Happiness isn’t the goal
Are we wired to worry?
September 30, 2024
53 min
Full
677 of 775
September 30, 2024
Happiness isn’t the goal
0:00 / 53:58
Excerpt playback isn’t available for this episode — use the full-episode link.
Search the Record
Moment search isn’t open for this episode yet
When it opens, you’ll be able to type any phrase and jump straight to the second it was said.
Gray Area Episodes Around September 30, 2024
Episode 677 of 775 — walk the feed in the order it was published.
Happiness isn’t the goal
Summary
Children live with a beginner’s mind. Every day is full of new discoveries, powerful emotions, and often unrealistically positive assumptions about the future. As adults, beginner’s mind gives way to the mundane drudgeries of existence — and our brains seem to make it much harder for us to be happy. Should we be cool with that?
We wrap up our three-part series on optimism with Paul Bloom, author of Psych: The Story of the Human Mind and Sweet Spot: The Pleasures of Suffering and the Search for Meaning. He offers his thoughts on optimism and pessimism and walks Sean Illing through the differences between what we think makes us happy versus what actually does.
Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling)
Guest: Paul Bloom (@paulbloom), psychologist, author and writer of the Substack Small Potatoes
Support The Gray Area by becoming a Vox Member: https://www.vox.com/support-now
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Episode details and artwork are published by the show’s own feed. Sentinel plays short cited excerpts and links every episode back to its publisher.