0:00

As you said, balance is important, but I

0:02

think we've gone too far tot that side of

0:04

things in this country, and I think we need to kind of pull back

0:06

and look at more collective solutions. Welcome

0:16

to the one you feed. Throughout

0:19

time, great thinkers have recognized the

0:21

importance of the thoughts we have, quotes

0:23

like garbage in, garbage out,

0:25

or you are what you think, ring

0:27

true, and yet for many of

0:29

us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower

0:32

us. We tend toward negativity,

0:34

self pity, jealousy, or

0:36

fear. We see what we don't have

0:38

instead of what we do. We think

0:40

things that hold us back and dampen our

0:43

spirit. But it's not just about

0:45

thinking. Our actions matter. It

0:47

takes conscious, consistent, and creative

0:49

effort to make a life worth living. This

0:52

podcast is about how other people keep themselves

0:55

moving in the right direction, how they

0:57

feed their good wolf h

1:12

thanks for joining us. Our guest on this

1:14

episode is Ruth Whipman. Ruth

1:17

is a regular contributor to radio shows,

1:19

television, and podcasts, having

1:21

made appearances on shows including NPRS,

1:24

Brian Lair Show, To the

1:26

Point, CBS News, and

1:28

Morning Edition, amongst many others.

1:30

Her book is America The Anxious,

1:33

How our pursuit of happiness is creating

1:35

a nation of nervous rex. Hi,

1:38

Ruth, Welcome to the show. Thanks so much for

1:40

having me. Great to be here. Yeah, I'm so

1:42

excited to have you on. We're going to discuss

1:44

your book, America the Anxious, why our

1:46

search for happiness is driving us

1:48

crazy, and how to find it

1:50

for real. But before we do

1:52

that, let's start, like we always do, with

1:54

a parable. There is a

1:57

grandmother who's talking with her grandson

1:59

and she said, as in life, there are two wolves

2:01

inside of us that are always at battle. One

2:04

is a good wolf, which represents things like

2:06

kindness and bravery and love, and

2:09

the other is a bad wolf, which represents

2:11

things like greed and hatred and fear.

2:14

And the grandson stops and he thinks about it for

2:16

a second, and he looks up at his grandmother. He says, well, grandmother,

2:19

which one wins? And the grandmother

2:21

says, the one you feed. So I'd

2:23

like to start off by asking you what

2:25

that parable means to you in your

2:28

life and in the work that you do. So it's

2:30

really interesting. Ever since you first got in touch

2:32

a couple of months ago and said, you know, it was

2:34

I interested in being on the show,

2:37

um, and you told me about this parable, and I've

2:39

never heard it before, and it's been kind of playing in my

2:41

mind for the last couple of months, you know, I've been thinking

2:43

about it and trying to sort of apply it to different situations.

2:46

And there's something about it that's always made me

2:48

feel a little uneasy,

2:50

and I was trying to work out what it was. And I think

2:53

what I got to is that this parable

2:55

makes me feel insecure, that I'm not always

2:57

clear which wolf is which, and

2:59

I'm I think that this is the problem

3:02

with the modern world. I think all

3:04

of our most interesting dilemmas

3:06

in life, all of our most complex philosophical

3:09

questions or ethical questions, spiritual

3:11

questions, personal questions, are

3:13

not generally questions of good versus

3:16

evil. I mean, I think we know what evil is,

3:18

and most of us don't believe we're evil and are

3:20

not trying to be. I think that accounts with the vast

3:22

majority of the population. I think our

3:24

most interesting and most complex questions

3:26

are between good versus good,

3:28

you know, competing goods, and so

3:31

this is, you know, and I'm not always sure

3:33

which wolf I'm looking at you know, in any given

3:35

situation, I will think

3:38

that a certain thing is the right way to

3:40

go, obviously clearly this, and

3:42

then you know, a day later, I'll change my mind. I think

3:44

I maybe too neurotic for these wolves, you know, I

3:46

think all my wolves are kind of mashed up into some more

3:48

terrible like uber wolf. That it's

3:50

like a horrible hybrid mutant

3:52

wolf inside me that is a bit of both.

3:55

And I guess, um, I mean,

3:57

maybe that's what has

4:00

strut me. I've spent, you know, in writing my book America

4:02

the Anxious, I spent a lot of time

4:05

looking at the happiness industry,

4:07

you know, the ways that you

4:10

know, commercial entities try to sell

4:12

us happiness. And I think, you know, as

4:14

the self help industry perhaps, And I think this

4:16

is something that's quite specific to the self help industry,

4:19

that everybody is trying to sell easy

4:21

answers. Everybody is trying to sell their thing,

4:24

their idea, as the key to

4:26

happiness, the key to righteousness, the key to good.

4:29

And I think what I realized

4:31

is that what we need to do when we look

4:33

at all these things is sort of maintain a quite a questioning

4:36

attitude and really to be quite

4:39

I mean, cynical is probably the wrong word, but skeptical

4:42

to employ a bit of skepticism and not jump

4:44

in and think, right, this is the good world. Here we go, you

4:46

know, you know, I think we're all quite

4:48

prone in the modern era, you know, to to

4:50

to jump on the next good wolf each

4:52

time, right, right, And we do. We

4:55

all want easy answers because life

4:57

is incredibly complex, and

4:59

it's very difficult, and it is hard

5:01

to to know and figure

5:04

out, and so we want easy answers.

5:06

And I'm struck by how convincing

5:09

the easy answer is. Even and

5:11

I I found this in in your book

5:13

too. With you you would say I don't believe

5:16

this, A, B, and C. And then you would

5:18

find yourself going, but boy, the

5:20

allure of it is really strong, and so

5:22

I'm being pulled towards it. And

5:24

and so I am deeply mistrustful

5:27

of easy answers. And yet when I find myself

5:29

in a certain amount of struggle, I

5:32

start looking at things that I previously

5:34

went, that's too pad of an answer, and going did

5:36

I overlook that? And usually

5:38

the answers no, I didn't write. Life

5:40

is complex, But but we do

5:43

have this desire for things to be

5:45

simple and easy, you know, to

5:47

to use, you know, an example from your

5:49

book, right, we all want to to be

5:51

as simple as I will be happy if I just write

5:53

down three things I'm grateful for every day and

5:55

that's it. I'm done. I mean, that's that.

5:58

That was a classic example, the glassitude

6:00

journal. I mean, we've all heard about this gratitude journal

6:02

that we're all supposed to be keeping. You know, at the end of the day,

6:04

write down three things you're grateful for, or you know,

6:06

write yourself a gratitude letter, or

6:09

you know, there's different versions of it, and

6:11

then you'll be happy. I mean, if

6:13

that were the case, then we could set save

6:15

absolutely billions worldwide and antidepressant

6:18

use in medical bills,

6:21

in human heartache. I mean, we know

6:24

that it's not that simple, and yet people

6:26

make a lot of money from selling us these easy

6:28

answers, and it is an impulse. And I think

6:30

the more vulnerable we feel, and the self help

6:33

industry does tend to prey on people who are quite

6:35

vulnerable, often not always, but

6:37

often, you know, the more unhappy

6:40

and uncertain we feel, the clearer we

6:42

want our answers to be. And I think

6:44

being able to sit with a certain amount of complexity

6:46

and be able to sit with the idea that you know, actually

6:49

things aren't simple and that's okay, is

6:51

really helpful. Yeah. It's one of the things that

6:53

most deeply drew me to Buddhist

6:56

teaching early on was this idea where

6:58

the Buddhas said, like, don't just take what

7:00

I'm saying on my

7:02

authority, try these things in your own

7:05

life and see what happens. And I find that

7:07

to be such a deeply profound

7:09

teaching because we are all so

7:12

different, our life circumstances are so

7:14

different, our genetics are so different,

7:16

how we were ray. I mean, there are so

7:18

many factors that that what

7:21

we think. You know, even when we read

7:23

a study, and we can talk about how

7:25

flawed so many of them are, but even

7:27

when we read a study that says this is a good

7:29

thing, I think it's like, well,

7:32

try and see what works. It's interesting,

7:34

absolutely right. And I think the thing about studies

7:36

is interesting in and of itself. I mean, we rely very,

7:38

very heavily on studies. And I'm certainly somebody

7:41

who believes in the in science and in research

7:43

and all the rest of it, in evidence based things,

7:45

but at the same time, what is a study.

7:47

It's two hundred college students who have been told

7:49

to do A or B and what happens to them. I

7:51

mean, this is a very specific population that take

7:54

part in these studies, and usually

7:56

it's you know, a difference of two or three

7:58

people. You know, if you get a hundred don's

8:00

you can get statistical significance with just a

8:02

handful of them doing something slightly differently on

8:04

one side of the other. And then we take this thing

8:06

that you know, a couple hundred college students

8:09

did a few years back in a room

8:12

on a certain day, and we use this as some kind of

8:14

sense of destiny for our own life.

8:16

You know, I think we need to have a little bit of skepticism

8:19

about what all these things are for. I agree.

8:21

I mean doing this show has been a journey

8:23

for me, right, and I have been on it, and

8:26

I think earlier in

8:28

the process I really was like, oh,

8:31

all these scientific studies and and

8:33

you know it must be true and and again

8:37

I think some of them point in interesting and

8:39

useful directions. But to your point, they are usually

8:41

very small, they are done on a very specific

8:44

population and people

8:46

in that in those fields that are honest we'll

8:48

also talk about what they call the reproducibility

8:50

crisis, which is absolutely none of

8:52

these the same thing doesn't seem to work when

8:54

we run the study again and so

8:57

so again. I think, and I think with

8:59

this some as complex as

9:01

people's psychology, a

9:04

study is only going to be so useful anyway,

9:07

because it works for me, could

9:10

be wildly different from you, even if

9:13

you control for a few things, because you can't

9:16

control for the huge complexity

9:18

of people's psychological and spiritual

9:20

lives. Absolutely, And the other thing

9:22

about study. There have been published, probably

9:25

over sixty four thousand

9:27

research studies into what makes human

9:29

beings happy. And I started,

9:31

you know, when I was researching my book, I started reading

9:34

all this stuff, which you know is fundamentally quite

9:36

a joyless thing to do, you know, really academic

9:38

happiness studies. It's not

9:40

a fun way to spend your weekend. But

9:43

what I found pretty quickly was the studies are

9:45

incredibly contradictory. I mean, you can find

9:47

a study to say pretty much anything

9:50

and also the exact opposite of

9:52

that thing. So you can find a study

9:54

that says that money

9:56

makes no difference to happiness, But

9:58

you can also find a study saying that it makes a huge

10:00

difference to happiness. You know, you can find a study

10:03

that says that feminism has made women unhappy,

10:05

but also that feminism is women's saving

10:07

grace. You know that mindfulness

10:10

is great and mindfulness does nothing, etcetera,

10:12

etcetera, etcetera. So often the

10:14

studies end up revealing more about

10:16

the agendas of the people funding the studies

10:19

than they do very much about actual human beings

10:21

and how they live. So caution with

10:23

studies. That that was what I learned. Having said

10:26

all that, I'm going to be very hypocritical hire

10:28

for a moment, which is that you know, as

10:30

I was writing my book at one point,

10:33

which I got into quite a dark place

10:35

in the middle of writing it because I

10:37

found so much inconsistency in the

10:39

studies and so many hucksters and so

10:42

many people selling false messages and all the rest

10:44

of it, that I started to get

10:46

to the point where I thought, oh God, you know, this

10:49

book is going to the conclusion of this book is

10:51

going to be nobody can be happy,

10:53

don't even bother trying. There's nothing you can

10:55

do. It's all a disaster. And I

10:57

was like, no one's going to buy this apart

11:00

from anything else. And you know, and

11:02

it was kind of slightly it was a slightly depressing

11:05

message. But then I

11:07

started to realize that there was one

11:09

thing that was very consistent across all the research

11:12

and across people's experiences that

11:14

I spoke to, And it was the sort

11:16

of one factor that really seemed to be

11:19

pretty rock solid no matter who was

11:21

conducting the studies, who was funding them, almost to

11:23

the point where it was so solid that, um,

11:26

if researchers were studying anything else, they had

11:28

to control this one thing out of the studies.

11:30

And that is the importance of

11:33

human relationships. Social relationships

11:36

and connection really

11:38

is a huge, huge

11:41

factor in our happiness. And

11:43

you know, when I started to identify that,

11:45

I saw it was such a pattern that social

11:47

support and community really is so

11:50

key to our well being. So I guess if there

11:52

is a good wolf to feed, you

11:54

know, that's the one community and

11:57

relationships. Listeners have heard

11:59

me say this before, but when I started the show,

12:02

I really thought what

12:04

I was going to hear and learn was more

12:06

of just go within. Happiness

12:09

is inside, you know, you do

12:11

that right, And and I am a

12:13

believer that there is a role for that and of

12:15

course there is a lot on this show that we

12:18

talked about that. But the part that's been surprising

12:20

to me and to your point, just comes up over

12:23

and over like a hammer to my head. Is

12:26

the role of our connection to

12:28

other people. How critical that is. And

12:31

and I actually would say even more

12:33

than just connection to other people, connection

12:36

to all sorts of different things, but other

12:38

people is one that is so clearly,

12:41

like you said, in in all the science over

12:43

and over, and I think in our own experience

12:45

and we look at who people are happy, right, all

12:48

that all of it sort of confirms that good

12:50

relationships help. And it's

12:52

interesting because you talk about how our

12:55

pursuit of happiness in the US is

12:57

so individualistic. Yes, absolutely

13:00

mean I think, um, you know, the US

13:02

and the UK to a certain extent, but

13:04

that the worst. But you know, the US particularly

13:07

is a very very individualistic society,

13:10

and we believe in, you know, pursuing

13:12

our own goals and doing our own thing. And

13:15

I think the self help industry really pushes

13:17

this message, which is happiness is

13:19

a personal journey. You know, find

13:21

yourself, be yourself, self

13:23

help, self care, self knowledge,

13:26

focus on the self, you know self self self self

13:28

self and actually, when

13:30

you look at what the research actually

13:32

says about what happiness is, it really

13:34

is completely back to front. I mean it's really the self

13:37

help industry is really pushing us in this very

13:39

individualistic direction when

13:41

actually happiness does absolutely

13:43

come from social connection. You know, it's

13:46

quite misleading that the the agenda that they're

13:48

they're pushing in a way. Well, I think it's

13:50

interesting too because I might be wrong

13:52

about this, but I think that one of

13:54

the earlier uses of the self

13:56

help movement actually was

13:59

alcoholics and that

14:01

is one of the early uses of oh

14:03

it's a self help because it's not professionals,

14:06

but but a A is so fundamentally

14:09

social and so fundamentally

14:11

about other people. So I

14:13

think even the term over time has gotten

14:15

a little bit perverted. Just to add

14:17

to your point, I mean, the a A thing is a

14:19

great example. I think one of the reasons

14:22

why historically self help has been so

14:24

incredibly popular in the US

14:26

is because there's much less of

14:28

a social safety net. You know, there's less help

14:31

from anywhere else, so you know, you kind of got

14:33

to help yourself because there's no one helping

14:35

you in a way. You know, you get very little support

14:38

in terms of support with maternity

14:40

leave or childcare or you know,

14:42

welfare or subsidized services

14:45

or you know, these sorts of things which you know smoothed

14:47

the passage of life for people in

14:50

Europe, Scandinavia, wherever. Um

14:52

that, I think you know that there's a real American

14:55

tradition of self reliance which is great

14:57

in many ways. So

15:37

the other point that you bring up in your book, which

15:39

is a very interesting one that

15:41

I think is worth talking about because I

15:44

um, I feel very similar,

15:46

is the whole idea in the self

15:48

help space that we are kind

15:51

of completely responsible

15:54

for how we feel, We are completely

15:57

responsible. And while I find

16:00

it's of that message to be incredibly

16:02

valuable and incredibly important, and

16:04

a lot of my background comes from people,

16:07

uh comes from the recovery movement, where

16:10

personal accountability and responsibility

16:12

is so crucial, like actually

16:15

going like I'm the problem here, Yeah

16:17

that's me, Yeah, it's on me. Yet

16:20

I also agree with you that I find so

16:22

much of what is really appalling

16:24

to me in parts of the self help or the

16:27

law of attraction world or all of that to

16:29

be this fundamental sort of victim blaming.

16:32

Yes, I think it absolutely is, because you

16:34

know, I think you've probably seen the memes which you

16:36

know happiness is a choice, which kind

16:38

of implies that if you're not making

16:40

that choice, then you know, it's just a simple

16:42

method of you know, you're not choosing, you're not working

16:44

hard at it. You know that, and you

16:47

see it in the positive thinking movement, you know it's

16:49

just because you're being negative. For even in

16:51

the mindfulness movement, you know, the problem is you because

16:53

you're not being mindful enough for positive enough,

16:55

or grateful enough, or you're not doing enough um you

16:58

know, meditation or self help workshops, all

17:00

the rest of it, and it does become a kind

17:02

of victim blaming, and it's sort of this inability

17:05

to acknowledge that there are systemic

17:07

reasons why people are

17:09

unhappy, you know, which are everything from

17:11

your genes to your circumstances

17:13

to your environments. I mean, one of the strong

17:16

messages in positive psychology. I don't know if you've seen

17:18

this very famous pie chart. I

17:20

have. I've referenced it before too, So

17:22

please this is this is good because it

17:24

is something that has come up on the show

17:27

before, and so I would I would love

17:29

to have you discussed it. So there is a

17:32

academic positive psychologist, a professor

17:34

called Sonia Lubamerski, and

17:37

she has done this kind of graphic,

17:39

which is a pie chart, which

17:41

sort attempts to break up you know what the

17:43

different components of our happiness are. And

17:46

so in the pie chart she attributes about

17:48

fift to your genes and your genetics,

17:51

and then about ten so

17:54

this tiny little sliver to your circumstances,

17:56

and that includes everything from you know, your

18:00

your demographic information, your race, your gender,

18:02

your social class, your income, to everything

18:04

that happens in your life that's beyond your control. So

18:06

you know, whether you lose your job, or you have

18:08

a miscarriage, or you break

18:11

up with your partner or those sorts of things. So that's your

18:13

circumstances ten only. And

18:16

then for she attributes

18:18

to your personal effort. You know that

18:20

the fort is under your controls. So in

18:23

her theory, it's four times as

18:25

important to to make a big effort

18:28

than it is you know what actually happens to you in your

18:30

life. So you

18:32

know this narrative. So I went back and had a look

18:34

at where this data actually came from, and I

18:36

found this thing was just absolutely riddled

18:39

with errors and nonsense. And you

18:41

know it's just basically not true

18:43

in any meaningful sense at all for

18:45

a start, but also it's really quite

18:47

a damaging narrative, you know if you say

18:49

that, just you know, just this tiny part

18:52

of your experience and how happy you are as you

18:54

knows your circumstances and everything else is your own

18:56

fault. Basically, you know, you're choosing how

18:58

happy to be, so kind of mask gaslighting

19:01

really of people's actual circumstances,

19:04

and it really kind of encourages this lack

19:06

of compassion for people. I think, Yeah,

19:09

I found the pie chart idea to

19:11

be helpful

19:13

for me, um, and it's I'm glad

19:16

to hear you go back and sort of unpack the data

19:18

that says, you know, you based on what the original

19:21

studies, where you could have really drawn that pie

19:23

chart lots of different ways exactly.

19:25

I initially found when I first saw fifty

19:28

it was kind of what is called the happiness

19:31

set point. Right. I originally

19:33

was both depressed by that and

19:36

relieved by that. Right.

19:38

I was depressed because I come from a history

19:40

of depressive people, right, And so

19:42

I was like, oh, well that explains and

19:45

so so in that way. But on the

19:47

other hand, I was like, oh,

19:49

well, maybe I can stop feeling

19:52

like this is my fault that

19:55

I'm this way and so then so fifty

19:57

percent of it is that, right, which again you

19:59

can take that messages is um

20:02

depressed or positive? You can say, oh,

20:04

well, I can control fift of it, and

20:06

I'll use the word control there in quotes,

20:08

right, and then there then the

20:11

rest of it breaks down into this narrative

20:13

of only a little bit of it is your circumstances,

20:15

and the rest of it is the effort you put

20:18

in two volitional activities.

20:20

Now, the way I have heard that talked

20:23

about before, though, is that things volitional

20:25

activities would be things like spending more time

20:27

with other people, which we know to be a

20:30

predictor of happiness. And so I think all those

20:32

percentages can be debated. And I'm a

20:34

big fan of another

20:36

Buddhist teaching that listeners are surely

20:38

here is tired of hearing me bring up which is

20:40

the middle way, which says that any

20:43

extreme I am wary

20:45

of. So people who say, like, your happiness

20:47

has nothing to do with your circumstances, right, you

20:49

can be happy in any circumstances, Well, that's nonsense,

20:52

right, And people

20:54

who say it's only about your circumstances,

20:57

because that's where a lot of us focus all

20:59

our effort. If I just change this circumstance and

21:01

that circumstance, yeah, and if you're just

21:03

you're a prisoner of what happens to you. Yeah, and then

21:05

and then you know, yeah, if you get the right job,

21:08

the great person, all that you'll be happy

21:10

to which I also recognized to be a

21:13

mistruth. Right, I've had good things happen in

21:15

my life, and I very quickly adjust to them

21:17

and can go back to my usual sad sack

21:20

self if I know, if I don't watch

21:22

it right. And so so I find I

21:24

find either of those narratives to be

21:27

very limiting. Like, of course, our

21:29

circumstances matter, and of course,

21:31

you know, people who have really difficult

21:33

life circumstances suffer more than

21:36

other people. Whether those circumstances are

21:38

um, social or economic,

21:41

or the way you were raised or the trauma

21:43

you suffered. I mean, of course those things matter.

21:45

And of course the efforts, the things

21:48

that we do to try and live a good life also

21:50

matter. Yes, absolutely, And I think

21:52

you're right, And I think part of what kind of riled me up

21:54

about this particular pyechat was what was in that

21:57

that they were advocating, So you know

22:00

that what was in the

22:02

part that you can do for yourself? Because I think it

22:04

was all these things like, you know, right, your

22:06

your gratitude journal, your three good things that happened

22:08

today, and you know, do some optimism

22:10

maximus as exercises and do

22:13

your mindfulness practice and you know, and

22:15

I thought, really, are you really

22:17

saying that it's four times more important

22:19

to you know, write down three good things that happened

22:21

that day then that you know, your marriage broke up,

22:23

that you're living in poverty, that you

22:26

you know, these huge things. And I think

22:28

part of the problem is it's this quite right

22:31

wing narrative essentially,

22:33

you know, it's this very um I

22:35

think there's always been this tension in politics

22:38

between you know, whether people are

22:40

constrained by their circumstances or whether this kind

22:42

of meritocratic idea, which is, you know, anybody can

22:44

make anything of themselves, the American dream, just

22:46

work harder and you put yourself up by your bootstraps,

22:48

which doesn't acknowledge that we're not all starting

22:50

from the same place. And I think this is

22:53

this kind of narrative. You know that bootstraps

22:55

idea applied to the emotions, which

22:57

I think is often not that helpful.

23:00

But yes, as you said, of course there is something very

23:02

liberating about the idea that we can rise about,

23:04

a rise above our circumstances,

23:06

and still be happy in adversity

23:08

for sure. Yeah, well I found it fascinating.

23:11

This I did not know right um

23:14

about the positive psychology movement

23:16

is that how much of it has been funded by

23:19

the Templeton Foundation, which I also

23:21

knew almost nothing about except that

23:23

they seemed to fund what to me were

23:26

interesting things about happiness, and

23:28

so that was my extent of it. But

23:30

but tell us about the Templeton

23:32

Foundation, because I think that will tie

23:34

together your statement just a second

23:36

ago about some of these ideas can

23:38

be very right wing. I think we need to make that connection.

23:41

So I mean, Barbara Arnwright, who wrote

23:43

a book called Smile Orde, started

23:45

looking at this a while back, and then, you

23:47

know, I also looked at it in my book America the

23:49

Actors, which is that the vast

23:52

majority of the academic positive psychology

23:54

movement in the United States is funded

23:57

by one organization called

23:59

the Templeton Fan Nation. Now

24:01

the Templetum Foundation was set up

24:03

by a man named John Templeton

24:06

Jr. And he was

24:08

a very right

24:10

wing man and a massive donor

24:13

to the Republican Party, to

24:15

anti gay marriage causes, to

24:18

the Christian right to all. I mean, he was

24:20

a huge donor to right wing political causes.

24:23

And he also had the Temperatu Pup Foundation,

24:25

which is on the face of it and a political

24:27

group. It's not a you know, it's not party

24:30

political in on the face of it.

24:32

But everything that they have chosen

24:34

to fund, you know, they are looking at the causes of happiness,

24:37

and everything they have chosen to fund us

24:39

is studies about how we can

24:41

just try harder at being happy. So there

24:43

are a lot of studies which are all about, you know, getting

24:45

people who are poor or in bad circumstances

24:48

and just making them try a little bit harder at

24:50

being happy to change their attitudes rather

24:52

than their circumstances. And there are

24:54

no studies funded by the Templeton

24:56

Organization about whether social

24:58

justice would make a different, whether about materially

25:01

improving the lives of these people, about listening

25:03

to people's concerns and and acting on them.

25:05

You know, these studies

25:08

do not exist. Or they're

25:10

not they're not being funded by this movement. And I think

25:12

it's set the terms of the debate before

25:14

we've even get out got out of the gate. It's set up a

25:16

whole academic discipline, and it's

25:18

framed the terms of how we look at

25:20

this question, you know, from a very

25:23

right wing perspective before even starting.

25:25

Yeah, so interesting. I never really

25:28

connected those dots in my mind,

25:31

and as a show, we generally stay

25:33

away from getting too political. But I think

25:35

it's a very interesting connection

25:38

that all those studies are funded

25:41

by an ideological perspective

25:43

that says, yes, your

25:45

happiness is your own responsibility,

25:48

your life is your own responsibility.

25:50

We can all just pull ourselves up and points

25:53

away from something that you say very very

25:55

well at one point in the book, and you say

25:57

we need to think of well being as a shared

25:59

resp answer ability rather than individual

26:02

quest, and to develop a discourse

26:04

of happiness that engages with people's problems

26:07

rather than dismisses them.

26:09

And I think that is such a I think it's a great

26:12

summary for the entire book, and

26:14

and so well said. And that's

26:16

a way to frame up what we were just talking about

26:18

with the Templeton foundation, right, I

26:20

think so, because, yeah, this isn't a party political

26:23

issue. There are people of all political

26:25

persuasions who are generous

26:27

and compassionate and all the rest of it.

26:30

But I think this is just a way of framing

26:32

the question, which, you know, it's

26:34

really important to realize where these ideas come

26:37

from, you know, And I think when we're

26:39

you know, I think if you go too far down there,

26:42

it's your fault, it's your responsibility,

26:44

it's your fault narrative, then it's

26:46

very easy to lose compassion. You know. A big

26:48

theme in the in the self help movement is

26:51

the law of attraction. Yes, oh god, it's

26:54

one of those things like if I again, if I take the

26:56

middle of the road, you know, the middle road

26:58

approach, I go, there's a lot of there's a

27:00

lot of ideas there that are true. Like

27:03

I don't know, I don't I don't necessarily think

27:05

there's a mystical um component

27:07

happening. But if we focus on what's

27:09

important to us, and we put our time and energy towards

27:11

it, and we keep it in the front of our mind, we're

27:14

going to get more of that thing. Like I think there's some

27:16

truth in there, but the

27:18

implications of you take that theory

27:21

very far are horrific. That the

27:23

children being abused right now, they

27:25

somehow attracted that to themselves. I think it's

27:27

a it's a profoundly horrible

27:30

idea, right. And you know, so that book

27:32

The Secret where the Laura attraction came from.

27:34

I went back and look, because she was promoted

27:37

what's her name, Rohnda Byrne. I think she was

27:40

promoted very heavily by Oprah at the time.

27:42

And I went back and searched on YouTube and

27:44

found the old episodes of Oprah

27:46

where they were talking about that book and

27:49

some of the stuff that they were coming out with.

27:51

I was thinking, you really wouldn't be able to get away

27:53

with that now. You

27:56

know. There was stuff where you know, you

27:59

know, there was this one word and she'd been fired from

28:01

her job and um,

28:04

you know, she had her boss had been

28:06

really unfair and I can't remember the exact

28:08

circumstances of it, and she had a young child who was a

28:10

single mom, and you know, Oprah's

28:12

advice on the sort of you know,

28:14

as part of this whole secret thing was for her to go and

28:16

write a gratitude letter to her boss

28:19

for firing her, you know, not any

28:21

sense that there should be kind of a you

28:23

know, any kind of employment protection

28:26

for her job, or that you know, perhaps

28:28

she'd been unfairly treated or anything,

28:30

you know, was that she should go and be grateful

28:32

to her boss for firing her, without

28:34

looking at any of the circumstances of the case. And I was

28:37

thinking, you know, this really is or another

28:39

woman who her husband

28:41

had left her, you know, had been gambling, I think, or

28:43

had got into all this debt and had left

28:45

her, you know, with all this debt for

28:47

the wife was not her fault at all. And they were kind

28:50

of pretty much blaming this woman for this whole

28:52

situation and telling her that she ought to write a gratitude

28:54

letter to her husband for all of

28:56

this happening. And I was thinking, you know, this is just absolutely

28:59

nuts. This is some kind of emotional basis,

29:01

you know, and I think that our ideas

29:03

on it have moved on over time. But yeah,

29:05

it's as you said, balance is important,

29:08

But um, I think we've

29:10

gone too far to to that side

29:12

of things in this country, and I think we need to kind of pull

29:14

back and look at more collective solutions.

29:17

That is an unequivocal

29:20

uh statement that I can agree with it. We

29:22

do need to look at things more

29:25

collectively, and it needs to be

29:27

more of of a wee thing.

29:30

I mean, I I look, you know, my sort of quote

29:32

unquote self help journey, you know, started

29:35

with my recovery from heroin

29:37

addiction, which was profoundly

29:39

shaped by the people that

29:41

were around me and by the

29:44

support that was available to

29:46

me. And you know, all that stuff

29:48

was made possible by a social

29:50

support system as well as then all

29:52

the people that I found that were there.

29:55

And I do think that that's such an important

29:57

piece. The thing about that idea

30:00

of like write a gratitude list of the person

30:02

who fired you sounds completely

30:04

nuts, right. It

30:06

makes me think back to an idea

30:09

though that I used to hear in in

30:11

twelve step recovery, which was pray

30:14

for the person that you have a lot of resentment towards.

30:16

And part of me is like, well,

30:18

part of my reaction was well that is crazy,

30:21

and then the other part of it to me was well,

30:25

if I continue to hate this person, I'm

30:28

the one who's ultimately probably suffering

30:31

from that, and learning

30:33

to let go of that somehow is

30:36

probably a good idea. But

30:38

I think going as far as I'm going to write gratitude

30:40

gratitude to somebody who has fired

30:43

me in a in a cruel and unfair way,

30:45

stretches that, Uh, that concept

30:48

a little bit beyond its usefulness, right,

30:51

absolutely, And I think you also have to look at the power

30:53

structures our pricing behind all that, because

30:55

I think it's one thing. You know, if you're in a pretty

30:58

equal relationship with

31:00

somebody and you know there's a breakdown

31:02

of trust or you resent them for something, that's one thing and

31:04

to let go of that resentment, I think is healthy and

31:06

it's going to do a big favor if you do that, And

31:09

to forgiveness is just such

31:11

an important piece of social connection.

31:46

I often think about this

31:48

idea of responsibility

31:51

and blame, yes, right

31:54

in our own lives, like where

31:56

am I taking responsibility in a useful

31:58

way? And where my taking blame

32:01

for something? So I just

32:03

think it's an interesting idea to be curious your thoughts.

32:06

Yeah, it's it's a really good distinction, I think,

32:08

um, And I think absolutely. I

32:11

mean, personal responsibility in our relationships

32:13

is so key to having healthy

32:15

relationships. You know, to admit when you've been

32:17

wrong to to accept

32:19

your own part in things, to not

32:22

blame the other person or the rest of it. So I think

32:24

that is a great way to be um

32:27

to be in a relationship, as long as

32:29

that relationship is basically one

32:31

of equals. I think when that, when you are

32:34

looking at something where there is this you

32:37

know, complicated dynamic of of

32:39

of power and you

32:41

know, somebody having a whole own bed, then I think that

32:43

that becomes quite a different equation. And

32:46

it's interesting. I have these conversations

32:48

with my son a little bit who is in

32:51

college and very

32:54

studying sociology, the sociology

32:56

of race um a lot of environmental

32:59

stuff, and and we talk a little bit about,

33:02

you know how he sort of staring

33:05

down these really big problems

33:08

all the time and the

33:11

moment, yeah, and and so it what,

33:14

you know, what is the what is the proper relationship

33:17

to all right, there are

33:19

these fundamental structural problems

33:22

with the world that I want to change,

33:24

and what is the relationship

33:27

then with my own mental health

33:29

around those things? And it gets

33:31

back to this idea a little bit of

33:34

responsibility and you

33:36

know, recognizing how much responsibility

33:39

we have, what we can actually

33:41

change, what we actually can't change is

33:43

such a such a big thing. It makes me

33:45

think of what you said very early when we

33:47

talked about the two wolves, and you said, well, I

33:49

think part of the problem is I can't. The wolves

33:52

look pretty close right, like I can sort I

33:54

can sort out, like, yeah,

33:56

I can sort out the wolf that tells me to go

33:58

stab my downstairs name because they're

34:00

making too much noise. I can. I can clearly dismiss

34:03

that wolf. I think it's sort of like the serenity

34:05

prayer, which I think is one of the wisest things ever,

34:08

and yet it's

34:11

the reason why. It's like we're praying for the wisdom,

34:14

because my God, it's hard

34:16

to find. It's so hard

34:18

to know where should I push, where should

34:20

I change, where should I accept? And

34:22

it's so gray. Yes, it's

34:24

so great. And I find that especially. You know, I'm

34:26

a parent of three children, and mine

34:29

are younger, but I find that all

34:31

the time with parenting. I find that's like the absolute

34:33

source of all of my biggest philosophical, moral,

34:36

emotional conundrums. You know, I don't

34:38

know which one is the good wolf. I can read something

34:40

which says, you know, be

34:43

stricter, and I think Okay, that's the way to go.

34:45

And then I'll read something which says be you know, be less strict,

34:47

be kind of you know, more understanding, and I

34:49

think, okay, well that's the way to go, you know. And all of these

34:51

can make a very very good case for being the right

34:53

way to go, and all of them come from a good place.

34:56

I mean, we all want to raise healthy,

34:58

happy kids. But it's just, you

35:00

know, how do you do that? That's that

35:03

that's the question. You know. It's not, as

35:05

you say, no one's you know, no

35:07

one's really advocating that you beat your kids or

35:09

you starve them whatever. It's just, you know, between

35:12

these these good wolves, you know, people

35:14

presenting themselves as the good wolves, which one is the way

35:17

to go? And as you said about you know

35:19

this this question with your son about

35:21

how do we deal with these terrible

35:23

things that happened in the world and these huge issues

35:28

to deal with, and especially now, I think we're at

35:30

the kind of peak anxiety at the moment

35:33

politically and socially, Um,

35:35

how do we deal with that and still preserving

35:38

our own mental health? And I think that is a huge

35:40

question. And I think are the the younger

35:42

generation the generation of college students now

35:44

I really admire because I think they

35:46

are willing to tackle the big

35:49

questions in a way that my generation was too

35:51

busy getting drunk and ignoring it, you know,

35:53

and letting the world kind of burn. And you

35:55

know, so I think it's a tricky

35:58

one because I think the easy thing would be to say, I

36:00

will just switch off from it, but you know, to

36:02

preserve your own mental health. But that's not going to

36:04

help. You know, we have to be informed citizens, you

36:07

know, and we have to find a way

36:09

to stay engaged and to you know,

36:11

to make changes and to fight for

36:13

what's right and

36:15

at the same time take care of ourselves. Yeah,

36:18

and I think not only are college

36:20

students wrestling with this. I mean I hear this from

36:23

listeners all of the time. Like I'm

36:26

watching this political train wreck

36:28

and I can't turn away from it. And

36:31

yet this staring at it all day

36:33

long is just making me sicker and sicker

36:35

and sicker. And you know, where

36:37

what is the what is the right amount

36:40

of engagement with that that

36:42

is actually useful? And you

36:44

know, I think we're all trying to figure this

36:46

out. In my own life, I've hit a point where I'm

36:48

like, if what I learned is going to cause

36:51

me to do something, then

36:54

I think it's worth continuing to engage

36:56

and learn and and

36:59

and listen. And if, on the other

37:01

hand, it's just going to reinforce the

37:03

same things that I already know, that I already

37:05

feel, then it

37:08

may not be a useful thing for me. That the constant

37:10

outrage about something that I'm not planning

37:13

to do anything about feels

37:15

to me like very corrosive, very

37:17

corrosive for no good, right,

37:20

It just corrodes me and the people around

37:22

me. Um. Whereas

37:24

you know, I think if it's if it's something

37:26

I'm going to that I'm going to engage

37:29

in and do something about, then

37:32

you know, I think it's really important. And so that's

37:34

kind of where I have been sitting with it lately.

37:37

Yeah, that's an interesting way, because I think there's

37:39

two trends which are going on. One is that

37:41

the objectively is just a lot of

37:43

very anxiety producing stuff that's

37:45

going on in the news right now. I think that's just kind

37:47

of a given. And the other thing is that we just have

37:49

access to far more information than we ever

37:52

have, you know, we have just you know, with our

37:54

phones and just devices, and

37:57

you know, social media and just constant

37:59

trip trip rip drip drip access to the news. I

38:01

think we're absorbing information in a very

38:03

different way than we already have. So these

38:05

two trends together, I think is

38:07

just completely and utterly overwhelming. I

38:10

mean, I think what you said is really interesting for

38:12

me. I think I've probably set the bar

38:14

slightly differently because I think

38:16

I accept that there

38:18

will be many things that I will want to know about

38:20

and be informed about that I probably won't be taking any

38:23

very direct action on. I think

38:25

I just because of where I am in my

38:27

life. I think, you know, I've got three very

38:29

young children, I have a job.

38:32

So I think, you know, I can't quite set

38:35

the bar at that the point that you've set it, which

38:37

is, you know, if I'm not going to

38:39

take action on something, I'm not going to know about it,

38:41

because there are only so

38:43

many things I can take action on. You know. I

38:45

do call my senator, I do,

38:48

you know, sign my petitions, and I do make political

38:50

donations, and I do do things, but you know that there

38:52

are limits on it. And so I do think

38:54

being informed in and of itself is

38:57

doing something you know, I don't think it's nothing.

39:01

But you know, I, like everybody else,

39:03

really struggles to find the right balance. And you

39:05

know, I do find myself getting overwhelmed and

39:07

feeling very anxious and toxic. And I

39:09

have tried to sort of compartmentalized

39:12

by time and say, Okay, I'm not going to look at my

39:14

phone or look at the news until such

39:16

and such a time. And you know, I've tried different

39:18

ways. I don't think I've hit on the right thing for sure.

39:21

Yeah, I don't think there is any any

39:23

right answer. And I'm I'm not quite as uninformed

39:26

as that just sounded. But sorry,

39:28

I probably made it sound worse than it yet. Yeah, no,

39:30

but no, I think it is. It is that balance

39:33

of like how much time do

39:35

I need to hear sort of the

39:37

same the same. The other thing that I think

39:39

is happening, which I think is a really interesting

39:42

phenomenon, is that on

39:44

one hand, we are very anxious

39:46

and things look really grim,

39:48

and you know, climate change is really bad,

39:51

and on the other hand, by all

39:53

sorts of different measures, the world is becoming

39:55

a much better place. That is true

39:59

in some sort of in some semi

40:01

staggering ways, And so

40:03

I think that that that is another narrative

40:06

that we mostly miss. We

40:08

we might get fed schmaltzy

40:10

feel good stories that sometimes

40:12

are helpful, But I don't know that we

40:15

hear enough about, you know, how

40:17

much better life is for the average

40:20

human than it was a hundred

40:22

years ago. Yes, I think that's such an

40:24

important point, and it's such an important thing

40:27

to remember. And you know, just as you're

40:29

talking, I'm just kind of wondering, you

40:31

know, something like climate change. This is fun

40:33

that I go back and forth on myself, because on

40:36

the one hand, you know, if

40:38

you hear, if you read one thing about climate

40:40

change, you know, you know it's coming, then

40:43

you're an informed citizen. And you

40:45

know, do you need to read it fifty times a

40:47

day in fifty different ways? And I don't

40:49

know, is there something about the drip

40:51

drip, drip, drip drip that actually is the only thing

40:54

that will get us to actually do anything about

40:56

it? Or is it is

40:58

it the kind of thing you can know once and and forget

41:00

about. I don't know. I think part of the anxiety

41:03

does help me do lots of little things to

41:05

kind of, you know, in my daily life.

41:07

It does sort of serve as a reminder. But

41:10

yes, it is definitely in competition

41:12

with my mental health. Yeah, yeah,

41:14

back to what we talked about earlier. Everybody

41:17

is different, right, like, you

41:20

know, because the far

41:22

extreme for a lot of people of too

41:24

much of this is then becomes complete

41:26

disengagement, right like

41:29

now I'm done, Yes, in your life,

41:31

I can't fix anything, and

41:33

I just fall into a state of depression

41:35

and apathy. And so everybody's

41:38

going to engage with these things differently, and sort

41:40

of back to an earlier thing that we talked about also,

41:43

you know, with studies and like what works

41:45

for me? You know, what, what is it for

41:48

me? That is the balance that seems

41:50

to work that allows me

41:52

to move forward? And I was thinking about

41:54

social media. You certainly have some chapters

41:56

in the book. And by the way, I've not said this in the interview, I'm

41:59

gonna say it now for list is your book is wonderful.

42:01

It is hilarious. I highly recommend

42:04

it. Um and I can't I can't

42:06

cover even one percent of of

42:09

how much UM good stuff

42:11

and how much I laughed during the book. But

42:13

you talk all about the challenges

42:15

of social media, and there's all sorts of studies

42:17

that show that night. So I'll get listeners like should

42:20

I give up social media altogether? As social

42:22

media bad? And I'll go, well, I

42:24

don't know what is it for you, like

42:27

like what's your relationship to like

42:29

what's doing in your life? Because I don't

42:31

know that there's an answer for every

42:33

yes and also not. You

42:35

know, there's different answers at different times. You know, at

42:37

some points in my life social media

42:39

has been really helpful and other points it's

42:42

just been a complete ship show. Sorry, can I

42:44

say that? Yeah? You can?

42:47

You know, so, I think it's sort of it really depends

42:49

where you are in your life and you know what's

42:51

going on for you as to how you respond

42:53

to all that stuff. Well, Ruth,

42:55

this has been a wonderful conversation. I feel

42:58

like I could do it for a whole lot longer, but we are

43:00

at the end of our time here. So I want to thank

43:02

you so much for coming

43:04

on the show and talking with me. Oh it's been

43:06

such a pleasure. Thanks so much for having me. You're

43:09

welcome, Bye bye bye. If

43:27

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43:29

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