The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos - Happiness Lessons of The Ancients: The Trauma of Troy

Episode Date: March 13, 2023

In Virgil's epic poem, The Aeneid, few Trojans survive the destruction of their city at the hands of their Greek enemies. A prince, Aeneas, leads a band of those fleeing Troy - but the journey is fraught with deadly storms and hungry monsters.   But Aeneas takes a positive view of the struggles he and the other Trojans face, telling them to be proud of their resilience and courage. With the help of MIT classics professor Stephanie Frampton, Dr Laurie Santos explores how The Aeneid can be read as a tale of post-traumatic growth and how we can sometimes emerge happier and stronger from tragic events.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pushkin. Wait, you want my version? Yeah, I want your version. Was it a New Year's party? I'm asking my friend, MIT classical literature professor Stephanie Frampton, to recall some ancient history. classical literature professor, Stephanie Frampton, to recall some ancient history. I've requested that she tell her version of the story of how we first met many, many years ago. My memory is, it was at our friend's house, off the shelf, you pull the Aeneid,

and you're like, when I was in high school, I was really good at Latin. So embarrassing. Okay, so it turns out I was a huge nerd in high school, I was really good at Latin. So embarrassing. Okay, so it turns out I was a huge nerd in high school. And I was kind of obsessed with all things Latin. I studied that ancient language for three whole years. And as a senior, I spent an entire semester translating an important Latin text, the Aeneid, by the famous Rowan poet, Virgil. But I didn't just translate The Aeneid.

I got kind of obsessed with it. And being the type A 17-year-old Latin scholar that I was, I, for some strange reason, decided that there was one and only one proper way to translate the first sentence of The Aeneid, which in Latin is, Arma virumque cano. Back then, when some scholar or author translated Arma virumque cano in a way I didn't like, I kind of thought a little less of them.

I know you have strong opinions. Very strong opinions. So when I first met Stephanie at that party many years ago and heard that she was an expert on the literature of ancient Rome, I couldn't help but quiz her. Okay, new friend, so how would you translate Arma Virumque Cano? I sing of arms and of a man. I'm into that. Technically, the correct answer is I sing of arms and a man, not I sing of arms and of a man.

But it's fine, whatever. Stephanie still passed. But what a great opening, right? I sing of arms and a man. The Aeneid is about an armed struggle, but it's more importantly about a man, Aeneas, an ancient hero who weathers great dangers and sorrows. A guy who endures the worst possible tragedies a person can possibly go through and somehow finds a way to grow from them. And that's why I wanted to share Virgil's story with you today, because Aeneas can offer us some important evidence-based tips for meeting the challenges that life throws our way and resiliently rising above them. And that makes Aeneas a fitting fictional subject for yet another episode of Happiness Lessons of the Ancients,

with me, Dr. Laurie Santos. with happiness lessons of the ancients, with me, Dr. Laurie Santos. Virgil is everyone's favorite Roman poet, and he becomes sort of the first superstar poet in the Roman world. We last heard from my friend, classics expert Stephanie Frampton, when we talked about the happiness lessons we can derive from the great Greek poet Homer. I like to think of the Aeneid as the best fan fiction there is of Homer. Homer was a towering figure in ancient literature, and Virgil, who lived hundreds of years after Homer, found lots of inspiration in his work.

In fact, Virgil liked Homer's epics so much that he gave them a reboot with a Roman twist. Virgil rewrites those for his hero, Aeneas. Aeneas was a kind of minor character in Homer's original epics, but Virgil put him at the center of the action. And that's because, at least according to some legends, Aeneas wasn't just some nobody. He was the guy who would eventually found Rome. Well, that's what the Romans say.

The Greeks didn't care that much about that side of things. And so here's the simplified version of Virgil's Aeneid. It starts at the tail end of a royal love triangle, one that's so bad it results in an epic war that destroys an entire ancient city. Famous Troy, it's the site of a great battle between two great ancient peoples, the Trojans and the Greeks who have come en masse to get back Helen because she's the wife of Menelaus. This is the very famous Helen of Troy. Indeed. Or alternately, Helen of Sparta because she's the wife of Menelaus. The Trojan prince Paris comes along and she decides to leave her Greek husband Menelaus and go back to Troy with Paris, which probably didn't make the Spartans all too happy.

Not at all. And the Spartans kind of rally together all of the ancient Greek peoples and they sail across the sea to Troy and set siege to the city to try to get Helen back. No spoilers, but how does it go for the Trojans? Doesn't go well for the Trojans? Doesn't go well for the Trojans. You might remember how the Greeks sneak their way into Troy. They pretend to call

off the siege and leave the Trojans with what seems like an odd, yet ever so kind, parting gift. A huge wooden horse. The Trojans wheel their strange present inside the city's high walls, never guessing that there were legions of Greek warriors hiding inside, just waiting to spring out for a surprise attack. Who could unfold in speech that night's havoc? Who its carnage? Who could match our toils with tears? The ancient city falls, for many years a queen.

In heaps, lifeless corpses lie scattered amidst the streets, amid the homes and hallowed portals of the gods. Everywhere is cruel grief, everywhere panic, and full many a shape of death. The attack was so vicious that Virgil's hero, Aeneas, is one of the only Trojans to escape. The city was completely razed by the Greeks. All of his fellow Trojan princes were dead or captured. He leaves his hometown in complete ruin. It's sort of burning around him. He loses his wife in the escape.

He manages to get away with only a few of his men, his father, his son. They hop on a boat and are blown around the Mediterranean. They're nearly shipwrecked many times. They are attacked by monsters and have an encounter with a cyclops who tries to eat them, amongst other things. So it was pretty bad. Yeah, it sucked. Encountering a cyclops is majorly bad news. Here's the gory picture that Virgil paints of one of those giant one-eyed cannibals. He feeds on the flesh of wretched men and their dark blood. I myself saw when he seized in his huge hand

two of our company and smashed them on the rock and the spattered quartz swam with gore. I watched while he devoured their limbs, all dripping with black blood clots and the warm joints quivered beneath his teeth. Remember when Stephanie described the Aeneid as the best Homer fan fiction ever? That's in part because Virgil continually succeeded in outdoing his predecessor in terms of the hardships he sprang on his poor hero. Consider, for example, how Virgil's Aeneid goes next level

on what happens to Homer's epic hero, Odysseus. The Cyclops we know from the Odyssey was a very dangerous creature who likes to eat men. In the Odyssey, Odysseus and his men are attacked by one and they barely survive. And Virgil does Homer one-up and has Aeneas' men attacked by a whole mob of Cyclopses and they barely get back onto their ships and sail away. So why did Virgil choose to give poor Aeneas so many extreme trials and tribulations? The reason had to do with who Virgil was writing for, his fellow Romans. The men of Virgil's time hadn't exactly been chased by man-eating giants, but they had been through decades and decades of bloodshed. It is the end of a century of constant warfare and infighting. It's the period of Caesar and

the civil wars following Caesar's rise to power. Like Aeneas, many Romans had lost their homes and their loved ones. They'd felt a sense of collective loss for generations, a feeling that Aeneas' creator, Virgil, had also known firsthand. Part of the background of his story is in this period of strife and civil war, his homeland, his property gets confiscated as part of payments to soldiers for civil war, et cetera, et cetera. So he kind of has this chip on his shoulder a little bit about what's come before and feeling like it was all a little bit unfair. Virgil and his fellow traumatized Roman citizens closely identified with the tragedies that befell Aeneas, but they also really admired how Aeneas made it through all those tragedies. Because in the end, Aeneas

didn't lose his home and endure countless monster attacks for nothing. Aeneas' tale is a redemption story, one that came with a huge sense of purpose and meaning. In spite of all his losses, Aeneas was fated to become the man who would found Rome. Yeah, his journey did suck, but Aeneas was fated to become the man who would found Rome. Yeah, his journey did suck, but Aeneas was set to achieve so much after all his trials and tribulations. With that tale of redemption, Virgil was able to hold up a mirror to his fellow Romans. He was reminding them,

yeah, you've had some tough times, but you survived, and now it's time to flourish once again. It was a message that especially resonated around the time the Aeneid was written, as Rome's new emperor Augustus was taking the throne. Augustus is Caesar's great nephew and heir, and finally sort of gets to be the main guy in charge of Rome and starts a period of kind of relative stability. And Virgil's poem is in some way a celebration of that. But the ancient Romans aren't the only ones

who can learn from Virgil's epic celebration of growth through suffering. When we get back from the break, we'll hear about what modern readers can learn from Aeneas' ancient redemption story. We'll learn that Aeneas uses a special psychological technique that helps him and his men overcome their pain.

A strategy that science shows we should probably all be using when we find ourselves going through a tough time and want to feel better. We'll hear more about this effective ancient resilience technique when the Happiness Lab returns 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 know what? We love that for you. Someone else will too. Be more you this year and find them on Bumble. It's the most successful poem in the

history of European languages, arguably. Sounds pretty impressive. Yeah. Like me, MIT professor Stephanie Frampton is a big advocate of Virgil's epic, The Aeneid, and the role it can play in helping us to understand the psychology of resilience. It's known as the best poem in the best language. in the best language. Obviously, Homer, the Iliad, the Odyssey have a huge impact and are read, but Greek isn't as prominent a language in the sort of subsequent history of Europe for all sorts of reasons, mostly because of the Catholic Church. Latin is a language that's spoken in Europe actively from the first millennium BCE through the 18th century. Through 1990s New Bedford High School AP classes too. When I first read the Aeneid as a teenager, I was struck by how well the poem's hero Aeneas

was able to rise above the terrible tragedies he endured, which was no small feat since the poet Virgil didn't shy away from sending terrible stuff Aeneas' way. To quote my own high school translation of Virgil, Aeneas was much buffeted by the winds of fate. I mean, the dude lost his wife and his homeland. He was trapped in numerous deadly squalls at sea. He even had to face a rabid cyclops mob. But what I was most impressed by is the fact that Aeneas didn't shy away from all the bad stuff or try to suppress what he went through.

No, he kind of relished focusing on it. Take, for example, what happened soon after Aeneas and his men crash onto the coast of Carthage after enduring a terrible storm. They've been shipwrecked. They've found themselves on the shores of this strange land.

Aeneas and his men were soon welcomed by this strange land's residents, as well as their queen, Dido. Dido wanted to be hospitable, so she invited the Trojans to a big feast, the first great meal Aeneas' men had had in months. It's the first time that they have found a place where they feel like maybe they can be a little safe for a moment and reflect. At the celebration, the queen asks Aeneas to tell the story of how he and his men wound up shipwrecked on the beach outside their city. And at this point, Aeneas could have tried to do the polite thing. You know, share a few vague particulars about what happened, but not get into too many of the unpleasant details, as that probably would have ruined the celebratory mood. But that's not what Aeneas did. Too deep for words, O Queen, is the grief you bid me renew. How the Greeks overthrew Troy's wealth and woeful realm, the sights, most piteous that I saw myself, and wherein I played no small role.

Aeneas really went there. He spent an entire chapter of the poem walking through the terrible, sordid, gory details of literally every single bad thing he and his men went through. Aeneas recalls the moments when he's leaving Troy with the city burning around him, he puts his father on his back to carry him out of the city. He grabs his son's hand and has him follow along at his side. Aeneas describes turning back and sort of seeing his wife has gone missing. He's lost her in the melee. And he goes to the ships and tries to sort of rally some of his men together and flee on the water. Such words he spoke.

While sick with deep distress, he feigns hope on his face. And deep in his heart stifles his anguish. Aeneas didn't downplay any of the trauma he experienced. He described it in as much detail and with as much candor as he could, which didn't make for a very pleasant dinner party conversation. Many of us would choose not to be as open as Aeneas was in discussing the negative experiences we've endured. We'd probably assume that none of our friends wanted to hear about all our drama, or we might figure that talking about our tragedies would likely make us feel worse. But the science shows that this is a spot where our minds are lying to us.

Because tons of evidence suggests that disclosing our personal tragedies openly might be an important first step towards actually healing them. Years ago, I came across an interesting finding that people who had had a major traumatic experience when they were young were much more likely to have long-term health problems. This is Jamie Pennebaker, a professor of psychology at UT Austin. Jamie's been a guest on the Happiness Lab before to share his work on the importance of talking candidly about our bad times. about our bad times. I later discovered it was because people kept it secret, that they still were thinking about it, but they were keeping it secret because it was humiliating to acknowledge it. And we found that when people were asked to write about a deeply troubling traumatic experience or upsetting experience that they hadn't talked to other people about, that it was associated with

better physical health. People went to the doctor less. Their immune system got better. So that was how I become so intrigued with this notion that if you have something that's bad and you don't want to talk about it, you probably should think about talking about it or at least writing about it. He's spoken to Holocaust survivors about sharing their harrowing life stories, and he's also had college students write down their upsetting memories. His research shows that talking in detail with someone you trust about unpleasant events, or even just jotting them down on paper, can have a surprisingly positive impact.

There are easily 1,000 or 2,000 studies that have been done since then. Across these studies, it's been associated with reductions in symptoms of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. It's been associated with people in symptoms of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. It's been associated with people performing better on creative tasks, doing better on standardized tests like SATs or MCATs. People, they report being happier, they're mentally healthier, and the biological markers have been quite impressive in terms of changes, in terms of improvements in symptoms of arthritis and immune disorders and cardiovascular changes and so forth. There's a decent chance it'll be associated with your sleeping better, that you'll be able to get along with other people better.

You're able to get through upsetting experiences the way that we often don't if we are sitting quietly and mulling over these issues in our minds. Jamie has found that trying to suppress our bad memories puts a huge cognitive strain on our brains. Our minds simply don't react well when we tell them, hey, this thought is kind of sad. Let's not think about it anymore. And that means that opening up about our trauma, whether to a caring friend or just in a private journal,

can be a huge psychological relief, one that comes with all the health and happiness benefits that Jamie just mentioned. But Jamie has found that there's also a second reason that openly sharing upsetting stories is beneficial for us. By putting an upsetting experience into words, it forces structure.

It forces an organization. There's a beginning, middle, and end. It's not blowing off steam. It's not some kind of venting or catharsis. Instead, you are coming to understand the event and also yourself better. When Aeneas flooded his fellow dinner guests with the sad details about losing his beloved city and fleeing from a horde of hungry cyclopses, he wasn't just complaining. He was giving his mind an effective way to make sense of the dangers his men faced.

Talking about those tragic events allowed Aeneas to more carefully examine the bravery and skill that he and his men showed during those tough times. It gave him a chance to reflect on what he'd learned from all that adversity. And this is something that I find interesting about adversity. Having the thing that's negative certainly sucks. about adversity. Having the thing that's negative certainly sucks, but by the same token, it has the potential to be healing and to make us rethink ourselves and rethink our lives. Classic scholar Stephanie Frampton thinks that this is an insight that Virgil nicely put into effect in one of my favorite passages of the Aeneid, the spot where Aeneas speaks to his men directly about what overcoming so much adversity can mean for their success in the future. Oh comrades, for ere this we have not been ignorant of misfortune.

You who have suffered worse, this also God will end. You drew near to Skyla's fury and her deep echoing crags. You have known to the rocks of the Cyclops. Recall your courage and banish sad fear. Perhaps even this distress, it will someday be a joy to recall. He says, recall your courage and banish fear. That expression, recall your courage, I think in this context is really interesting. The words in Latin are re vocate animus. So call back, literally call it again to yourself, your animus, your spirit.

again to yourself, your animus, your spirit. It means both recall, as in call it back to mind, but it means also have that spirit again, like use it again. So it points in both directions, right? It's memory that's working to contextualize their present situation. It's memory that's working to give them courage now, and it's courage now that will give them strength for the future. It's like you're using the past and a particular story about the past to remind yourself, hey, I got through this before. I was resilient before. I can do it again. So you're like literally using stories about the past to recall something really important that you need right now or in the future. And we can also think that Virgil is doing this too for himself, right? He's saying, Romans, remember what you've been through. It

is the strength that you need now to go forward. It's part of why the book was so embraced when it originally appeared. It had this ripple effect of saying if Aeneas' sacrifices were worth it for him to get here for us, then our sacrifices are also maybe worth it for us to get to a better place. But Aeneas didn't just tell his comrades to recall their courage in that famous passage. He also gave them an optimistic framework for how to think about and reflect on those sad times in the future. She says perhaps it will someday even be a pleasure to remember these things. When we get back from the break, we'll look at this aspect of Virgil's psychological insight, that with an optimistic perspective, we can begin to see our past sorrows not as tragedies, but as blessings, ones that allow us to grow as people.

We'll see that Aeneas is an ancient example of what modern psychologists refer to as post-traumatic growth. We'll learn what post-traumatic growth is and why this concept can be so essential for feeling resilient during bad times. The Happiness Lab will be right back. 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. Through varied fortunes, through countless hazards,

we journey towards Ladium, where fate promises a home of peace. As Aeneas helps his men process their still-fresh memories of the sacking of Troy and their horrific escape across the sea, he stays focused not just on all the trauma they endured, but also on their brighter, better future. Aeneas reminds his men that in spite of all they've been through, they're still headed for Latium, where Rome stands today, in the hopes of fulfilling their destiny of founding a great new city.

In this way, Aeneas focuses not just on the past, which as we learned before can help him process the grief he's been through, but also on the future and all the prosperity it might bring. Aeneas' tendency to keep an optimistic eye on what's to come was best illustrated in a pivotal passage in the Aeneid, in which he takes a journey to the land of the dead what's to come was best illustrated in a pivotal passage in the Enyid, in which he takes a journey to the land of the dead and gets to see visions of just how amazing the empire he's about to found will turn out. For this, the kind of foundational moment is in book six,

when he goes and visits the underworld. And not only does he see his father, who's died at that point, but he also sees all of Romans to come, including Augustus and his family. Turn hither now, your two-eyed gaze, and behold this nation, the Romans that are yours. this nation, the Romans that are yours. Here is Caesar and all the seed of Lullus destined to pass under heaven's spacious sphere. And this in truth is he whom you so often here promised you,

Augustus Caesar, son of a god, who will again establish a golden age in Latium amid fields once ruled by Saturn. He will advance his empire beyond the Garamants and Indians to a land which lies beyond our stars. He kind of gets this preview of like all the awesome stuff to come. Exactly. And it's like because of this, because of what you're going through, we get to have the Rome of today. So the Aeneid is kind of this incredible story, right? It's Aeneas, this dude who's like fleeing from his homeland with his old dad on his back and like trying to grab his kid before everything burns to rubble. But ultimately,

it's the story of like the founding of the like most important empire ever. And so it's kind of this like trauma turned to growth sort of story. And I think that's one of the reasons I really enjoy it still to this day is it's kind of like the like Roman poetry version of what psychologists talk about when they talk about post-traumatic growth. Post-traumatic growth is a phenomenon that psychologists have become more and more interested in. Now, you've probably already heard about a related concept, what's known as post-traumatic stress, or PTSD. PTSD is a mental disorder that arises after people have gone through trauma or other terrible life events. But scientists have begun to realize that trauma doesn't always only

result in long-term emotional distress. Survivors sometimes show the opposite pattern. After growing through painful life events, people wind up experiencing a host of positive psychological changes. We know that trauma can lead to long-term stress and negative symptoms, but there's also evidence that it can be a fertile ground for discovering new relationships, for harnessing courage, and for finding a sense of meaning. This suite of positive outcomes after trauma is what researchers have begun calling post-traumatic growth. The academic concept of post-traumatic growth is relatively new, but it's pretty clear that ancient poets like Virgil understood it.

You find more resilience. You find a bigger sense of meaning. You think that, you know, because you've made it through this trauma, the world has something important for you to do. I mean, is that kind of the way the poem was thought about back in the day? Absolutely. And it's really a response to the trauma that Rome has gone through for the last hundred years in their civil wars. It's an idea that if Aeneas can get through this, that we all can get through this together. We usually assume that upsetting life events have to take a real toll on us, that traumatic circumstances inevitably lead to negative effects that can last a lifetime. But research has shown that there are ways of processing our bad life events that, at least over time, can help us move towards a sense

of growth instead. But what are some of these more effective ways of dealing with bad life events? I can tell you right now that what happened to me is a blessing. This is J.R. Martinez. But it took a lot of work for me to get to this point almost 16 years later for me to say this to you. Like the ancient fictional hero Aeneas, JR was no stranger to the horrors of warfare and violence. He served as a soldier in Iraq, and his life changed in an instant when the vehicle he was driving exploded when it was struck by a roadside bomb. JR was eventually rescued, but he suffered horrific burns.

These painful injuries ended the then 19-year-old's military career and left him scarred and disfigured for life. The identity that I had known for 19 years of my life, my physical appearance, what I recognized for 19 years of my life, every morning, every evening, every day in between when I looked in the mirror, that identity is taken away from me. And now I'm looking in the mirror and that person that I see, I do not recognize. I have no relationship with that individual. And having to come to terms with accepting the fact that the person that I used to be has died, that person's gone, will never come back. JR suffered terribly after his accident and initially showed many of the negative effects that come after experiencing trauma.

I was drinking. I was angry. I was reckless. I mean, I was not pleasant to be around. I really wasn't. But the tragedy of that bomb blast was also a pivotal moment of change in JR's life. It caused him to realize that life was short and that he needed to prioritize making the most of it. So, in spite of his scars, he decided to follow his dream of becoming an actor. He auditioned for a part in a soap opera and got it. dream of becoming an actor. He auditioned for a part in a soap opera and got it. He eventually became a TV celebrity, a magazine cover star, a motivational speaker, and an advocate for disabled veterans. That's why he now describes getting blown up in Iraq at 19 years old as a blessing. I'm blessed to have a second chance at life. I'm so passionate and I have so much passion inside

of me because I don't want to take this second chance for granted. I am trying to live at 100% every single day. You can hear more of JR's story in a previous episode of The Happiness Lab called The Unhappy Millionaire. But I've included JR again in this episode because both he and our ancient hero Aeneas are great examples of strategies you can use to move towards post-traumatic growth. And one of those strategies involves trying to manage your emotional distress as best you can.

This was something that Aeneas did well, explicitly telling his men to make sure they were regulating their emotions. Oh comrades, for air this we have not been ignorant of misfortune. You who have suffered worse, recall your courage and banish sad fear. Banish your fear and call back those good emotions, says Aeneas. But former soldier J.R. Martinez gives us a great method to do just that. He found ways to experience gratitude

for his terrible ordeal. He spent his time intentionally noticing that things could have been worse. Considering the fact that I was trapped inside of a burning truck for five minutes, I'm fortunate to only have what I have. I have a lot of friends and I know a lot of people that unfortunately have missing limbs or more scarred, you know, or disfigured, you know, you know, I, to some degree, I'm very lucky that my skin grafts and the burns kind of blend in with my skin tone. So, you know, it just, in some ways it's not as noticeable, oddly enough, right? Like, you know, so in that sense, I'm incredibly fortunate.

But another psychologically effective strategy for getting through tough times is finding ways to use your adversity to give back by becoming more other-oriented in the face of tragedy. Aeneas did this by focusing on taking care of his men and making sure they made good on the legacy of their fallen Trojans. And JR did something similar. He realized that he might be able to use his story to help others.

And I started to kind of piece all this together and realized, wait a minute, there's all of these lessons and things that I've dealt with that everybody else is dealing with. So maybe I can do something with this. So JR became a motivational speaker, sharing his painful story and the lessons he learned with military veterans all over the world. He couldn't serve as a soldier any longer, but he could still contribute something meaningful to those around him. still contribute something meaningful to those around him. I can go out there and serve in a different capacity because the new uniform that I wear are the scars on my body,

and the new weapon that I have are the words that come out of my mouth. And Jiar's experience shows a common benefit of post-traumatic growth, connecting with others. After initially feeling lonely and isolated following his burn injuries, Jiar soon found that his ordeal increased his empathy for other people. He also saw how much of a happiness boost he could get from giving back to the people around him. And by sharing his story, JR used a final strategy

that can help us grow from suffering. He was able to find meaning in what he went through. If you've been through a tough hardship, you can ask yourself what you learned and what new meaning those events have brought to your life. It took JR a while to do this, but he eventually saw that his brush with death was a way to achieve a fuller life that he couldn't have ever imagined before he was burned. Over the course of my life, there have been a lot of things that I've experienced that didn't make sense in the moment. But if you stick with it and if you're patient enough, over the course of time,

the answer then presents itself. Everything I thought I wanted in life, you know, I wanted to be a professional football player and have fame and have all this money and be able to do all these things. Like if I would have accomplished those things, would I be as happy as I am now? I've helped a lot of people, at least I believe, that I've been able to make a difference. And I think that to me is more important than anything else. And this brings us back to Virgil's hero, Aeneas, who, spoiler alert, faces even more challenges and bereavements as he continues his quest to found Rome. But he does so with the knowledge that he's fulfilling a meaningful mission.

That glorious Rome extend her empire to earth's ends, her ambitions to the skies. What's more meaningful than, you know, picking up your fallen empire to create this new world, to create a new home for yourself and the people you care about? Yeah. And what Virgil is trying to do with the poem. Virgil gives us a hero that has been through a lot of sadness, but is endeavoring to kind of move forward. It's certainly a story that I think resonates with readers today. It certainly resonates with my students, the sense that they have a goal that they're trying to get to. Aeneas

is trying to get to Rome. My students are trying to graduate from MIT. Neither of these things is easy, and they have to make sacrifices along the way and make choices that sometimes looking back on, you know, they have that sort of reflective self. They're maybe, wish things had gone differently. But the sense of kind of moving forward and having a backward glance as part of that is, I think, really important to the way that Aeneas, the Romans, we all can create meaning. Returning to the story of Aeneas always reminds me that even after experiencing the worst of times, there are strategies we can use to control our situation. We can call back our courage and use strategies to regulate the painful emotions that come with

negative events. We can find ways to use what we've been through to help other people. And we can harness the power of sharing stories and disclosing our bad memories to process and learn from what we've gone through. And remember, telling your story doesn't mean you have to share your woes with some unsuspecting dinner party like Aeneas did. You can follow the lead of psychologist Jamie Pennybaker's college students and get all the benefits that come from journaling about your tough times privately. But the key is that you use that process to identify what Aeneas and J.R. Martinez both found after their awful ordeals. That if you look carefully, you can find meaning in your painful stories, and that sense of purpose can lead to growth. And making good on this idea of meaning-making is how I wanted to end this episode today. Because chatting with Stephanie about Virgil

did take me back to our awkward first meeting when I somewhat aggressively quizzed her about her Aeneid translation. That obviously wasn't a hugely traumatic event. No Cyclops mobbing, as it were. But it still presents the opportunity to use the power of stories and meaning-making to put things right.

So just realizing the power of going back to stories that at the time were a little bit painful. You know where I'm going with this. I'm sorry I was so mean about the translation. You weren't mean. You weren't mean. I was a little bit mean. But it can be a sort of redemptive story

that even though... Absolutely. It's drawn us together all of these years. It's something we've talked about and laughed about many many times and i wish i could go back to 15 years ago laurie and stephanie and tell her you guys are fighting about the beginning of the ennead at this silly dinner party but 15 years later you're gonna be on a podcast i would have to explain what a podcast is at that point but you're gonna be on a podcast and're going to be able to share the Ennead with the whole world. Amazing.

Huge thanks to my friend Stephanie Frampton for sharing all her wisdom about some of my favorite ancient mythological heroes. It's now time for the season of happiness lessons of the ancients to leave the shores of Greece and Rome and to head east to South Asia, where we'll be examining the happiness insights we can find in the Yoga Sutras. the shores of Greece and Rome, and to head east to South Asia, where we'll be examining the happiness insights we can find in the Yoga Sutras. The sutras are just the truth. They're the truth of the human experience, and they can be applied in different ways depending on what's going on in your life.

And the only things that will resonate from the sutras are the things that you already know to be true within yourself. I hope to see you next week for the latest edition of Happiness Lessons of the Ancients on 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. You also heard the voice talents of David Glover. Special thanks to Greta Cohn, Eric Sandler, Carly Migliore,

Nicole Morano, Morgan Ratner, Jacob Weisberg, my agent Ben Davis, and the rest of the Pushkin team. The Happiness Lab is brought to you by Pushkin Industries and by me, Dr. Laurie Santos.