The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos - Happiness Lessons of The Ancients: Sikhism and Daily Habits

Episode Date: April 3, 2023

Following 9/11, Simran Jeet Singh's Sikh family in Texas was subjected to extreme racist abuse. And yet, Simran's father chose to look on the bright side and offer thanks instead for the acts of kindness friends and neighbors showed them. How was such optimism possible? Simran - author of The Light We Give: How Sikh Wisdom Can Transform Your Life - explains how practicing positive habits and living by our values as often as we can will really help when a crisis arises.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ugh, we're so done with New Year, New You. This year, it's more you on Bumble. More of you shamelessly sending playlists, especially that one filled with show tunes. More of you finding Gemini's because you know you always like them. More of you dating with intention because you know what you want. And you know what? We love that for you. Someone else will too. Be more you this year and find them on Bumble.

Pushkin. Do you remember where you were on the morning of September 11th, 2001? I was a senior in high school, and I remember we heard the rumors, the whispers that an attack had happened. This is author and activist Simran Jeet Singh. Like many Americans, he also has a vivid memory of how scared he was that terrible morning. We ran to my teacher's classroom, Ms. Strong, and we all just watched on television. We watched the towers come down. But Simran's fears about the events unfolding in New York and D.C.

went beyond just the tragic terrorist attacks that were unfolding. That afternoon, the death threat started. First by phone, then people driving by. So, I mean, it was a really intense moment in my life. Simran and his family are Sikh, members of a major religion that sprang up in India around five centuries ago. As part of their faith, Sikh men grow beards and wear turbans. Even though their faith had nothing to do with the awful attacks of Osama bin Laden,

Simran and his family became immediate targets for abuse in their small South Texas town. That afternoon, Simran's mom locked their front door. I remember that vividly because we had never locked the doors. Followers of Sikhism are no strangers to assault and persecution. The threat of oppression has even shaped their faith. But Simran was still surprised when his father pondered their situation soon after 9-11 and gave thanks. My dad said something to me like, aren't we so fortunate? You know, we're so lucky that your neighbors have been coming by to give us food, that your teachers and your teammates

have been checking in to see if you're okay. I mean, aren't we so lucky to have all these people around us? This story is a pivotal moment in Simran's hit book, The Light We Give, How Sick Wisdom Can Transform Your Life. The memoir tries to unpack different strands of Simran's sick faith and explores how following these tenets can make us all feel a little happier. So let's hear more about the well-being wisdom of sickism on Happiness Lessons of the Ancients with me, Dr. Laurie Santos.

We heard the story of Simran's family and the abuse they suffered following 9-11 in the last episode. But what I wanted to dig deeper into this time was the reaction that Simran's father had to this difficult time. If your family was under siege, with strangers calling in death threats and abuse being screamed at you from passing cars, would you ever think to say, aren't we so fortunate? And I look at him like he's lost his mind, right? Like, in what world is there something to feel fortunate about? And yet, this is what Simran's dad thought. His religion valued optimism and gratitude even in the face of negative events,

and prized the bonds that form between people of different backgrounds. Rather than forgetting all those teachings in such a stressful moment, Mr. Singh kept them at the forefront of his mind. He committed to putting those teachings into action day in and day out, until they were simply second nature. And this powerful lesson fits with the advice that we get from scientific work on happiness. If we want to weather the bad times well, we need to practice good habits when things are less stressful. We need to flex our happiness muscles regularly to build them up for when we'll need them the most.

If this sort of practice makes perfect metaphor sounds like something a sports coach might say, well, that kind of makes sense because it's an analogy that I've borrowed from sports-obsessed Simran. As an avid teen soccer and basketball player, Simran realized that his father's example of putting in daily practice was exactly the thing he was learning from his coaches, who were helping him to shoot hoops and pass soccer balls.

Good habits or bad habits or lack of habits shape us in all kinds of ways. And so sports to me was probably just the best way that I've come to understand this because I would say probably like 50% of my childhood was practice, basketball, soccer, baseball, and the other 50% was thinking about practice or games. So yeah, when I was in school, there was actually very little attention that I was paying to what was actually going on, which I think is probably that we function as a society, at least what my experience was growing up, is that in sports, we talk about practice as a way to prepare ourselves for the big moments. In school too, right? Like homework and test preparation, whether you actually do it or not, or find shortcuts is a different story. But we're trained to understand that if we want to succeed academically, there's a process that you go through. And then for whatever reason, when it comes to

living life, generally, we tell ourselves, all I need to know is the right ideas. All I need to know is that it's important to love my neighbor. And as long as I know that in my brain, then I can feel empathy for anyone. And to a degree, it works, right? Like on a micro level, day to day, you see your neighbor and you say hi and you feel good about yourself. And you're like, see, I'm a good person. I'm empathetic. I'm compassionate, whatever.

I watch TV and see this earthquake in Turkey and I donated 100 bucks and that's it. And those are good and they're fine. But what I found is without real intention behind bringing those ideas into practice, they just are so distant from who we actually are. And part of the reason that this really came to me was in trying to understand what I was noticing on the front lines of hate violence, which is that for certain communities, and I worked with many Sikhs, and we see this particularly among faith communities, when certain communities are targeted and beaten and assaulted in these nasty, hateful attacks, they have an ability to

respond with the best of their values in a way that goes beyond human understanding, right? Like, it's so hard to watch these people as they're in the worst, most vulnerable positions of their lives, because somebody couldn't control their own anger and their own hatred. And they'll sit up and they'll be like, I don't want them to be punished. Like I've seen people who've lost family members and been like, I don't believe in capital punishment. I don't want that person to die. I want to forgive them. And like, however, this plays out and it's super complicated. And I don't think there's a clear formula for it in terms of what people should do. But what I can say is, I've seen that in their most vulnerable moments, when people have lived lives where they've practiced daily, what their

values are, like they're ready to show up in those difficult moments. And so that's become the inspiration for me. Like, what am I doing every day to prepare so that when the hardship comes, and it's going to come, like life is life, things are hard. When hardship comes, I'm ready to respond in a way that reflects my values and makes me feeling good about what I can control. Kind of like my dad in that moment in 9-11, where, you know, there's a lot that he couldn't control. The world was spinning out of control. And he was able to really look into his values and find a way to claim his own agency in that moment. And I think that's really a powerful way to live. And I think part of it is recognizing the power of the moment. You know, there are so many faith traditions that really focus on the kind of redemption or

liberation that will happen to you after you die, right? You know, I'll try to get into heaven or, you know, the afterlife will be so great. try to get into heaven or, you know, afterlife will be so great. But I think one of the powerful things about Sikh philosophy is there's a real emphasis on the here and now, right? The liberation doesn't happen when you die, it's happening kind of as you're living right now. And so talk about this idea of mindfulness, something that the happiness literature has talked about a lot, and how that sort of plays out with kind of making sure you're practicing all these good values and these good deeds in the here and now. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's interesting because I, you know, I, I study a lot of

religions and philosophies. I'm a, I'm a professor of religion. And, um, and even as a kid, one of the things that never really made sense to me was this approach to life that said, life is an illusion. Don't take it seriously. Real happiness comes after you die. Like just set yourself up for that happiness. And you know, to each their own, it's, it's fine if that's, if that's the way you want to live. But like what I've learned and understood and what I really appreciate is, um, life is finite. We don't know what we don't know. And what we do know is what we experience right now. And here's an analogy that might be a little bit basic, but I think it pertains here.

So my wife is a physician. And when she was in high school, I didn't know her then, but this is how she's described it to me. She was like, all I need to do to be happy is to get into a good college. And then she was like, all I need to do to be happy is to get into a good college and then she was like all i need to do to be happy is to get into a good med school and then it was all i need to do to be happy is get into the right and like you just keep giving yourself these distant goals of like i will be happy then if i do this now and it's it ends up being so conditional and like who really looks at people who i mean we we see it in movies all the time. We see it in literature all the time, right? Like, it's not like this is a foreign concept to us. We live this too. But we know that the greatest way of finding happiness is to live in the present moment, right? Like that's, that's what every rom com teaches us. And so it's, it's, it's, it's in our faces. It's not a surprise. But it's so hard to live that way for a lot of reasons. And there are all sorts of challenges that we face on a daily basis. But I think for the people that we know who are the happiest, they're the ones who are really engaged and taking seriously.

I mean, those are the people that I have the most fun being around are the people who are happy and enjoying life. And that's who I want to hang out with. And anybody who's planning for happiness 20 years from now, I'm like, okay, hang out with me in 20 years. It'll be more fun then. And part of making sure that you're doing the best that you can do for yourself in the moment is really like taking a good, hard, and oftentimes courageous look at yourself and noticing when you're straying from that path, right? I think sort of this term, the hukam, like this idea of acceptance, even when you're kind of off track. And this was something that I really admired that you talked about doing in the book. Again, not necessarily through your spiritual practices, but just in terms of your priorities and like taking a good, hard look at

that. And so, you know, talk about how you did that in terms of paying attention to whether you were really prioritizing the things that you loved in life. Yeah. You know, one of the things as you're saying this, somebody asked me recently, like when you write about your own life, memoir style, how do you choose what to write about? And I was like, I hadn't thought about that. Like, what are the moments? And I realized I just reflected on where I messed up the worst. I was like, let me just tell everybody about these moments in my life. And so this is one of them where this experience that I had, and I think all of us live this way. In my head, I would describe my priorities as being family first always. And I have these

young kids. And I would say that that's the most important thing to me. And I would say, my own personal happiness, spiritual practice, and the last among that is work. And I think that's really reflective of how I see the world and where priorities should be. of how I see the world and where priorities should be. And I wasn't sure exactly how to check if that's... I mean, it felt to me like I was off balance. And I wasn't quite where I thought I was and things weren't really lining up. And so I had this exercise where I said, okay, for today, imagine that an alien comes from outer space and is just watching me and observing me. And based on those observations, they're going to see how I spend my time. And based on how I spend my time, they're going to tell me what my priorities are. And so I go through this exercise

and what it enabled for me was almost a third person distance, right? Like I'm observing myself going through the day. And as I'm going through it, I'm like, oh my God, like I'm sitting here with my kids, getting them ready for school. But even when I'm sitting with them, I'm so distracted by what I need to do for work that I'm not even, I'm not even actually here. And for me, like I could tell myself this story every day that like, I'm such a great dad. I'm, you know, getting my kids ready for school. I'm doing their hair, whatever. But really, if somebody else is watching me, they're like, you're half present. And I go through this process, like the entire day of reflecting on both what I'm doing with my time, like, what am I prioritizing in actuality, and also what my headspace is when I'm there. And that, that exercise

was really illuminating for me, in understanding that understanding that I was very much off base in terms of what my actual priorities were and how I was living my life. And it revealed to me a source of my own unhappiness, right? Like I wasn't actually doing the things that I cared about. And the things that I cared about, I was like half doing. And so it was just a nice way to recalibrate, not just how I spent my time, but where I spent my time. This also seems to be something that's consistent with at least some Sikh philosophy. I know you mentioned in the book that Guru Arjan talks about this idea of setting fire to any practices that take you away from love. And I love this specific phrasing

because it's like, you gotta set fire to it, right? This is a hard task that you really need to kind of detonate what's going on in your life if it's not working. But if it's taking you away from love, it's sort of worth doing that hard work to some interesting extent. No, I love it. It's such a... Again, I think some of these ideas, they're so obvious.

It's not like we haven't heard that concept before, right? Like, do what matters to you. Do what takes you towards your goals. I mean, we hear this since childhood, but the reminders and having them repackaged in different ways. The original Punjabi for Guru Arjun's line is, and he's talking like you can translate it as rituals, right? And superstitions, and you could make it very specific to a critique of religious practice. But my read on it is it's actually applicable to all of us in all aspects of life, right? Like just burn the

things that are taking you away from your goal. And for me, as someone, as I'm reflecting on that story, it was actually a really instructive, practical mechanism for dealing. I mean, you know, I can sit here and say, my priorities are misaligned, and I'm going to change them. That's so hard to actually do, right? Like, there's actual psychological impact, right? Like, okay, so one of the examples specifically is that at the time that I went through this reflection, so much of my headspace was tied up with social media, Twitter in particular. So I would be doing my kid's hair and thinking of what's the cool tweet that I'm going to put

out today. And it sounds so ridiculous when you say it out loud. I was going to say I'm a little embarrassed. I'm a lot embarrassed to say that. But you get addicted to these things. And there are all kinds of addictions in life. And it's not so easy to just say, okay, starting from today, I'm not going to do this thing. It actually takes real effort to get there. And for me, this teaching, burn that thing, for me, that meant just hop off social media for a few months. And it doesn't mean you have to make some like huge commitment or radical change in your life, but just like get away from that thing and you can come back to it later. So anyway, it's, it's, it's, it's a really powerful teaching that I come back to, especially

in moments where I find it difficult to step away from the things that I, that I'm actually really attached to. Auditing what we actually spend our time doing and honestly comparing that to our aspirations can be a sobering experience. If you've listened to the Happiness Lab before, you've probably heard that I often struggle to match my behavior with what I know should be my priorities. I far too often choose tasks that satisfy my itch to seem busy and productive instead of simply having fun with my loved ones. But there's another mismatch between intention and reality that trips a lot of us up. But there's another mismatch between intention and reality that trips a lot of us up. And that's the gulf between knowing

that we should do nice stuff for the people around us and the temptation to just concentrate on pleasing ourselves. After the break, we'll look at how Simran's parents tackled that problem by taking away his birthday presents. The Happiness Lab will be back in a moment. his birthday presents. The Happiness Lab will be back in a moment.

Ugh, we're so done with New Year, New You. This year, it's more you on Bumble. More of you shamelessly sending playlists, especially that one filled with show tunes. More of you finding Gemini's because you know you always like them. More of you dating with intention because you know what you want. And you know what? We love that for you.

Someone else will too. Be more you this year and find them on Bumble. There are so many arresting moments in Simran Jeet Singh's book, The Light We Give, How Sick Wisdom Can Transform Your Life. The memoir features powerful quotes from sick gurus, difficult encounters with intolerance and outright hatred, and brutally honest anecdotes about Simran's own triumphs and failures. But there was one image that wouldn't leave my mind when I first read the book.

It was the story of young birthday boy Simran being taught a radical lesson about the value of sharing with others. The practice in our household growing up was you don't keep all the birthday presents you get. So you have the big party, like that's fun. Everyone shows up and it was great. And we do it in our backyard. And I always looked forward to it. And then the next day you go through the birthday presents and you keep one, sometimes two, and the rest are for donation. And so it was painful as a kid, but the practice that engendered for us was, your birthday is not just about you. This is an opportunity to think about others as well. And I'll say my younger daughter's birthday was just two days ago. And my wife and I have

developed our own practice around this. She gets to keep her presents because I don't have the heart to take them away. But one of the things we've developed with her is on her birthday, we give her a list of charities that we develop throughout the year. And she gets to pick which charities she wants to give amounts of dollars to that we assign to her. And what that creates is a similar kind of dynamic, right? Like you, even on days that where culturally you're told the day is all about you, like even on those days, we're not doing this approach of like self-centeredness. We're going to think about others as well. And we're going to give. And ultimately, like, you know, people hearing this might think that this is about charity or about, um, I don't know, feel, feeling good about yourself, which I mean, in a way, yes.

And ultimately it's about happiness, right? Like, what do I want for my kids? I want them to be happy. And my experience and what I've learned is generosity is a real driver of happiness. And so I want my kids to learn and really feel what generosity is like in their daily lives. So it becomes something that they carry with them forever. And this is something we talk about a ton on this podcast, right? There's so much evidence that serving other people's happiness is a way

to serve our own happiness. Like the best way to spend money to feel good yourself, to experience happiness yourself is to spend it on other people. It's just we kind of don't realize that. And I think this is the problem with serving other people is we think it's a chore, but it can be a path to feeling good ourselves, even when serving other people who you might not necessarily want to serve or who might not react well to your service. And here's where I wanted you to tell the story of the woman that you helped on the street, because not all of our attempts to serve others go well. Sometimes they just reinforce some of the discrimination that many marginalized groups are facing.

Yeah, yeah, this is another one of those. That's, I mean, racism is so funny in a lot of ways. I mean, if you're willing to look at it that way, it's just so ridiculous. So this moment with this woman on the street, she was older, we're living in New York city. She fell in the middle of, of the crosswalk as she was crossing. So, so on the street, busy, busy city, Manhattan, uh, Upper East side. And, and she's laying there and she can't get up. And, and I just run over and put on my hand to help her up, right? Like no big deal, like anything anyone would do. And so she reaches up to grab my hand and then she looks up and she sees my face and she immediately jerks her hand back. And she's like, she just shouted. I mean,

it was so weird. She goes, go back to where you came from. And I mean, I've dealt with all kinds of situations like this before, but actually nothing, nothing like this where the person who's being racist towards me actively needs help. And they're in a dangerous situation. I mean, it's it's New York. Cabs aren't going to stop for her. And so I I mean, I'm not quite sure what to do. And in a way, right, this is the story of racism in a nutshell. I'm not quite sure what to do. And in a way, right, this is the story of racism in a nutshell,

right? And people would rather, people would rather be hurt, uh, than to take help from, from others who they, who they don't like for whatever reason. But I'm, you know, I'm, I'm sort of stuck in this, in this situation and unsure of what to do. And then we don't have that much time. And in my head, I'm, I'm thinking she needs help. I'm also thinking she doesn't want help from me. And a really natural me. And a really natural reaction, and I acknowledge this, would be to just walk away and be like, whatever you hate me, I don't care what happens to you. But I think the practice of service as I developed it over the years had helped me understand that actually service is not about yourself and what you need to feel good. It's about other people and showing up for them. And so the immediate thought in my head was help this person

in a way that is comfortable for them, in a way that meets the urgency of the moment, but without making it about myself. So I mean, the quick response then is get other people over who she's willing to take help from and bring her to safety. In a lot of ways, it's a really simple story. It happened very quickly. It's probably what a lot of us would do in situations like this, right? But some of the particularities of the story that made it challenging for me helps me understand what it would look like for us to show up for one another in moments of need, in ways that aren't necessarily self-centered and could really apply generally to social progress. The reason I find this story so amazing is it's not just kind of not being so self-centered,

you're helping a person, but you're really doubling down on humanity during a time when you're experiencing like really awful discrimination yourself. And I feel like, you know, this is kind of really getting back to this idea of ikoknar, right? Like where it's like, these are the moments when you have to remember this radical connectedness. But if you can, then you can use these moments, not just to be these awful moments of racism, but you can really educate people about your heritage and about what you're about in these kind of awful moments. And I love the book because in the book, you talk about so many cases where you've done that so elegantly. My other favorite story in the book was when you experienced yet another racist incident in New York, this time involving some teen boys, but you were actually able to

teach them. And so tell me a little bit about this story. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. I mean, one of the things I try to do in the book is just share with people what it's like to walk around in my shoes and in my skin every day. But in a way that, you know, I want to be honest about my experience and not overstay. I mean, part of the way that I experience, as you can probably tell from my tone and tenor is, you know, these moments are hard, but they're not the worst moments in my life. They're not the worst things in the world. I can, I can manage them. I can, I can find even happiness within them. So it's, it's fine. And I think that's, that's an important thing for me to acknowledge too. And this moment with these kids, um, when

I'm running also in New York city, happens actually just after I start a practice of taking 10 seconds every day to see the humanity in strangers that I see on the street. Part of the goal there was to move beyond this feeling of strangeness and to develop a sense of familiarity with people who I didn't know. And so I've started this practice. And pretty soon after I'm running on the West Side Highway in New York, and I hear this, this guy shouting at me, he's calling me Osama. And he has a couple of additional descriptive, colorful, colorful words coming with it. And I'm so annoyed. I'm just trying to enjoy my run. It's a beautiful day and this guy's ruining it. And, and so I keep running at first. And as I run by, I, I see him and he's probably 18, 20 years old. And as I pass by,

I had no intention of, you know, saying anything or stopping or anything. But as I pass by this, this practice kicks into my head and I look at him like, Oh my God, he is just like one of my students. Same age. Right. Same same background. All the things. Right. Like it's so interesting for me to observe him in this way in this moment. And I decide to stop and to see him and treat him as one of my students. And so I go over to him and we end up having a really brief conversation. He must have been terrified. He must have been like, oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, exactly.

This was like a combination of teacher mode and dad mode because I go up to him and he's like, sorry, sorry. I was just kidding. And I knew he was trying to dismiss it and I would have to, but my dad in me is like, oh no, we're going to have a quick conversation about this. Like it's not that easy. And at first, again, it was probably a 30-second conversation. So in the first 10 or 15 seconds, he was just trying to get out of it, waiting for it to

be over like any teenager would. But as I shared with him why what he said was so hurtful, I could see his eyes soften. He got it in a way that he hadn't thought about it before. And then, and then with the sincerity, he was like, I'm, I'm sorry. Like, I wish I hadn't done that. And again, it's like this really micro moment, right? It wasn't the worst thing in the world by engaging with him. I didn't change the world or fix the world. But again, like thinking about my dad after 9-11, like what does it mean for us to meet these moments with our values,

to reclaim our agency in ways that give us hope? To say, actually, like the world doesn't just happen to me. Like I can contribute to it. I can have a positive impact. And for me, that meant I could enjoy the rest of the beautiful day, right? Like I walked away being happy with how I dealt with it rather than being annoyed or frustrated as I would have been. I just ignored it. And same for him, right? Like he got something out of it too, rather than just, you know, being enabled to continue in the way that he had. So to me, it's just this really simple practice of seeing people for who they are in a world where we're often bogged down by the fear of engaging with people who are different or people we don't know. And it made all the difference in that moment for me.

you happiness in the moment, I think in ways that we don't expect, right? Because to put that emotional labor in is a pain in the butt and that kind of thing falls on marginalized individuals. But if you can do it from a place of this idea of connectedness, sometimes you can get happiness out of it. But beyond that, you can be that one moment where at least one person is taught, like it's a small act, but it's kind of moving in the right direction. And this leads to the metaphor that I know, the story you use for which you named your book, this idea of the lantern story. So I'm wondering if we can end with that today, just kind of sharing that story and how it's been a philosophy that you've used to try to do more good in the world. Yeah, it's a parable, a Punjabi book tale that I learned from one of our greatest

human rights leaders named Jaswant Singh Kalra. And it's about a lantern in a village that is it with a collection of lanterns. And as the sun starts to set in the evening, they start to feel fear and they wonder what's going to happen to us as the darkness comes. We're not going to be able to see anything. And one of the lanterns as the darkness sets in announces, I challenge the darkness and it flicks on its light. And, you know, there's no intention of anyone else doing the same. There's also no intention of conquering darkness entirely, but it's just this one little lantern saying, I'm going to do what I can. But what happens after that is the other lanterns around it start to feel

inspired and recognizing that they can do the same and that there is a real possibility in challenging the darkness continually. And then all of the lanterns one by one flick on their lights. And I think part of what I love about this parable is that it encapsulates the humility and the possibility at the same time, right? The two are often a tension, but both are true. And I think what else I love about it is that it's so easy to feel the overwhelm of darkness in our lives. I mean, all the time, I feel it all the time.

And I know so many people feel it constantly. And to know in the way that we're taught in my tradition and in so many others that that light is already inside of us. And what we really need to do is to see it, to recognize it, to take it. I mean, I think there's profound implications for our, for what we're facing today, whether it comes to, you know, the crisis around mental health, depression rates. today, whether it comes to, you know, the crisis around mental health, depression rates. I mean, so much of that could at least be affected if we could learn to see the light within ourselves and really see our own inherent value that's already there. But it is really hard to see.

So this parable is a nice reminder for me about that as well. I hope you found some light in all the episodes we've shared together in this season of Happiness Lessons of the Ancients. The philosophers, texts, and thinkers we've examined are all, in their own ways, small lights that have helped guide people on the path to happiness for centuries. But it's time to step out of the past and into the present. So when the Happiness Lab returns, we'll be back to presenting some of the latest research to come out of happiness science. So I hope you'll join me for more well-being life in the weeks to come and return once again for the next episode of The Happiness Lab with me, Dr. Laurie Santos.

The Happiness Lab is co-written by Ryan Dilley and is produced by Ryan Dilley, Courtney Guarino, and Brittany Brown. The show was mastered by Evan Viola and our original music was composed by Zachary Silver. Special thanks to Greta Cohn, Eric Sandler, Carly Migliori, Nicole Morano, Morgan Ratner, Jacob Weisberg, my agent Van Davis,

and the rest of the Pushkin team. The Happiness Lab is brought to you by Pushkin Industries and by me, Dr. Laurie Santos.