How to Build a Happy Life - How To Identify What You Enjoy Podcast

How To: Identify What You Enjoy: Learning Points

1. Defining Happiness Beyond a Feeling:

   • Happiness is not merely a feeling but is described as a "banquet" with three essential "macronutrients": enjoyment, satisfaction, and purpose.
   • Truly happy people have these three elements in abundance and balance.
   • Happiness is a byproduct of living a meaningful life, not a goal in itself, which can lead to disaster if pursued directly.

2. Enjoyment – Pleasure Plus Elevation (and Connection):

   • Enjoyment is defined as pleasure plus elevation, where learning about the sources of pleasure transforms it into authentic enjoyment.
   • Lori Gottlieb adds "connection" as a crucial ingredient, noting that while solitary enjoyments exist, human connection is paramount for happiness.
   • Longitudinal studies show that the happiest older adults are those who established the most human connections in their youth, becoming "good at love".
   • A key question for happiness is "How can I love and be loved?", including loving oneself.
   • Anhedonia, the inability to experience pleasure, is a characteristic of clinical depression.
   • Many adults don't know how to have fun, seeing it as frivolous or optional rather than essential.

3. Satisfaction – Fleeting Yet Necessary:

   • Satisfaction is the reward for meeting a goal or a job well done, providing a "burst of joy".
   • The challenge with satisfaction is that it cannot be kept; it's like a "colander instead of a bowl," seeping away quickly due to neurobiology like the "hedonic treadmill".
   • People addicted to success often chase satisfaction endlessly without finding lasting contentment.
   • "Satisficers" (people who are content with "good enough") tend to be happier than "maximisers" (those always seeking the "best"), who often regret choices or are never truly content.
   • Enduring satisfaction comes from wanting what you have, rather than always trying to have what you want.

4. Purpose/Meaning – Found in Both Good and Bad:

   • Meaning and purpose are often discovered in the most painful parts of life, not just the pleasurable ones (e.g., divorce, loss, bankruptcy).
   • Feelings are neutral and act as a compass, telling us what we want and what needs to change in our lives. Numbing feelings isn't nothingness; it's being overwhelmed, manifesting as other issues (e.g., overeating, anger, lack of focus).
   • Suffering can be sacred and integral to being "fully alive"; it's part of life's fabric. You don't need to seek suffering; it will find you.
   • There's a distinction between pain (inevitable) and suffering (often self-created); we can create our own suffering by dwelling on negative comparisons or past events.
   • Meaning doesn't have to be a grand, epic thing; it's found in the "dailiness" of small moments of connection and positive experiences (e.g., a child's interaction, a student's eyes lighting up, a chat with a barista).
   • Grief is a natural process of moving forward, not "moving on." Loss stays with you, but its flavour changes over time, and happiness will eventually return. Grief is a sign of love.
   • The happiest older people have experienced much suffering and recovered, allowing themselves to be sad and fully engaging in life, rather than protecting themselves from pain.
   • Co-workers and shared experiences in the same space contribute significantly to moments of connection and enjoyment.

How To: Identify What You Enjoy: Action Points

1. Prioritise Enjoyment:

   • Recognise that "fun is essential," not frivolous or optional. Make it a priority.
   • Schedule time for fun – literally put it on your calendar.
   • Identify how you have fun: Many adults have forgotten. Reflect on past enjoyable activities.
   • Keep a 24-hour (or 48-hour) diary to track how you spend your time. This helps identify wasted time (e.g., mindless scrolling that dampens mood) that could be used for joyful activities.
   • "Follow your envy": Use feelings of envy as a clue to understand your desires and what might bring you joy.
   • Distinguish between your inherent desires and societal "shoulds": Don't conflate what others want for you with what you genuinely want.

2. Cultivate Satisfaction:

   • Strive to be a "satisficer": Be content with what meets your criteria rather than endlessly searching for something marginally "better".
   • Practice "wants management": Reduce the number of things you desire to increase your satisfaction with what you already have.
   • Value what you have: Actively appreciate the good things in your life instead of taking them for granted.

3. Embrace Purpose and Meaning:

• Welcome and embrace all your feelings: Understand that feelings (including sadness, anxiety, anger) are messages or a "compass" that guide you toward what needs to change or what is important.
• Don't numb your feelings: Numbness prevents you from experiencing the full spectrum of life, including joy.
• Accept inevitable pain: Recognise that pain is a part of being human. Focus on addressing inevitable pain rather than creating unnecessary suffering for yourself (e.g., by dwelling on negative comparisons).
• Engage in life fully and take risks: Don't protect yourself from potential pain so much that you miss out on living and experiencing great joy.
• Look for small moments of meaning and connection: These everyday interactions and experiences contribute significantly to overall happiness and purpose. Keep a diary of positive moments to notice them.
• Allow yourself to grieve when experiencing loss: Understand that happiness will return, even if it feels impossible in the moment. Move forward through grief, knowing it changes over time.

Here are the key learning and action points from "Best of 'How To': Spend Time on What You Value" from The Atlantic's YouTube channel:

Spend Time on What You Value: Learning Points

1. The "Would" vs. "Should" Dilemma with Time

   • Many people struggle with how they would naturally use their time versus how they should use it to align with their values. For instance, one co-host admitted they would use an extra hour to work more, despite knowing they should use it to build love and connection.
   • This disconnect highlights the struggle, especially since the start of the pandemic, which altered our relationship with time, leading to either too much unstructured time or feeling too crunched.

2. The Impact of Unstructured Time: Strivers vs. Fritterers

   • When the "exoskeleton" of a traditional workday is removed (e.g., during the pandemic), people tend to fall into two groups: strivers and fritterers.
   • Strivers allow their work to sprawl across their entire schedule, often driven by external validation (the world "pats you on the back").
   • Fritterers get less done, fall behind, and often engage in "doom scrolling," wasting time.
   • Many of us are caught in a vicious cycle where we expect to control our time wisely, but often don't know how to use it effectively at all.

3. Time Poverty and Time Traps

   • Time poverty is described as a modern epidemic where people have too much to do and not enough time, negatively affecting relationships, physical health, and personal goals.
   • A significant "time trap" is busyness as a status symbol, particularly prevalent in the United States. Having a full calendar is often seen as a sign of importance and value, leading people to feel like failures if they have any spare time.
   • This cultural perspective contrasts with countries like Spain, where vacation plans are a common icebreaker, suggesting a different philosophy of valuing time over money or constant work.
   • The most time-poor individuals often include those struggling to make ends meet (e.g., single parents, those with less reliable transport or childcare), highlighting systemic issues beyond individual choices.

4. The Loss of Leisure as a Habit

   • Many people, especially those who've filled their lives with work, have lost the habit of leisure and don't know how to genuinely enjoy free time. Productivity can become a default mode of operating.
   • Philosophically, Aristotle distinguished between work, recreation, and leisure; leisure is "in and of itself something worth pursuing" and, as Josef Pieper suggested, "the basis of culture". Recreation, by contrast, is merely a break to get ready for more work.
   • We tend to prioritize measurable outcomes, making it easier to track work productivity than the abstract concept of "free time" or "leisure".

5. The Importance of Intrinsic Motivation and an Evolving "Ideal Self"

   • Enjoyment of leisure is maximised when activities are intrinsically motivating – done because you genuinely want to, not for external reasons like productivity or status.
   • It's crucial to re-evaluate and change your "ideal self" over time. Holding onto an outdated ideal (e.g., working constantly, travelling frequently) can harm well-being and relationships, whereas aligning your time use with a new, more balanced ideal (e.g., impactful work, family time, self-investment) leads to greater satisfaction.
   • Older individuals tend to get better with time management, value time over money, and are happier, partly due to increased financial security and a natural gravitation towards more meaningful pursuits. We also tend to undervalue future time, planning as if we'll be less busy later.

6. Humans Are "Homo Prospectus"

   • Humans are not naturally wired to "do nothing"; our brains are constantly engaged in planning and thinking about the future, a state dubbed "homo prospectus". This makes activities like meditation challenging.

Spend Time on What You Value: Action Points

1. Prioritise and Schedule Happiness

   • Recognise that happiness is "serious business," not a "nice to have," and needs to be scheduled.
   • Literally put time for personal well-being, relationships, and leisure into your calendar every day.

2. Set Clear Boundaries for Work

   • Establish non-negotiable rules for your time, such as not working on weekends or dedicating the first hour of your day to personal investment (e.g., reading, meditating, walking, exercising).
   • Be selective about commitments by being "more careful about what I say yes and no to".
   • Consider a "quota strategy," focusing deeply on one project at a time rather than juggling many simultaneously.

3. Know Your Values and Adjust Your Ideal Self

   • Engage in self-awareness and reflection to genuinely understand what you value, rather than just what society or others expect.
   • Re-evaluate your "ideal self" and consciously change it to reflect what truly brings you well-being and satisfaction, then strive to align your daily time use with this new ideal. Minimising the discrepancy between actual and ideal time use is vital for life satisfaction.

4. Cultivate Leisure as a Habit

   • Start small when building leisure habits, focusing on achievable increments like 10, 15, or 30 minutes.
   • Set concrete, specific goals for leisure activities. Instead of "more free time," specify "one hour of exercise" or "30 minutes of social connection".
   • Avoid over-scheduling or being too rigid with leisure, as this can make it feel like work and reduce enjoyment and psychological benefits. Allow for flexibility.
   • Focus on intrinsically motivating activities; do things because you genuinely enjoy them, not for external reasons like productivity or to impress others.

5. Practice Time Audits and Gratitude

   • Conduct a daily time audit: At the end of each day, reflect on your activities and how they made you feel to identify what truly brings positive mood and enjoyment.
   • Practice gratitude: Take time to reflect on things you're grateful for; this increases self-awareness about what brings you joy and satisfaction.
   • Create space for reflection: Break the cycle of constant work and decompression (e.g., drinking) to allow for moments of pause and thought about what truly brings joy.

6. Manage Attention and Comparisons

   • Guard your attentional resources by comparing your progress and satisfaction to your past self rather than to others' successes.
   • Recognise that you don't need a full extra hour; even 10-minute pockets of time can be utilised for activities you desire.