03:48]  Now, look, I'm a religious person, so I do believe that we will have unremitting happiness, just not in this life.
[00:03:54]  And we have negative emotions.
[00:03:56]  We have negative experiences.
[00:03:57]  That's normal.
[00:03:58]  What we have a responsibility to do is to self-manage to ourselves, to actually be kind and good to other people, to show love even when we don't feel love, which are some of the big The big conclusions, the big lessons actually from this research.
[00:04:11]  So for me, what I have a lot of pressure to do, thank God, is to never have somebody see me being a jerk in the airport.
[00:04:18]  That would be off brand, right?
[00:04:21]  And, and I want to be held to that standard actually.
[00:04:23]  So you like that.
[00:04:24]  You know, I feel a version of that too, that just as a public person, if I'm out and about, I, I don't want, I, I, you know, this is how I am basically when the cameras are off, but you know, the camera turns on and there's a 5% little shift in kind of how you are, right?
[00:04:40]  But like I, Wouldn't want to be at a restaurant and just be a dick to a waiter or something, uh, because people may know who I am, but I wouldn't want it anyway.
[00:04:49]  But there's like an added pressure as a, as a public person.
[00:04:52]  Yeah.
[00:04:52]  And you know, the truth is that the, the way that we lead other people is the way that, is the way that they see us leading ourselves.
[00:05:00]  It's what it comes down to.
[00:05:01]  So you and I are dads and people often ask me, you know, what's the secret to passing on your values to your kids?
[00:05:07]  And it turns out there's nothing about what you say.
[00:05:10]  All that you could talk to your kids in a foreign language, Dave.
[00:05:13]  All that matters is what they see.
[00:05:15]  You know, when I was a kid, my dad was a brilliant mathematician and a strong man and a proud man.
[00:05:21]  And he would have never bent the knee to any other man, but he was on his knees in prayer every night before I went to sleep.
[00:05:28]  And so to me, what that meant was you, you, you, you're in awe of the divine.
[00:05:33]  That's what it means to be a good man.
[00:05:35]  It was really all what I saw is what it comes down to.
[00:05:38]  And so when we're trying to lead other people, either our children, Or anybody else, because we have the privilege of being in public life.
[00:05:44]  I mean, you go to the airport, I go to the airport, people say, I love your stuff.
[00:05:48]  And the way that they actually respond, the love with which you respond, notwithstanding the fact that you're jet lagged or anything else, that's what's actually passed on.
[00:05:57]  That's what truly has an impact.
[00:05:59]  You know, I know last time when I had you in studio, we talked a little bit about Jordan Peterson.
[00:06:02]  And one of the privileges that I got to see when we were on tour originally was him putting that into practice every day because we would go to places, people would be waiting for us at the airport, waiting for him at the airport.
[00:06:13]  You know, just hoping that they were maybe going to see him and he would be decent and respectful and kind to every person, ask their name, et cetera, et cetera.
[00:06:22]  So wait, I want to back up though to, to what you said about your father.
[00:06:24]  So did, did that model always make sense to you?
[00:06:27]  I mean, did you have a, did you go through a, you know, 16 year old rebellious phase?
[00:06:31]  I'm not, I'm not into this.
[00:06:33]  None of this is working for me or, or did, were you just kind of on the path?
[00:06:36]  Well, no, I actually had rebellion for sure.
[00:06:38]  And when I was 16 years old, my rebellion is like, I, I was raised as an evangelical Christian.
[00:06:43]  I became a Catholic, you know, and my, you know, I thought that that was like, Really, really rebellious.
[00:06:48]  My parents are like, I guess it's better than drugs, you know?
[00:06:52]  And then, of course, in my 20s, I was lazy.
[00:06:54]  I was never off the path.
[00:06:56]  I was just sort of lazy.
[00:06:57]  But by the time I was about 30 years old, I said, I want to be like my dad.
[00:07:01]  I want to be more like my dad in all the good ways.
[00:07:03]  And that was really the good way that I saw.
[00:07:05]  That's what sticks.
[00:07:07]  And so just make sure your kids, everybody watching us, make sure your kids see the person you want them to be because they're future you.
[00:07:17]  You know, one thing I try to do with my kids all the time is that if they ask me to play with them, I never say no.
[00:07:23]  Yeah.
[00:07:23]  You know, like I, I'm pretty sure I've never said no.
[00:07:26]  If they, you know, they want to play with magnetiles or they want to play with lightsabers or something, I never say no because I just don't want them to ever have that in their head that, that I had something better to do.
[00:07:33]  And even if, even if I'm in the middle of something and I can only do it for a few minutes, I really try that.
[00:07:38]  So that's, uh, well, that's one little piece of how you put it in action, I suppose.
[00:07:41]  Yeah, for sure.
[00:07:42]  And that's actually your, your, when you do that, Dave, you're raising your grandchildren right there.
[00:07:47]  That's how you raise your grandchildren, is the way that you raise your kids.
[00:07:50]  And that's how you pass on your values the values of honesty and decency and compassion and love.
[00:07:55]  It's also interesting.
[00:07:56]  My wife has this idea about that.
[00:07:58]  It's related to that.
[00:07:59]  She says that, and it's true, I've seen this, when our kids who are now 27, 25, and 22, and two of them are dads.
[00:08:08]  And when they give her a hug, she's never the one who lets go first.
[00:08:13]  Hmm.
[00:08:17]  So, they can never remember, they'll never remember my wife letting go of the hug.
[00:08:24]  That could be some seriously long hugs.
[00:08:27]  You have really long family dinners.

=== Passing Values to the Next Generation (15:43) ===

[00:08:29]  I know.
[00:08:29]  Oxytocin release in the brain is maximized after a 22 second hug, but that's mostly between romantic partners.
[00:08:36]  So, anyway, we have to adjust it for.
[00:08:39]  All right.
[00:08:40]  So, you have a spouse that's working with you on this.
[00:08:43]  You got children that seem to be following that path.
[00:08:46]  You've got the grandchildren already.
[00:08:47]  However, you're at Harvard, you're in Boston, you're in Massachusetts.
[00:08:51]  Kind of wackadoodle, lefty, intellectual place where I'm going to guess if I walked around Harvard, there's probably a, I could be wrong on this, but I would guess that a lot of the kids aren't happy at some of these elite schools, that they're way too in their head.
[00:09:07]  We know rates of, you know, neuroses and paranoia and just general worry about the world, all the rest of it.
[00:09:15]  Um, can you comment on that?
[00:09:16]  Yeah, no, the truth is the data are, I mean, you're, you're exactly right on the data.
[00:09:21]  And it's not just about, Elite universities, it's people under 30 in general is what we find that, you know, since about 2008, depression is up by about a factor of three.
[00:09:30]  Generalized anxiety has basically doubled higher levels of loneliness, higher levels of addiction and self harm.
[00:09:37]  And, and it doesn't make sense in, in so many ways.
[00:09:40]  You know, that's actually why I wrote this new book, The Meaning of Your Life, because I found that the main correlate, the best predictor of those maladies is the inability to articulate the sense of life's meaning.
[00:09:51]  And so saying my life feels meaningless is the best predictor of depression and anxiety.
[00:09:56]  And that's craziness because you actually see that that was a very unusual thing to say until about 2008.
[00:10:03]  And then that exploded alongside depression and anxiety.
[00:10:06]  So my research actually went to this whole meaning thing.
[00:10:09]  I've been looking at this question for the past five years.
[00:10:11]  Number one, what are they talking about?
[00:10:14]  Number two, where do you go to find meaning?
[00:10:16]  And number three, how do you have to live differently to find it?
[00:10:19]  And this book is a six part plan to actually find the meaning of life in the next six months.
[00:10:24]  So, what are they talking about?
[00:10:26]  If you were just walking around your campus, just listening, basically, Yeah, well, that's one of the things that we do when we don't know what to do is that we actually find activist causes.
[00:10:39]  Most actually don't do that with activism.
[00:10:41]  Most actually will just like shrink into themselves and scroll social media or watch YouTube shorts.
[00:10:47]  And a lot of YouTube shorts are not, you know, meaty like Dave Rubin YouTube shorts, which I strongly recommend.
[00:10:52]  They're, you know, dumb stuff is what it comes down to.
[00:10:54]  And the reason is because life, when it's meaningless, feels like you're stuck in an airport lounge.
[00:11:00]  Or in a, in a, in a terminal and the flight, you're not getting any information, but it's just really late.
[00:11:06]  And you're just waiting and waiting and waiting for something to happen.
[00:11:09]  Now, some will actually take that activist route on campuses to be sure.
[00:11:14]  All of these things that are substitutes for actually the meaning of life is a problem.
[00:11:17]  Now, what do they want?
[00:11:18]  What are people looking for?
[00:11:20]  The meaning of life is really the answer to three big questions.
[00:11:25]  Number one is the coherence question, which is why do things happen the way they do?
[00:11:29]  You got to have an answer to why things actually happen.
[00:11:31]  Some people use science.
[00:11:32]  Some people use religion.
[00:11:33]  Some people, when they're really desperate, use conspiracy theories.
[00:11:36]  You know, when you've got somebody who's going berserk on conspiracy theories in your family, don't actually confront them with data and tell them they're a moron.
[00:11:44]  That's a cry for meaning.
[00:11:45]  That's what it is.
[00:11:46]  That's because they're unhappy.
[00:11:48]  The second question is purpose and purpose is the why question.
[00:11:52]  Why am I doing what I'm doing?
[00:11:54]  A lot of people are just, you know, they feel like they're just their lives are passing by and that their lives don't have a why.
[00:11:59]  They don't have goals.
[00:12:00]  They don't have direction.
[00:12:02]  And the last is significance, which is why does my life matter?
[00:12:05]  That's the love question.
[00:12:06]  I mean, for whom does my life matter?
[00:12:08]  You got to have somebody that your life matters to.
[00:12:10]  I mean, for you, you're married, you have kids, you have friends, but more and more and more people.
[00:12:17]  Don't.
[00:12:17]  And so then the question is because why can't they answer these questions?
[00:12:21]  There's something blocking that.
[00:12:22]  And that's a lot of what this research is, is how our brains have become different than they were.
[00:12:28]  We've used our brains differently than we used to.
[00:12:31]  And, and so when you ask young people today, which I do a lot of, a lot of interviews, not just survey research, I do these interviews.
[00:12:38]  They all say some version of life feels like it's like I'm living in a simulation.
[00:12:44]  I get up.
[00:12:45]  I look at the device, you know, I go to work on Zoom.
[00:12:49]  I date on the apps.
[00:12:51]  My friends are virtual.
[00:12:53]  I, for my sense of accomplishment, I do a lot of video gaming.
[00:12:56]  It's like the matrix.
[00:12:58]  And there's one thing, Dave, you can't simulate, and that's the meaning of your life.
[00:13:01]  And the reason is this what it comes down to meaning is actually understood in the right hemisphere of your brain.
[00:13:09]  Technology, the way that we use technology, analysis, and almost everything that we do with technological tools is in the left side of the brain.
[00:13:17]  This is the theory called hemispheric lateralization.
[00:13:21]  Simple way.
[00:13:22]  I should say that's a complicated way.
[00:13:23]  We say complicated stuff to get tenure, right?
[00:13:29]  This is mystery and meaning.
[00:13:31]  This is technology and distraction is what it comes down to.
[00:13:34]  And the tip of the spear is the way we've been online and how it's forcing everybody to the wrong side of their brain to understand the meaning of their life.
[00:13:43]  Right.
[00:13:44]  Is in some sense, is it just because we've atomized all of these things where most of these things are supposed to be connected in some sense?
[00:13:50]  You're going to have friends out of that friend pool is going to come your mate and your other social things where now we've atomized it.
[00:13:57]  So you have your video game world.
[00:13:59]  And your dating world, but they're on different apps.
[00:14:02]  Like everything has just been so pulled apart.
[00:14:04]  They, they can't, there's no connected tissue between these things.
[00:14:07]  Yeah, that's part of it.
[00:14:08]  The big problem, however, is that it's not real life.
[00:14:12]  The real problem is that our brains, our brains were in the same form that they are currently about 250,000 years ago in the late Pleistocene.
[00:14:20]  And at that point, all Homo sapiens were living in bands of 30 to 50 individuals in, in, in, in kin based hierarchies.
[00:14:28]  And, and the way that we understood each other, the way that we took care of each other, the way that we have a sense of altruism toward each other, Would be like sitting around a campfire eating, putting pieces of yak meat into our mouths and talking.
[00:14:41]  And, you know, you couldn't know somebody except in real life.
[00:14:43]  And so the result is that the neurochemistry of the human brain only works, the sense of mystery and meaning in life only works when we are in real life with other real life humans.
[00:14:54]  And the simulation doesn't cut it.
[00:14:56]  Now, there's a lot of reasons for us to do technology and to answer how and what questions.
[00:15:02]  All the analysis and the culture of grind and work, that's Fine as far as it goes, but it will never give you a sense of meaning because literally it's using the second half of our brain.
[00:15:14]  When you're interviewing these kids, how often do you meet a kid that just is kind of happy-go-lucky, that doesn't necessarily think about a lot of these things, that doesn't necessarily think about the spiritual part of it, but, you know, wakes up and is kind of happy and going about their studies and will get to tomorrow's problems tomorrow and it's kind of okay?
[00:15:34]  There are some.
[00:15:34]  I mean, there's a, there's a, you know, there's a, it's a definitely a minority at this point, but you do find them.
[00:15:39]  And what they all have in common is that they're not, they're not addicted to their devices.
[00:15:43]  That's what they all have in common.
[00:15:45]  The second thing is that they're not buying into the lie, the sort of the mechanistic lie of our culture that success at any cost is all that matters.
[00:15:53]  We've been, here's the problem.
[00:15:55]  The machines have taken over our private life and the machines have taken over our, our, our work life as well.
[00:16:01]  Our machines have taken over our relationships.
[00:16:03]  Our machines have taken over our ambition.
[00:16:06]  You know, what happens is that if you believe that there are questions that can't be fed into chat GPT, you're on the right track.
[00:16:14]  You know, and, and there's a lot of students And at Harvard and a lot of other places that don't is what it comes down to.
[00:16:20]  Now it's interesting because my kids, I saw it happen a little bit differently for weird reasons.
[00:16:24]  I had one kid who was in a religious community coming out of high school.
[00:16:29]  And, and so they weren't getting addicted to social media.
[00:16:31]  They were, you know, he was going to mass every day and he was actually, you know, praying a lot of the day every day.
[00:16:38]  Then, you know, about six years later, he met the love of his life and got married young and had kids.
[00:16:45]  My two other kids are military.
[00:16:47]  So, my two other kids have high level security clearances because they're in the Marine Corps.
[00:16:51]  They can't have social media.
[00:16:53]  And so, the result is by just by the structure of the lives that they had that they were protected from it.
[00:16:59]  Yeah.
[00:17:00]  So, that's actually what I was going to ask you next.
[00:17:02]  Cause as you were saying that, I was thinking, well, all right.
[00:17:03]  So, if you let's say you were a great basketball player and you were like, or any athlete and you were like, I'm going to make it to the pros and you're great in high school.
[00:17:10]  You're great in college.
[00:17:11]  You make it to the pros.
[00:17:12]  You have a nice career in the pros.
[00:17:14]  Your whole life has been dedicated to one singular focus thing that puts all your physical and mental and spiritual energy into that.
[00:17:21]  You may not have to worry about a lot of the big questions.
[00:17:24]  Then comes the day after and then suddenly you're, you know, old in that world.
[00:17:28]  You're 35 and then you're flooded with all of those questions, which is probably different than a 16 year old being flooded with those questions.
[00:17:34]  Yeah.
[00:17:34]  Yeah.
[00:17:35]  That's a different problem, actually.
[00:17:36]  So I work a lot with, uh, you know, people who have gotten famous young, like Hollywood actors.
[00:17:41]  That's almost one of the worst things that can happen to your brain.
[00:17:44]  And so that's what leads to what we call the success addiction in which you only feel alive when an extraordinary thing is happening to you.
[00:17:52]  Those people generally speaking only get Sufficient amounts of dopamine and you know, a lack of dopamine leads to a syndrome called anhedonia, which is the inability to feel pleasure.
[00:18:05]  And they have anhedonia unless they're in the presence of people who are admiring them, admiring strangers.
[00:18:10]  That's what actually will happen.
[00:18:12]  So the worst thing you can do to your kid is make them a Disney star.
[00:18:14]  They'll be screwed up for life because their brains actually won't develop in that particular way.
[00:18:18]  And then people who are great athletes, one of the things that they find is they chase and chase and chase and chase and chase for the rest of their lives.
[00:18:24]  But these are a really small minority of people.
[00:18:27]  The main reason that you have people who are so messed up today is because they got hooked.
[00:18:32]  They don't remember the before times.
[00:18:34]  Dave, you're way younger than me, but you remember the before times.
[00:18:37]  You remember that, you know, before device.
[00:18:40]  How old are you?
[00:18:40]  How old are you again?
[00:18:41]  I think we did this last time.
[00:18:42]  It's not, we're not that one, but I mean, if I had, we got 12 years.
[00:18:45]  You got 12 years on me.
[00:18:46]  Yeah, we grew up at the, yeah, basically same time.
[00:18:49]  If only I had your looks.
[00:18:51]  Anyway, I mean, it's like the before times we had to do things in person.
[00:18:57]  So the result of it is that we have, way, way, way less likely into falling into this, into this ennui, into this syndrome of meaninglessness.
[00:19:06]  But if you don't remember the before times, if you were coming of age after 2008, you don't remember before your life was actually mediated by these screens, before the culture of machine life wasn't surrounding you all the time.
[00:19:20]  And you're going to, you're probably going to fall prey to this problem.
[00:19:23]  Do you think there will eventually be a massive cultural bounce on that?
[00:19:28]  Somehow there will be some ancient thing awoken in us that people will just be like, okay, that was fun.
[00:19:35]  Yeah.
[00:19:37]  I do.
[00:19:37]  We're moving, moving out to, you know, nowhere.
[00:19:40]  People, I, I actually do.
[00:19:41]  I do believe that that's the case.
[00:19:42]  I mean, it's one of the things that we have, the things we always get wrong, you know, I mean, you and I are fundamentally optimists.
[00:19:47]  You know, it's, I know you're not.
[00:19:49]  You better be if you do, if you talk for a living, like you better be, otherwise it's going to be a lot of fun.
[00:19:54]  Yeah.
[00:19:54]  It's also, you know, who would bet?
[00:19:55]  I mean, America is the land of optimism and hope is what it comes down to.
[00:20:00]  And it's the, it's the triumph of human spirit is everything that we're about.
[00:20:04]  I mean, the Rubens, I'm just going to take a guess.
[00:20:07]  They were probably running from some God forsaken shtetl, like, Two, three generations ago or something.
[00:20:12]  Yeah.
[00:20:12]  My great grandparents.
[00:20:13]  Yeah.
[00:20:13]  There you go.
[00:20:14]  And, and you know, that's the same thing.
[00:20:16]  My, my, you know, my ancestors were moving west every generation, one step ahead of the law.
[00:20:21]  And, and, you know, the whole point is that this is in our genome.
[00:20:25]  The trouble is that you can get a punctuation to the equilibrium of optimism and hope and screw up a generation.
[00:20:31]  And that's what we've done.
[00:20:32]  And so we have, we desperately actually have to get it back.
[00:20:35]  And so what I spent all my time doing is teaching young people and not so young people, by the way, The ways to live that used to be ordinary that no longer are, because that turns out to be the solution.
[00:20:47]  So how do you figure out for, for someone that doesn't remember the before time?
[00:20:52]  Now some of those people are becoming parents.
[00:20:55]  Now they're going to start having kids and they're going to go to restaurants and do what everyone does at restaurants, which is hand the kid an iPad or a phone just because they want a moment's peace.
[00:21:03]  So what do you do?
[00:21:05]  What do you do if you've done, okay, so there's that version of it, right, where they don't even remember the before time.
[00:21:09]  But what do you do for the people that do remember the before time that just they've, they're living right, they take their kids out to dinner and they just want a little of that peace and you see them do it.
[00:21:19]  We haven't, we haven't gotten that far yet.
[00:21:21]  Like we will sit there at the table and let them pour the salt all over the place and really piss off that waitress.
[00:21:26]  But, but I, but sometimes people want more peace.
[00:21:29]  And, and so that seems to be something you have to grapple with or contend with.
[00:21:32]  And so those times are actually not the punctuation to the equilibrium of life.
[00:21:37]  No big deal.
[00:21:38]  The real problem is what you're doing at dinner at home.
[00:21:41]  That's the real problem.
[00:21:42]  And the number one predictor that your kids are going to screw up by devices is if you're looking at your device during dinner is what it comes down to.
[00:21:49]  So I, I talk to parents all the time.
[00:21:52]  I talk to people who are like you who have young kids.
[00:21:54]  And the whole point is I, I put together protocols on device use that people can, can, can enforce inside their home life that can fundamentally change the culture inside.
[00:22:07]  So, for example, just with a few little alterations, you can break the grip.
[00:22:11]  You can, you can get clean effectively so that you can start living in a different way.
[00:22:15]  And I use this language of addiction on purpose.
[00:22:17]  You know, if you go to, if you drink it too much and you, and you, and you go into rehab, Or, or you get into recovery.
[00:22:23]  The first thing they're going to have to do is break the grip of the physical addiction on you.
[00:22:27]  And then you actually have to live differently with new friends and with a, with an eye to the divine and, you know, have to live in a new way that's different.
[00:22:35]  So when we talk about breaking the grip of the devices, there's device protocols that are in this book.
[00:22:39]  There's a whole chapter on how to get clean.
[00:22:42]  And basically it comes down to three easy things.
[00:22:45]  Number one is the first hour of the day, no devices.
[00:22:48]  First hour of the day.
[00:22:49]  That's super hard for people because they use it as their, their alarm.
[00:22:53]  They wake up in the middle of the night.
[00:22:55]  They check it.
[00:22:56]  Which is unbelievably bad for your sleep, but it's also bad for your, for your cognitive wiring for the day.
[00:23:01]  You, you neurocognitively set your day in the first hour that you're awake.
[00:23:05]  And that means you do something in the first hour of the day that's actually healthy, like praying and or exercising and not using your device.
[00:23:12]  And after it only takes three weeks before that, that grip is broken.
[00:23:17]  The second is mealtimes.
[00:23:18]  And part of the reason is because we get a maximum amount of this neuropeptide in the brain called oxytocin that links us to our loved ones.
[00:23:25]  You know, when you look at your kids in the eyes and it's like the 4th of July.
[00:23:30]  If you're at dinner and the phone is on the table facing down, that actually, your attention to that, because you'll think, I wonder if somebody texted, that will actually cut your own oxytocin flow.
[00:23:41]  That will make you less receptive to that love molecule, um, for your children.
[00:23:46]  And the third is the last hour before bed, partly because you want to, you want to maintain a healthy sleep architecture and, and a healthy, healthy functioning pineal gland for your natural melatonin.
[00:23:55]  But part of it is just because I don't know about you, man, but the last hour of the day is when you link up with your spouse.
[00:24:00]  Right.
[00:24:01]  I mean, you get the maximum amount of oxytocin when you stare your spouse in the eyes before you go to sleep.
[00:24:06]  You'll sleep better.
[00:24:07]  You'll feel better.
[00:24:08]  Just those three things.
[00:24:10]  And life can be fundamentally different.

=== The Last Hour Before Bed (03:12) ===

[00:24:13]  What about how we are hit endlessly with 20 different versions of this?
[00:24:21]  Meaning, I see a lot of you on my Instagram, as I said.
[00:24:23]  So, cause I'm sort of, you know, I'm sort of mostly in the politics world, but now sort of the wellness and spiritual world are kind of adjacent to that, obviously, and I'm interested in that.
[00:24:31]  But once you click down that, you end up with 500 conflicting people saying all of these different things.
[00:24:38]  And then people just end up in, in that rabbit hole of trying to fix themselves all day long instead of actually Doing it.
[00:24:44]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:24:45]  So that's a big problem that actually people have with the protocols lifestyle.
[00:24:49]  You know, it's like, I want to be, I want to do the 10% as opposed to the 90%.
[00:24:54]  You know, live, make the main thing the main thing is what it comes down to.
[00:24:57]  That's an ancient Stephen Covey idea.
[00:25:00]  Pay attention and live the things that are actually most important and then get into the marginalia once you've mastered the 90% is what it comes down to.
[00:25:07]  A lot of people get really stuck on this and they want to know, you know, the nine supplements that I need to take, but they're not actually eating a protein rich diet and going to the gym.
[00:25:17]  For Pete's sake, trying to get seven hours of sleep.
[00:25:19]  I mean, it's just they're not doing the big, big, big things.
[00:25:22]  And so that's what I talk about a lot with people.
[00:25:24]  I say, you know, I'm going to give you the details on this, but most of the time I'm going to be talking to you about doing the big things.
[00:25:30]  Are you doing the big things?
[00:25:31]  And the people that I work with, you know, I don't have clients.
[00:25:34]  I have friends and you know, the people who are calling me up saying, ah, what do I do?
[00:25:37]  I said, let's go over the big things.
[00:25:39]  Let's go over the big things again.
[00:25:42]  And what do you, what are they usually missing?
[00:25:44]  I mean, okay.
[00:25:45]  So seven hours sleep.
[00:25:46]  Most people can basically get that.
[00:25:48]  I, you know, most people.
[00:25:50]  Probably should work out more, but probably do a little something.
[00:25:53]  I mean, what, what is, is this, is the whole, the spiritual one?
[00:25:55]  Is that usually the one that's, well, that's actually, that's the main question for finding the meaning of life, actually, is doing this, this science oriented, but, but common sense.
[00:26:06]  I mean, your grandma wouldn't say that, you know, great, great grandma Ruben wouldn't be like, ah, it's nonsense, you know, like so much of science, like so much of behavioral science.
[00:26:14]  Hey, great grandma, you know, I read an article that says that polyamory is good for your marriage.
[00:26:19]  And she's going to be like, Polly, what?
[00:26:22]  Right, right.
[00:26:23]  So, but this is real stuff.
[00:26:24]  And so, it's basically six things.
[00:26:25]  Number one is deep conversation about things you can't Google.
[00:26:32]  In other words, it's the, it's the, you know, I can't remember.
[00:26:34]  Where did you go to college, Dave?
[00:26:35]  I went to Binghamton University.
[00:26:37]  Oh, nice.
[00:26:37]  I remember you told me that, which is one of the great, the four big, the four great SUNYs, actually.
[00:26:41]  That, that's a terrific.
[00:26:42]  Do they, do they still have any great ones?
[00:26:44]  It's a little hard to tell what's going on in New York, but that's a, that's a great thing.
[00:26:47]  I mean, New York is a problem, but those are still really good schools.
[00:26:50]  Still really good schools.
[00:26:50]  And, and, you know, at 1130 at night, before you, you were stuck to your device and you'd come home from a party with your friends and you'd have like these deep, pretentious conversations that were activating the right hemisphere of your brain.
[00:27:04]  And that's actually a huge part.
[00:27:07]  The ancient Greeks called that aporia.
[00:27:09]  It was literally a technique that was promoted by Socrates to understand the meaning of your life was to sit in a state of puzzlement.
[00:27:16]  That's why the Zen Buddhists have koans.
[00:27:19]  They train their, their, their junior monks to become enlightened by puzzling over questions that don't have answers.

=== Finding Beauty in Suffering (15:39) ===

[00:27:26]  So that's number one is you got to stand in awe and puzzlement.
[00:27:30]  Number two is falling in love with a real person.
[00:27:33]  This is not only fans.
[00:27:35]  This is not.
[00:27:36]  You know, this is not, you know, the AI girlfriend experience.
[00:27:38]  This is the real deal is what it comes down to.
[00:27:42]  And that means putting your heart at risk and getting your heart broken and learning again, just like you and I did it the old fashioned way.
[00:27:50]  Right.
[00:27:50]  Number three is actually looking for your faith is spirituality and faith.
[00:27:55]  And so, you know, this is one of the things that I'm actually finding.
[00:27:57]  I mean, you and I come out of the world of public policy and politics.
[00:28:00]  I mean, this is like I was running AEI and, but we're, we all wind up asking the big questions at the end of the day.
[00:28:07]  Is what it comes down to.
[00:28:08]  And this answer is because we want to stand in awe of something.
[00:28:12]  And standing in awe, this is called transcendence.
[00:28:14]  You transcend through your spiritual life or the way that you serve other people.
[00:28:18]  And that takes you out of the me self.
[00:28:20]  And then you can actually observe the world.
[00:28:22]  That's number three.
[00:28:23]  Number four is looking for a calling in your work that's meaningful because you serve other people.
[00:28:29]  That's what it comes down to, which I know you do.
[00:28:32]  But not everybody can actually find that.
[00:28:33]  So I talk in the book about all the ways to actually make your work into a calling.
[00:28:37]  Even if you hate your job, how to make your work into a calling.
[00:28:40]  The fifth meaning it, meaning because it can provide for all of the other things, correct?
[00:28:44]  Yeah, right.
[00:28:44]  So, you're if your work is not that meaningful in some sense, it's like, well, as long as it's serving some of those other goals, then you're yeah, and basically you're serving other people.
[00:28:52]  And so, I talk about the different ways that people who hate their jobs can actually find great satisfaction by through their jobs serving their colleagues, for example, which is this huge thing.
[00:29:02]  I mean, as I was doing Drew Barrymore's show a couple of months ago, and this guy in the audience, because that was you know, audience questions, which are fun and awesome.
[00:29:10]  He's like, I'm a drone, man.
[00:29:12]  I'm a, I do data entry and I'm in a cubicle and I hate it.
[00:29:16]  And what do I do to find meaning?
[00:29:17]  And I said, well, at two o'clock in the afternoon, go into the break room, make a fresh cup of coffee, bring one to the guy in the next cube and say, dude, you look like you could use a fresh cup of coffee and look at the look on his face.
[00:29:28]  And you're like, you liked your job better that day is because service is everything that the last two are beauty.
[00:29:34]  And there's three kinds of beauty and there's three kinds of beauty that really illuminate the right hemisphere of the brain, artistic beauty, natural beauty and moral beauty.
[00:29:43]  Those are the three types of beauty that really matter because they just change your brain.
[00:29:47]  And, you know, the machine culture is not beautiful.
[00:29:50]  It's just not beautiful.
[00:29:51]  I mean, it's like looking at nature through a screen.
[00:29:54]  I'm sorry.
[00:29:55]  You know, and being on vacation at, you know, Sequoia National Forest and just looking into your phone to take pictures of it upon a put, you've destroyed the natural beauty of it.
[00:30:05]  Moral beauty is even more important where you actually witness acts of selfless people.
[00:30:10]  It's one of the reasons that everybody loves the life of Mother Teresa.
[00:30:14]  Because it's in tremendously inspiring.
[00:30:16]  And last but not least, and this is the hard one is suffering.
[00:30:19]  When you're suffering, your right brain is lit up like a Christmas tree.
[00:30:24]  That's the reason that everybody will say, I learned the meaning of my life in the worst hour of my life.
[00:30:30]  You know, I, I, so we're taping this a little bit before we're, we're posting it and this Iran war is happening right now and maybe it'll be wrapped up by the time we post this or not.
[00:30:39]  But I just, I'm going to text it to you right after this.
[00:30:43]  I just saw a video of an American fighter pilot who had to eject out of his plane.
[00:30:49]  He lands in Kuwait.
[00:30:50]  Did you see this?
[00:30:50]  And the Kuwaitis, these guys are running at him with the phone.
[00:30:54]  Can we help you?
[00:30:55]  Can we help you?
[00:30:55]  Are you okay?
[00:30:56]  What do you need?
[00:30:57]  You know, we love America.
[00:30:58]  And it's, and the guy's obviously shell shocked and it's like the most unimaginably beautiful thing.
[00:31:04]  You could possibly ever see.
[00:31:05]  And it's a guy standing in the desert.
[00:31:07]  I know.
[00:31:07]  You know, it's when you witness moral beauty, it's like you're friends with Rain Wilson, right?
[00:31:14]  Are you friends with him?
[00:31:16]  We've tweeted a couple of times over the years.
[00:31:18]  Yeah.
[00:31:18]  And I like The Office.
[00:31:19]  We're really great friends, Rain Wilson and I.
[00:31:22]  And his uncle is a very famous psychologist named Rhett Deesner.
[00:31:28]  And Rhett Deesner, who's also Baha'i, just like Rain Wilson as a matter of fact, writes about moral beauty.
[00:31:34]  And so I cite his stuff all the time and he talks about this sense of moral elevation and the physiological nature of how it works.
[00:31:40]  And when you actually witness somebody doing something morally beautiful, it, it uplifts you for a particular reason.
[00:31:46]  And that's just like when you see a work, you know, when you hear a song and you don't know why it chokes you up.
[00:31:51]  Anything, by the way, that makes you emotional and you don't know why it's because your right hemisphere is working.
[00:31:56]  That's actually how you know when something actually makes you like when you think, you know, something, anything about your kids that actually isn't tragic and you start like you're going to cry, you know, that feeling.
[00:32:06]  Yeah.
[00:32:08]  Or something about religion that reminds you of something, or a train whistle from when you were a little boy, that's because your right brain is working.
[00:32:15]  And these are the moments that we actually need to induce in our lives.
[00:32:19]  You know, I'll tell you one thing that is definitely, you know, my kids are three and a half, and one thing that I've definitely noticed is when I, there are certain moments that I'm doing something with them and I'm thinking, it will never get better than this.
[00:32:30]  Like, this is as good as it gets.
[00:32:31]  We almost nightly now, we have this Frankie Valley, they love the song Soul, it's a disco album he did in 1979.
[00:32:38]  And we do a soul dance party and they run around like crazy people.
[00:32:42]  And quite literally, last week, I've met Frankie a couple of times and I showed him a video of the kids dancing to soul and I got him to say hi.
[00:32:50]  And then I showed it to them saying, This is Frankie Valley, 91 year old Frankie Valley saying hi to you.
[00:32:56]  And the way, you know, they're just looking at an old man standing with me saying hello, but the way their eyes just burst and now they keep asking me to see that video.
[00:33:04]  And it's like, How could anything be better than that, you know?
[00:33:09]  I know, I know.
[00:33:10]  And, you know, the truth is when you're living in the simulation, There aren't those moments.
[00:33:14]  I mean, somebody could say, Oh, that's a video, Dave.
[00:33:16]  That's a video.
[00:33:17]  No, no, no.
[00:33:18]  It's you in person showing them the video.
[00:33:21]  Life is in the moment.
[00:33:22]  Here's a funny thing, you know, the human brain, the prefrontal cortex of the brain, which gives us this incredible time travel ability to prospection, which means living in the future, thinking about the future, thinking about how people will see you, or living in the past, which is retrospection.
[00:33:40]  That's fine.
[00:33:41]  That's what makes us, our species, so unbelievably successful.
[00:33:45]  But the, the moments right now when you're with the kids listening to that song, it, it really proves the point that you can only live, you can only love in the present.
[00:33:55]  Love only exists in the present.
[00:33:57]  Love doesn't exist in the future.
[00:33:59]  Love doesn't exist in the past.
[00:34:00]  It's right now.
[00:34:01]  And if you're in the, in the matrix, if you're in the simulation in the left side of your brain all day long, the thing that's really missing is love.
[00:34:12]  Do you have to work to do it sometimes?
[00:34:13]  So you're obviously not going to be around your kids or your wife all the time or in every situation, every meeting you're in or this or that.
[00:34:19]  You're not always going to be around love.
[00:34:21]  So what do you do to, to stay locked into that state as much as possible?
[00:34:26]  Yeah, it's hard.
[00:34:27]  Or, or have you just trained yourself into it at this point?
[00:34:30]  I wish, I wish.
[00:34:30]  I mean, I've trained myself into a lot.
[00:34:32]  And part of the reason is because happiness in general is really hard for me, which is why I, I study it.
[00:34:37]  You know, I have gloomy parents.
[00:34:39]  Half of your happiness is genetic.
[00:34:41]  You know, I got gloomy parents.
[00:34:42]  It was, they, and who died young and it was tough.
[00:34:46]  It was very sad a lot of the time, a lot of health problems.
[00:34:49]  And, you know, the truth is that, that it was hard for me.
[00:34:51]  And so, so the result is I have to have really, really strong discipline.
[00:34:55]  You know, I do, you know, I have very high negative affect, which is just another academic way of saying, you know, strong negative emotion.
[00:35:02]  And, and by the way, there's nothing unusual about that.
[00:35:05]  It's not like I'm depressed or, you know, something clinically wrong.
[00:35:09]  But the truth is that I have to pay attention to these things.
[00:35:12]  I have to take my own advice.
[00:35:13]  And so I've really altered my life in a lot of ways.
[00:35:16]  I, I start every morning by going to mass because I want to stand In awe, in transcendence.
[00:35:21]  I finish every night by praying, and I'm on the road about 48 weeks a year, you know, because of what I'm doing for a living.
[00:35:27]  But every night before I go to sleep, my wife and I, we pray together.
[00:35:31]  Because prayer, by the way, is the most intimate thing you can do with your partner.
[00:35:35]  It's way more intimate than sex, is prayer, actually.
[00:35:38]  Because what are you doing?
[00:35:39]  You're fusing the right hemispheres of your brain as an antenna of meaning to the divine.
[00:35:45]  I mean, it's like no joke.
[00:35:47]  I know couples that have been married 50 years, like super serious religious people.
[00:35:50]  They've never prayed in front of each other because it's too embarrassing.
[00:35:52]  They'll get naked.
[00:35:54]  But they won't pray together.
[00:35:55]  And the reason is because that's actually more intimate.
[00:35:58]  So I'm taking care of that.
[00:35:59]  The second thing is I've altered the way my life works.
[00:36:02]  You know, I, I knew that I needed more love in my life.
[00:36:06]  And so I, you know, I, I went to my kids who are all like retro.
[00:36:10]  They're, they're, they're more conservative than I am politically.
[00:36:13]  Um, they live a more traditional lifestyle.
[00:36:15]  I mean, two are, they got married at 22 and 23, the older ones, two of the three are military.
[00:36:20]  As I mentioned before, they're all religious.
[00:36:23]  And, and I said, okay, how do you want to live?
[00:36:25]  And they said, We all want to live in the same place.
[00:36:27]  And so we all moved to the same place.
[00:36:31]  And two of the families were living in the same house, which is like 1940.
[00:36:36]  I mean, my two of my grandsons lived downstairs from me.
[00:36:41]  And, and that's the right thing to do if you possibly can.
[00:36:44]  I mean, that intergenerational living is a strong way to live, but that's entirely because I'm trying to eat my own cooking, Dave.
[00:36:53]  What, do you think that there are certain just date points, chronological points that can, can tighten some of this stuff for you?
[00:37:00]  And by that, I mentioned you, I'm 49 and I know now, like when I was turning 40, I remember thinking, man, I'm going to be 40.
[00:37:08]  Like I'm, I'm going to be old at 40.
[00:37:11]  And now I look at 50 and I'm like, I can't wait to be 50.
[00:37:14]  Something, you know, I take better care of myself now.
[00:37:17]  My career is solid.
[00:37:19]  My relationship's great.
[00:37:20]  My kids, like, so the stuff is there.
[00:37:22]  But like, I look at 50 as like, yeah, this could be great.
[00:37:25]  And maybe I could even be better at 60.
[00:37:27]  Is that possible?
[00:37:27]  And we'll see about 70.
[00:37:28]  And then, and then I know obviously you're going to get diminishing returns in most facets at 80, 90, whatever.
[00:37:34]  But, you know, science is also changing and AI and all the rest of it.
[00:37:37]  But did you find that certain calendar points also can kind of turn things for people?
[00:37:42]  They can.
[00:37:42]  And one of the biggest, And most unwelcome surprises that people experience is that they think they're going to get happier through their 30s and 40s, and they don't.
[00:37:51]  Most people actually get unhappier through their 30s and 40s.
[00:37:54]  Not a lot, it's not catastrophic, but that's one of the things that David Blanchflower at Dartmouth has been doing work on this for years and years and years.
[00:38:02]  And it's all over the world, it's this U shaped thing.
[00:38:04]  And then in your early 50s, for almost everybody who's not clinically depressed or addicted, almost everybody gets happier through their 50s and 60s.
[00:38:14]  Your 50s and 60s tend to be happier.
[00:38:16]  Then the population breaks up into two groups.
[00:38:18]  Half the population keeps going up in happiness, and the other half of the population starts going back down again.
[00:38:24]  And that's entirely based on seven habits.
[00:38:27]  You want the seven habits?
[00:38:29]  Because you're four habits.
[00:38:30]  I'm guessing all of them ultimately end up being physically health related.
[00:38:33]  No.
[00:38:34]  So four of them are diet, exercise, smoking, and drinking.
[00:38:37]  Okay.
[00:38:37]  The obvious stuff, right?
[00:38:39]  And, you know, obviously don't.
[00:38:42]  And they would be like cannabis too.
[00:38:43]  It'd be euphorics.
[00:38:44]  It's basically use very.
[00:38:47]  sparingly or not at all.
[00:38:48]  Don't smoke.
[00:38:49]  Don't eat like an 11 year old and get good exercise.
[00:38:52]  Duh.
[00:38:53]  Right.
[00:38:54]  But the other three are number one, you need to have an excellent technique at dealing with your problems.
[00:38:59]  And that means you get good at something.
[00:39:01]  Maybe it's journaling, you know, maybe it's religion, maybe it's therapy, maybe it's, you know, metacognition through Vipassana meditation, whatever.
[00:39:10]  Uh, the next is learning.
[00:39:12]  The happiest people after 70 are those who are in the habit of learning, which by the way, for you and me is what we do for a living.
[00:39:18]  I mean, you're a super strength.
[00:39:20]  The reason you're so good at what you do, besides the fact that you're a hard worker and highly intelligent, is that you're curious.
[00:39:25]  You're like one of the most curious people I've ever met.
[00:39:28]  And that's a super strength because you're a learner.
[00:39:30]  Yeah, thanks.
[00:39:31]  Last but not least is love, is your loving relationships.
[00:39:34]  And there's two kinds that really correlate with people happy after 70.
[00:39:37]  Number one is a strong and stable marriage.
[00:39:40]  Number two is close personal friendships.
[00:39:42]  And to be happy, you don't have to have both.
[00:39:45]  It's great if you have both, but you have to have one.
[00:39:48]  You can't be without either.
[00:39:50]  is what it comes down to.
[00:39:51]  And so those are the seven ways to be out.
[00:39:53]  And it seems to me that you're, you're killing it, man.
[00:39:56]  I'm doing all right.
[00:39:57]  You know, I'm, I'm, I'm really trying something about, something about 50, just seeing it in the mirror.
[00:40:04]  Um, and when we talked last time, like, I'm in better shape than I've been in in probably 25 years now.
[00:40:09]  I'm, I'm playing basketball a couple times a week.
[00:40:12]  I work out every single day.
[00:40:13]  You know, I'm out in Florida where the weather's nice.
[00:40:15]  The kids are, you know, I just got a bike yesterday.
[00:40:17]  So we're taking the kids out now.
[00:40:19]  Like there's just enough and then the work stuff and it all, it just feels very full at the moment.
[00:40:23]  Knock on wood.
[00:40:24]  So, so that's good.
[00:40:25]  And then the thing is also as you get into your 50s, it's a really, really good opportunity to develop.
[00:40:32]  I'm a believer.
[00:40:35]  I mean, we're, we're, we're doing Shabbat now and, you know, we're, we're trying to incorporate a little more of that.
[00:40:43]  And, you know, it's, for me, it's, it's more tradition than, than necessarily reciting certain things or that sort of thing.
[00:40:49]  But.
[00:40:50]  You know, we can pick this up in a couple of months and discuss it again.
[00:40:53]  That's great.
[00:40:54]  You know, so you're maybe your fifties or Torah, Torah, Torah, Torah.
[00:40:59]  I'm reading enough already, but it's a lot of reading.
[00:41:02]  Let me ask you something.
[00:41:03]  For somebody that, okay, you're going along, you've tried to do some of these things, you seemingly are just sort of stuck.
[00:41:10]  You know, the other part that we haven't talked about is that we have a very over-medicated society.
[00:41:15]  Where do you put some of these antidepressants and whatever when somebody is just, they've tried the stuff, it's not working?
[00:41:23]  Is your answer short of like, That they really have deep, you know, imbalances, chemical imbalances, that it, it's just a shortcut pretty much all the time.
[00:41:32]  Well, so I'm not against, uh, psychiatric drugs.
[00:41:36]  I mean, that would be foolish.
[00:41:37]  And, and psychiatric drugs literally saved my mother's life.
[00:41:40]  Um, and, and for a lot of people who have really grave, not just chemical imbalances, but just, you know, mood disorders that are, that are beyond the pale, they can be truly life saving.
[00:41:50]  And, and, you know, Jordan Peterson has talked about this, how important it is too.
[00:41:53]  And he's a completely credible witness on this because there's one thing that Jordan Peterson is incapable of doing is lying.
[00:42:00]  He can't say something he doesn't believe to be true, which is, you know, he suffered a great deal because of that incredible preternatural ability to, you know, tell the truth.
[00:42:11]  So it's great for a lot of people.
[00:42:13]  The trouble with it is that we live in a culture that has an eliminationist philosophy toward pain.
[00:42:19]  And this is an important thing.
[00:42:20]  And, you know, I think I've told you before, I work a lot with the Dalai Lama over the past 12 years.
[00:42:25]  And the Dalai Lama has this, and the Buddhists in general have this math where they say that suffering equals pain times resistance.
[00:42:34]  Resistance to pain.
[00:42:35]  Pain and suffering are not the same thing.
[00:42:37]  We talk about it in the same sentence, but you find people with great equanimity of real enlightenment who have incredible amounts of pain, but low amounts of suffering.
[00:42:44]  And the reason is because of resistance.
[00:42:45]  Now, the reason that we're getting this wrong for young people today, who I believe I'm not against medication, but it's not the first line of actually how we're going to understand our pain is because we have an eliminationist thing.
[00:42:59]  If you go to campus counseling at most campuses, including mine, and you say, look, I'm feeling really sad and anxious.

=== Life Is What It Comes Down To (02:18) ===

[00:43:05]  They're going to say, well, we got to fix that.
[00:43:07]  Well, dude, if you're at Harvard and you're not sad and anxious, you need to.
[00:43:12]  You know, it's normal.
[00:43:14]  I mean, it's like Newsflash Arthur and Dave are also sad and anxious.
[00:43:20]  That's just life is what it comes down to.
[00:43:22]  Now, again, it can be exaggerated.
[00:43:23]  It can be dysregulated.
[00:43:24]  I completely get that.
[00:43:26]  But the truth is that they're an incredible opportunity to learn and grow if you understand they're not to be eliminated.
[00:43:32]  The pain literature on physical pain, for example, it's very clear that if you have back pain, I got a lot of back pain because, you know, it's like I'm 61.
[00:43:41]  Engineering, it's all messed up.
[00:43:43]  And so the result is that I know perfectly that if I baby my back, I'm going to wind up with a lot more back pain.
[00:43:49]  You know, do your life is what it comes down to.
[00:43:52]  And the same thing is true with most kinds of emotional pain, that they're there to teach you something you're supposed to learn.
[00:43:59]  And understanding and practicing techniques of non resistance, that's a better path.
[00:44:05]  I think people can see clearly why I wanted to have you on so soon.
[00:44:08]  We usually don't do two sit downs within a couple of months, but it was fairly obvious, well beyond the book.
[00:44:13]  We're going to link to the book right down below.
[00:44:16]  Any final thoughts on your day of happiness over here?
[00:44:19]  Yeah, you know, it's, thank you for doing this.
[00:44:22]  It's really meaningful to me to talk to you.
[00:44:24]  And part of the reason is because, you know, you've had this really, really interesting conversation.
[00:44:27]  Journey and evolution in your own career and life.
[00:44:30]  It's clear that you're living with a lot of meaning, and the meaning is actually coming from all of the things that we're talking about here.
[00:44:37]  Happiness and meaning are a function of love and loving in real life.
[00:44:40]  You're a testament to that, and I'm really grateful for your friendship.
[00:44:44]  Wow.
[00:44:44]  Well, that is a two way street, my friend.
[00:44:47]  Will I see you at ARC in London this year?
[00:44:49]  That's where we met originally.
[00:44:51]  Yeah, that's the right answer to be there.
[00:44:53]  I'm going to be there.
[00:44:54]  Oh, good.
[00:44:54]  All right.
[00:44:55]  Wait, I would say a drink on me, but I feel like you don't drink at all now, or maybe there's a.
[00:45:01]  Steak on me?
[00:45:02]  How about steak?
[00:45:03]  How about steak?
[00:45:03]  Drink, but you know, let's go have a steak together.
[00:45:06]  Steak done.
[00:45:08]  Thanks, Arthur.
[00:45:09]  For more insightful conversations on how to live the good life, go check out our lifestyle playlist.
[00:45:14]  And if you want to watch full interviews on a wide variety of topics, watch our full episode playlist all right over here.
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