The Viall Files - E156 The Science of Happiness With Tal Ben-Shahar

Episode Date: July 22, 2020

Today we take a deep dive into Happiness with teacher, author, and lecturer Tal Ben- Shahar. He taught two of the largest classes in Harvard University’s history, Positive Psychology and The Psychology of Leadership and shares his knowledge on these topics today. Nick and Tal breakdown happiness during quarantine, how it can relate to the amount of technology used in your life, the way resistance in a relationship and being known by your partner can actually lead to a deeper intimacy, and finally the best daily practices that set you up for a happier life.  “Movies end where love begins.” Be Sure To Subscribe So You Don't Miss An Episode & Send All Your Relationship Questions To [e-mail] THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS:  HELIX SLEEP: helixsleep.com/viall EARNEST: earnest.com/viall Episode Socials:  Viall Files @viallfiles Nick Viall @nickviall Tal Ben-Shehar @drtalbendhahar on Facebook For More Information on Tal and his Happiness Studies Academy visit www.talbenshahar.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

what is going on i am so happy right now i'll tell you i'll tell you what um but truly um But truly, I do feel better in this moment having talked to our guest today, one tall Ben Shahar. It's our first, first of all, our first Harvard professor on this show. And if nothing else, it makes me feel good that that we we did that but then again now that i'm thinking about it i don't know if i should equate success to happiness after talking to tall but either way that i think that's cool there's like a sense of ease of calmness we're we're doing things uh tall uh studies happiness the science of happiness uh he is uh it's called positive psychology positive psychology yeah um sometimes you would never think he he taught one of the most successful popular classes at harvard uh he is now left harvard and has his kind of own happiness school

if you will yeah happiness academy Happiness Academy, Studies Academy. Happiness Academy. I thought it would be appropriate and fun to have this conversation with Tal given kind of the times that we're in. I think people feel a lot of chaos, a lot of confusion, and quite frankly, aren't feeling very happy right now. And I thought it was beneficial for me

and I hope that you will as well. But a lot of things that we talk about, I hope that our best practices, I incorporate into my life and I hope that you guys listening will as well. And hopefully you enjoy it. Just feel good. It's a feel good.

Well, I don't know if there's anything else I should say before we get right to our guest. Other than the usual, make sure you send in your questions at asknicacastme.com, cast with a K. Don't forget to give us your five-star reviews. Could use those. And not that that's going to make me happier, I've realized. No. but it might but really it won't but really it won't um so yeah without further ado tall tall thanks for joining us uh good to be here nick uh i really appreciate it. I feel like this is a great time to have this discussion with you. There's probably no bad time to have a discussion about the happiness and the science of happiness.

in our society with obviously coronavirus and even without coronavirus where people feel intense and confused now more than ever. And even for myself, you know, you have, I have my highs and I have my lows and there's plenty of times where I simply just don't feel happy. Sometimes I wonder if my kind of resting state is just one of not happiness where I'm more like, and so when I learned about you and what you're doing in the world and the things that you've become an expert in, I absolutely wanted to have you on and really excited about having this conversation. Well, thank you. I am too. And, you know, Nick, you're spot on in terms of the times we're going through. And, yeah, I do think this is a very important time

for the science of happiness, even though not everyone thinks that way. You know, some people have said to me over the last few months, you know, maybe, you know, one said, maybe you should quarantine happiness studies for until this is over. Really, did they say why? What was their kind of thought process?

Yeah, because this is not a time to talk about happiness. You know, when, when there's a pandemic going on, when there are protests and discrimination, you know, let's park it and get back to it when, when, when better times are on us. What was your response to that? Well, my response is that, you know, happiness, the science of happiness, is not about smiling all the time and feeling good all the time, experiencing a constant high. That's nice for fairy tales. They lived happily ever after. In real life, there are ups and downs.

There are difficulties. There are hardships. There are challenges. And the role, the most important role, in fact, as I see it, of the science of happiness is to help us become more resilient, better able to deal with hardships and difficulties. And, and, and, you know, and that's what I'm spending my life on, again, not eliminating, getting rid of painful emotions, not possible. I actually don't think it's desirable. But better dealing with painful emotions when we do experience them, or dealing with difficult times when we do go through them. And we all do.

Yeah, absolutely. And it's almost kind of, you know, I get the thought process that this individual had in saying that, but it also are serious or matter to us or even be able to address pain. It's almost as if we have to sacrifice our own happiness if we want to be able to address, you know, other feelings that we're having. And that's hopefully not the case. I mean, have you found that to not, found that to not be the case in your studies? Yeah, you know, there are two issues here. The first is that, again, we all experience painful emotions.

So that's a given. But, you know, I often create the following scenario for my students. I say to them, imagine a machine is invented, and you could go into that machine, and that machine would eliminate all difficulties, all hardships, and it would just make you, quote unquote, happy. A little bit like, I don't know if you remember Woody Allen's Orgasmatron. You would go in and everything would be great again. And I say to them, so is that a utopian or a dystopian idea? And, you know, initially people, you know, students would say, oh, you know, this is great. You know, I would not have the hardships and difficulties

that I'm facing right now that I faced yesterday. But then I asked them the following. I say, think back to the most important experiences that you had in your life, experiences from which you really grew and learned and developed, you know, so important and meaningful experiences. And I'll raise your hand if there were difficult experiences, almost with no exception, you know, everyone puts their hand up. Because we learn from these experiences, you know, that they serve a purpose. You know, there's a beautiful poem, which I love by Rumi, the Sufi poet, called The Guest House. And in The Guest House, he says how we should invite as guests, every emotion, all thoughts, no

discrimination, just bring them in. And he talks about how this is healthy this is how we lead a full and fulfilling life a happy life and today the science uh just proves that Rumi was spot on that it's when we embrace rather than reject painful emotions that's when we grow that's when we learn that's when we grow. That's when we learn. That's when we have meaningful, deep experiences, either personally or interpersonally for that matter. Totally. And that's something I think I've actually probably embraced that idea too much in the sense that I've probably even stayed in relationships longer than I should have with this idea of no great things in your life come without hard work or tough lessons learned, et cetera, et cetera. And I've probably, I probably was too far on that side, but you're right.

I mean, in terms of, you know, people talk about the journey, in terms of like what really makes you appreciate where you are is what it took to get there. And as you kind of said, you know, if it seemed kind of easy and it didn't take much work or much thought, then it's harder for us to really appreciate it and feel joy and happiness as a result. us to really appreciate it and feel joy and happiness as a result. Yeah, you know, I think a good analogy to think about is working out. You know, if you go to the gym and there is absolutely no resistance, it's easy. You're not going to get stronger.

The thing, though, is that if there is too much resistance, you're in danger of getting injured. So you need to find this golden mean, the happy median in the gym as well as in life. Yeah, there are relationships that are destructive, where you're better off going your separate ways. At the same time, wishing for the happily ever after, wishing for a conflict-free relationship. In the long term, that is. I'm not talking about the honeymoon phase. That is unrealistic and, again, unhealthy. Relationships grow just like muscles grow,

where there is resistance, where there is conflict. In fact, there is a lot of research on it. where there is resistance, where there is conflict. And in fact, there is a lot of research on it. So John Gottman from Washington University, Seattle, he has shown that the best relationships experience conflict. Yeah, they experience a lot of positivity and a lot of upside, but there is also a downside. There are challenges, and it's from these challenges

that these relationships grow and flourish ultimately. Interesting. So getting a little, I want to come back to relationships. I want to kind of go back to kind of the times that we're in, you know, from a societal standpoint. you know um from a societal standpoint um for me you know with with the confusion that we're in um the the people uh ordinary lives changing people being stuck at home people seem to be more at angst you know obviously with the protests, with the confusion with the coronavirus, and the internet seems as toxic as it's ever been. And I think that's

creating a lot of emotional stress and pain for people. I'm assuming you've done some studies as it relates to happiness and the internet and social media. And I'd love to hear your thoughts on that and what you've learned. Because for something that creates a ton of stress in my life and other people's lives, why do we find ourselves always going back to the very things that sometimes bring us the most pain? things that sometimes bring us the most pain and not in a productive way like we talked about, you know, growth or, you know, resistance so that we can have growth. Yeah. So, you know, if we were having this conversation four months ago, I would have said the following. First of all, I would share the following study. So this is a study by Jean Twenge. She's a professor in San Diego.

And every five years, we look at the mental health condition of teenagers in the United States. And every five years, it goes up 1%, down 1%, but it's generally similar. up 1%, down 1%, but it's generally similar. This time, when they brought in the data, what they found was that depression rates among teenagers over the past five years have increased by over 30%. Suicide rates went up by over 30% as well. This is very troubling. We had never seen this kind of spike since the time we started measuring. And when she dug deeply into the data, looking at what's going on here, she came to the following conclusion, and I quote, she said, it is about the ascendance

of the smartphone. The ascendance of the smartphone. In other words, when smartphones became accessible to teenagers. Now, this is just one of dozens of studies out there showing essentially similar trends in teenagers, adults. And what we're seeing is that the connection, or I should say the obsession with technology, the addiction to technology is exacting a very high price. Now, this is what I would have said four months ago, we need to limit our time, not eliminate, I'm certainly not for eliminating technology. I think it great you know the fact that we're talking now being so far apart is is thanks to technology you know i'm all for you know i just before the coronavirus i met a my best friend from uh almost 40 years ago from elementary school you know we we we met thanks to social media. So, there are great things. However, great in moderation.

And we have lost this moderation. We've literally become addicted to technology. Now, today, we're dependent on technology for basic connection. I can't see my parents except for through technology. So there are upsides to technology. But once again, technology is no substitute for the real face-to-face interactions. And when we're addicted to things like social media, how many likes did I get, or to pornography, or to video games. That is really unhealthy. And it's hurting our overall well-being. It's also hurting overall productivity and creativity. And when I say addiction, I'm not using the word lightly.

It's the number one addiction today. More so than gambling or alcohol. And it's harming us in a big way. With keeping in the spirit of happiness, two things make me incredibly happy, sleeping and having sex. I got to say. That's not what I would have picked. Both things are really, really up the ladder for me and what makes me happy. And I like to do both those things on a very comfortable mattress, if I'm being totally honest. And I'll tell you what, Helix Sleep is really kicking ass.

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Go to earnest.com for a full list of states. Another reason why technology, social media in particular is hurting our happiness is because there is ongoing social comparison. You know, what do we see on social media, we see everyone having an amazing time, everyone's smiling with, you know, with their families and friends and having amazing meals. And by the way, even during this time, baking all these incredible things, leading a perfect life, everyone except for me. And then I start to feel inadequate and what is wrong with me? But I don't want to appear like I'm the only one not having a great time. So I contribute to this great

deception. And this great deception is leading to a great depression. And the thing is the most important thing in dealing with hardships and difficulties is feeling that we're not alone. And we're not alone because everyone is human. Everyone experiences difficulties and hardships. is human. Everyone experiences difficulties and hardships. And very often the social media basically glosses over, or metaphorically speaking, photoshops all the imperfections. It totally does. And when you say that, it kind of makes a light bulb go off for me. I've talked about this before, that when quarantine first happened, right, when there was a lot of chaos, everyone let's stay inside. And I'm someone who suffers from a lot of anxiety at times. And I remember someone asking me like,

like two or three weeks in how I was doing. And I thought to myself, wow, I haven't actually felt anxious in a while. I was like, wow, I feel happier. I feel better. I didn't even think about that. And I thought to myself, why? And what it was, was everyone else was quarantining. And I wasn't alone in terms of,

I'm someone who spends a lot of time alone regardless. And all social media showed me was we're all in the same boat together. And for whatever reason, that was a comforting feeling for me. So any thought on a Friday night when I don't even want to go out, when I'm fine, I actually want to stay in. But then I go on my phone and to your point i'll see everyone else having more fun than me or the perception of it that created anxiety in my life or the fact that i was and then then the bigger picture of my life as i was someone who like ruminates and gets in my head

am i am i not advancing my life or am i missing on a meeting someone, et cetera, et cetera. And for like three weeks, I felt a lot of ease and pleasantries from the quarantine as a result of not feeling this as you like kind of FOMO or the perception of missing out on things. And it's funny that you put it that way. It makes a lot of sense. Yeah, you know, and FOMO is, of course, the issue that there's some wonderful research by Barry Schwartz, who taught at Swarthmore. And he talks about in his book, in his amazing TED lecture on the tyranny of choice or the paradox of choice.

That, you know, certainly in America, we're all about choice, about freedom. But he says that having too much choice is not necessarily good. So, you know, the simple example that he gives is, you know, choosing between 30 brands of jelly is not necessarily better and it won't make us happier than choosing among six brands of jelly. Yeah, I was actually thinking about this this week. You know, I've talked about paralysis of choice when it comes to dating and dating apps and even in my life. Yes. Think about Netflix. How often do we go and complain?

And Netflix has this abundance of options, you know, so many TV shows and movies, and we're always looking for the next great bingeable show, right? And we will spend, I don't know if it's hours, but a long time just scrolling through the directory. And yet every time if we're just watching TV on a Saturday, and when people used to watch TV, I don't know if that really happens anymore, but it used to be on a Saturday afternoon when the expectation in your brain was there's nothing on TV, and then you would see your favorite movie like Shawshank Redemption or whatever your rewatch movie was,

and no matter what it was, you were just joyful that it was on and you would stop and watch it but yet you'll just pass through that on Netflix because there's this great expectation of all these options you're right if if someone gave you five of your like kind of like solid movies that you liked it would take you probably far less time to pick one. And you would just be a totally happy clam as opposed to now, like, I'll start a movie, I'll watch it, I'll be like, I don't know. And I'll go back and watch a different, it's a mess just because we have so many options. Yeah, I think that's a great example, actually. I think back to my childhood, I remember the excitement, I used to look forward to Monday nights, why Monday nights? Because that's when Knight Rider was on. I remember. Or I looked forward, you know, to Tuesday night, why Tuesday night? Because that's when my parents let me stay up for Dallas. So, you know, this kind of excitement is not there anymore

because it's too easy. Yeah. No, it's kind of, we're talking about happiness, but when you say that, Tal, it just makes me more sad and depressed because it's so true. It is like the simplicities. I think, I know in my life, I think sometimes the more I experience what I think for myself, sometimes I feel numb to certain things I used to enjoy. You know, and it's sometimes I have a hard time trying to find a way back to as like kind of the old saying is enjoying the simple things of life.

to, as kind of the old saying is, enjoying the simple things of life. Yeah. You know, I'm glad you brought up the word numb. It's very important in the context of happiness and unhappiness. So there's this wonderful research that Tara Bennett Goldman, who's a psychologist that brings together East and West, writes about in her book, Emotional Alchemy. And specifically, the research she discusses is of a metronome. So when we listen to a metronome, you know, it's dung, dung, dung. Generally, you're asked to focus on it, your brain adapts to it. In other words, becomes numb to it after about eight times.

Why? It's boring. It's monotonous by definition. And you move on. Your brain goes elsewhere. Whereas when you have meditators focus on the metronome, they still hear it freshly after 40 or 60 times. And this ability to experience something freshly, as opposed to numbing to it, is so important for our ability to experience life fully. And, you know, Albert Einstein once remarked, he said, there are two ways to live life. One is as if nothing is a miracle. The other is as if everything is a miracle. Now, imagine you're able to walk outside or even be in your very familiar room and still experience the newness, the novelty of things, just as those meditators experience the metronome as novelty, even after 60 beats. And it's a very important ability to cultivate. And the nice thing and the optimistic side of this is that we can train this novelty

muscle. We can actually work on experiencing things freshly. And when I say things, I mean a metronome or our room or a tree outside or a relationship. How do we do that? So one of the ways, the simplest ways of doing it is to meditate. Because what meditation does is it teaches you to observe nuances. Nuances in your breath going in and out, because every breath is different, or nuances of an object. It could be a flame that you're observing, or nuances of an emotion that you are reflecting on and mindfully observing. And learning to observe nuances in one domain, again, whether it's a flame or a metronome or a tree, it spills over to other domains. and you're able to also experience and observe and celebrate, appreciate nuances in a book or in a person. So it's simply a matter of practice.

And, you know, speaking of practice, practice is important for happiness. You know, many people, you know, are looking, desperately looking for the secret to happiness. That's tantamount to looking for the secret of playing the piano or the secret of becoming a great basketball player. The secret is, yeah, get good coaching, of course, and then work at it. That's interesting. I've never thought of it that way. Yeah, I never really made that correlation. It makes so much sense when you think about you know playing the piano or athletics or or really anything but you're right i think we all kind of take we i don't know if it's we take happiness for granted but we um assume that it's something that we're just going to hopefully have.

You know, it's either we either are going to be happy or we're not going to be happy. And it's solely going to be based off of the things that happen to us or the situations we put ourselves in. Yeah, we think, unfortunately, you know, the word happiness, you know, is a little bit unfortunate in that it comes from happenstance or hap, which is luck. And today we know that that's not necessarily the case. We actually know what we can do to increase happiness, not guarantee it, but increase it. Interesting. interesting um i i saw an interview of yours um and i know it's something i struggle with when we talk about happiness and equate it to accomplishments or successes um and you know like reading about your work it sounds like that's a great falsehood in in the department of obtaining happiness.

Yeah. So this is probably the most pervasive misconception in our world today. That is that the path to happiness goes through success. The more successful we'll become, the happier we are, or that if we're not happy, if we succeed enough in the places that we aspire to succeed, then we'll be happy. That's simply not the case. I mean, there are so many studies.

And again, you don't need to reach out to studies. We can all look at personal experiences to know that that's not the case. So you have lottery winners who, you know, for their entire lives have dreamed of becoming rich. They become rich. They're ecstatic. They're really happy for about three to six months before they go back to where they were before,

sometimes even lower in terms of happiness levels. You have people who have fulfilled their lifelong dream professionally, personally, interpersonally, and think, okay, now I have found the ultimate happiness. Only three, six months later to return to where they were before, sometimes even lower levels of happiness. And I want to say a little bit more about these lower levels of happiness.

You know, one of the questions that many people ask is why are there so many celebrities, so many extremely successful people who are so unhappy and so miserable and go for drugs and alcohol? Yeah, rehab. You're always, yeah. and alcohol. Why is that? I mean, they seemingly have it all. And here lies the answer. You see, take that person growing up and being unhappy, perhaps. However, being constantly driven by the belief that once I make it, then I'll be happy. Once I get there, then I will be happy. And for them, getting there is being successful at this or famous at that. And let's say this person is an actor and initially living in Los Angeles, waiting on tables and waiting for that breakthrough. And then that breakthrough comes. And finally, they really are happy.

Truly, they're ecstatic. They've fulfilled their dream. They can buy basically anything that they want because they have so much money. They can get almost any man, woman they want. They're sought after. They're desired. And they've made it. And then six months go by, a year go by, and they adapt to their new condition, to their new situation, and they go back to where they were before in terms of happiness or other unhappiness. Only this time, it's different,

it's worse. Why? Because at least in the past, they had the hope that when they make it, when they get there, then they'll be happy. But now they got there. They made it. And they realize that there is no there there. And they're not just unhappy. They're despondent, very often depressed. You know, the difference between sadness and depression is that depression is sadness without hope. So they feel hopeless because everything that they did, everything that they were told they needed to do and achieve and attain and accomplish, they did.

And they're still not happy. Happiness, they think, cannot be found in reality, so they look for it outside of reality. What's outside reality? They exit reality through alcohol or through drugs or the ultimate exit from reality, which is, of course, suicide. And the sooner we, and when I say we, it's all of us, whether it's celebrities or whether it's Mr. or Ms. Anonymous. What we need to do is accept the fact that happiness is attainable. We can increase levels of happiness. It will not come through success.

It will not come through accolades. It will not come through money or prestige. It will not come through money or prestige. You're talking, I have a million things going through my brain of like kind of processing this information you're sharing. And one thing I thought of is like this analogy of expectation of the first time you fly first class or business class. And you're just like, this is amazing. You're like, oh, my God. You're just like, and it's probably if you're just like this is amazing you're like oh my god you're just like and it's probably if you're lucky enough to have done it it's probably because you maybe not even had pay had to pay for it or something because you know it's very expensive

and maybe you got lucky enough to someone's like well this is how we're flying and so you just got to enjoy it you didn't have to think about the cost. It was this amazing thing. And then your next flight, because it's so damn expensive, you're back in economy and you're just like, I'll never enjoy flying again. But before, like your first time on a flight as a kid, the experience of flight was magical and amazing. And it's like when you were first talking, I'm thinking to myself, okay, well, the key to happiness is just don't do anything, you know, like don't have any, don't really, don't meet the stars because then you have real low expectations and you'll be fine. But that obviously is not the case. It's just like you said, managing those expectations and not,

you know, not putting so much expectation. I always kind of joke, you know, why New Year's Eve and birthdays are often so miserable for people. It's because we go into those days thinking this is going to be the greatest day ever. And we set ourselves up for the most miserable day because we'll never meet these unobtainable expectations. And then like, as you say, we tell ourselves, we have to have an amazing day in order for us to feel happiness. And as you say, that's obviously not the case,

but I don't know if we've ever thought of it in those contexts. Yeah, Nick, I think this is great. And you were talking, say, about New Year's Eve or birthday or a vacation. Yeah. We have such high expectations for. The same applies on the macro level. The same applies to a relationship.

If we go into a relationship and we believe that we are going to seriously live happily ever after, we're in for disappointment. No matter how amazing we are and no matter how amazing they are. Because movies end where love begins. Never heard that. It seems so simple and wonderful. Yeah, they always end, right?

When we're like, well, did they make it? You know, like, I don't know. It's like they're just starting to, yeah, that's so true. And, you know, and we have this again, misperception. So when you're talking about expectations, we need real expectations as opposed to high expectations or low expectations. Happiness is about a deeper sense of meaning and purpose in what we're doing. Happiness is about learning to embrace and accept the full range of human emotions. embrace and accept the full range of human emotions happiness is also about being physically active on an on you know uh ongoing basis um so exercising regularly eating healthfully all these

things are are part of a happy life it's not unidimensional it's not that one experience yeah um it makes so much sense when you say it, but yeah, it's just amazing how, like you said, whether we just think happiness is some sort of kind of state of or doing the little things to just feel good in general, exercise, eating right, putting yourself in situations that are not, you know, necessarily toxic. Yeah, expressing gratitude on a regular basis, you know, what Oprah has been advocating for decades, and she's absolutely right about, you know, appreciating the small things in life and the big things in life. I feel like a lot of people, and this is kind of an open-ended question that just kind of comes to mind, is have you ever found it had done any studies around um the desire to be correct or desire to be right or be proven right and thinking that's going to

bring you happiness um only to either a spend so much energy in the pursuit of proving yourself right or never getting there and that maybe does happen but you don't get what you receive is have you ever done any studies around that because i feel like myself and a lot of people will you know in this desire to you know be righteous or correct they they we waste i waste a lot of energy and sacrifice some of my happiness in this goal of doing that. Yeah, I'm glad you brought this up. A very good friend of mine and mentor is a professor from the University of Toronto, Mihenja Moldovino.

And he once wrote the following sentence that has been with me for many years. He wrote, we say we want the truth. What we mean is that we want to be correct. And unfortunately, it's true. And the mindset, which I think is the healthier mindset, is what Mahatma Gandhi would talk about. His autobiography, the subtitle is My Experiments with Truth. Not my finding truth, not my arrival at truth, not my truth. It's my experiments with truth and living a life of experiments. I think that's the healthy approach. And experiments means we go in not knowing if this is right or wrong. We try and we make mistakes and we learn from them.

So that's one area. But there's another very important area that, for me, I must say, in the context of my relationships, was a game changer. So David Schnarch is a relationship psychologist. And thanks to him, I must say, well, I have my relationship, and I think many people owe their relationships, their long-term relationships to him. And one of his main ideas, and he talks about it in his book called Passionate Marriage, and it's for any long-term relationship, of course. He talks about the following idea. of course, he talks about the following idea. He says that many people believe that the path to healthy relationships, that what partners need to do for one another in order to be together, to flourish together, is to validate one another. In other words, validation is the key element of relationships. So if I'm with a partner

who loves me unconditionally and always says how amazing and great I am, and I do the same for her or him, then we'll be in a happy relationship. That unfortunately turns out not to be the case. That is not what sustains relationships, validation. What does sustain relationship? It's the idea, and again, I'm quoting him here, of knowing and being known. Of knowing and being known. In other words, the more I know of my partner, and I mean really know their strengths and their weaknesses, the more my partner knows me, my strengths and my weaknesses, our fantasies, our fears, the things we're proud of, the things we cherish, the things we're anxious about, the more we know them and the more they know us, the more likely this relationship is to flourish. Why? Because knowing and being known is all about intimacy. And intimacy is the key to flourishing. Intimacy is the key to passion as well. And he brings it up in the context of relationships, of people who have been together for a long time,

and the relationship after, you know, 5, 10, 30 years is better than it was at the beginning. Even when the, you know, the initial biological excitement may not be there, they're still passionate about one another and they still enjoy a great relationship, a great sex and great friendship. And the foundation again is knowing and being known. Now, knowing and being known means genuinely, honestly knowing and being known. It's not trying to prove myself. It's not trying to get validation for the fact that I'm correct, but it's rather opening

up. It's expressing rather than impressing. Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. You do such a good job of articulating it. And I kind of think to myself, and I've alluded to this when people ask me about my dating life or being single and you know I've been told and I you know I probably I I am a complicated person I find my I've sometimes confused myself about myself and um I I think you know for me the happiest I ever was with someone was someone I didn't even really have an actual, like we weren't, we never called ourselves boyfriend and girlfriends, but it

was a person that made me feel like she got me, you know, that, that I could be my truest self around. I didn't feel like I regularly had to explain to her my point of view. In fact, it's like she already knew and vice versa and that was i've never felt that since or ever before and it's something i think for for what i've really been trying to obtain um and uh it's uh it's nice to hear you put it in those contexts because yeah we we we don't talk about that enough. In fact, we talk about, you know, understanding each other. We obviously talk about love languages, but sometimes I feel like love languages here. And you say this out loud kind of gets confused with this validation.

Like, how do I validate someone? Well, what's your love language? You know, they like a gift. So here's a present. All right. Now we're in love or like, I like, I like quality gift. So here's a present. All right, now we're in love. Or like, I like quality time. So I'll just hang out with you. And I guess we'll be happy. You give me a gift, I'll hang out. And now everything's perfect. But clearly, you know, hearing you that it makes so much sense why that's sometimes not as simple. When you were talking, I was thinking about the song, Lucky to be in Love with My Best Friend by Jason and Colby, which is one of my favorite all-time songs. And I think this is, Nick, what you were alluding to, and I couldn't agree more. Because you want someone who is a best friend, a best friend you know and you're being known.

This is intimacy. Now, needless to friend, you know, and you're being known. This is intimacy. Yeah. Now, needless to say, you need the other elements, you know, you need the attraction, you need the similar values. But ultimately, basically, it's about being best friends. How, why do you think so many of us don't find that in the relationships that we find ourselves in? It's because we're just not aware of that concept because we're putting a value on other things too much. Because I feel like this idea that you say with your best friend or simply just with

someone that you feel like just really gets you, I i feel like unfortunately it's probably not the norm you know i'm sure a lot of people have that but i feel like a lot of people don't have that in their relationships yeah because i i think very often we enter long-term relationships for um for the wrong reasons um, don't get me wrong. I'm not against lust and primal physical passion. I think they're great. That's good to hear. However, they are not what will lead to a lasting and happy long-term relationship.

Now, if someone chooses just to enter such relationships, that's fine. They can do it serially and there is the initial lust and then that's over and then they look for the next relationship and that's fine. However, if someone is looking for something to last beyond their honeymoon phase, then other values have to come into play. The values of a BFF. It's so funny because we always talk about friend zones and then the people we want to date. And how do we somehow combine the two? It's quite fascinating.

So it's best friend with privileges, guess is the way to go do you find in your studies that is it better to be best friends first and then a relationship or just ideally it kind of happens all together I don't think the rules, but let me share a study which I find very interesting and I must say a little bit troubling. So when they looked at, they compared arranged marriages to love marriages. So there are still cultures today where the parents tell you basically that you're going to marry her or him, whether you like it or not, because our families, you know, like each other. So they looked at such relationships and compared them to love relationships. And on average, and again, this is average, this is by no means captures all such relationships. But on average, love relationships start pretty high in terms of love and passion and happiness.

And over time, they go down. Now, if they do survive the four to seven year slump, they very often begin to go up again. However, in general, they go down. Whereas with arranged marriages, on average, again, not all of them, but on average, they start pretty low and then they go up. As you get to know one another and you work on the relationship. Once again, I go back to what I spoke about earlier, when it comes to love relationship, most people believe that the most important work is finding the right partner. So they put in the effort looking for finding, you know, seething through until they find,

you know, the one right partner. Whereas the right way to look at it is that the hard work begins after you commit yeah and uh in a range in arranged relationships the hard work does begin when you when you get together you know they're not uh there's not the illusion of uh of the living happily ever after. There is the reality of the hard work. Yeah. Well, it sounds like it kind of goes back to, like you said before, really a lot of it comes down to expectation.

In an arranged marriage, the expectation is, holy shit, how is this going to work out? Like this seems crazy, but then you put in the work and you give it a best shot and you're just like, oh, here we are. As opposed to, like you said, this idea. So many people talk about my one and only, my person. I'm destined to be with this person. And I've always been against this because I've, that this, like, and I think it aligns with what you're saying is that if we're somehow preordained to be with someone, there seems to be this perception that that's all the work that we just, like you said, just need to find that person that we're somehow destined to be with. And therefore, because it's destiny, we will arbitrarily or just happen to be happy without doing really any work as opposed

to making these constant daily choices to get to know someone, understand them, listening, work through differences, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. What you're talking about essentially are the two theories of a relationship. The first theory is about the one right person theory. The one right person is out there and I'm going to identify him, her. And when I identify that person, then we can get together and live happily ever after. The other theory is about cultivating the one chosen relationship. So I committed, I picked that person and I'm going to cultivate it. Now I'm going to work on it. And we have very few models in movies or elsewhere for the importance of cultivating the one chosen relationship. We have plenty

of models for the one right person theory. Yeah. Yeah, we really do. Far more examples. And it's always to the point where people get frustrated at you when you suggest that maybe the the the one and only kind of idea might be a flawed you know because i don't you know i don't know maybe it's the movies of the culture that we're in like you said in terms of um i don't know why people have this it's like the sense of security behind it you know it's a comforting feeling to find your person because then well then then it's this magical and like you said like the fairy tale if you will um yeah and you know what it also does it um theoretically takes away uncertainty and uh okay so now i now i can relax you know i've been i've been

looking for that person now i found that person and now I'm certain. But uncertainty is part of life. Once again, going to some of the Buddhist thinking, impermanence is the only permanent aspect of life. And the sooner we accept it, the better. Things change. Change is constant yeah the only yeah i've uh used to hear that at work a lot the only the only constant is change

um you know it kind of brings up a point too that you kind of talked about earlier before when you know staying in the in the realm of relationships is knowing when to exit in a relationship sometimes. And I find that people will always say things like, well, we've been together for so long. We've dated for three years or four years. And the fear of accepting failure as a way to suggest that we'll be less happy.

And to your point, like you said, like we have our own examples of finally leaving a relationship. And while there's pain and sadness about saying goodbye and the ending of a chapter, a lot of people will find relief and joy and peace of mind by removing themselves. But yet we seem to just be so afraid to go down that route because we think that we will be less happy as a result of it. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, first, so unfortunately, there are no prescriptions for when it's right to leave versus when it's right to stay and, you know, weather the storm. So, you know, let me give both sides, you know. So, on the one hand, if we're in a relationship that is abusive, and then, of course, you know, run, get out. However, there are many people who are in a relationship with a person with, you know, in a relationship with a person with similar values to theirs. However, they hit a rut, they hit a place that's unpleasant for both of them. That doesn't necessarily mean the relationship needs to end. I go back to David Schnarch. And this is, again, another one of his phenomenal insights. What he has shown, and he has worked with hundreds of, if not thousands of relationships and obviously studied

the field, what he shows is that in every relationship, no exception, every relationship reaches what he calls a gridlock. Now, what is a gridlock? A gridlock is a conflict, but not one of those fun conflicts. It's not a conflict. Okay, we have a conflict, we disagree, we fight, we make up, we make love, and everything is great again. A gridlock is a place where the relationship is challenged to the core, where one of your core values or both of your core values are in opposition, and you don't know how to overcome this gridlock. And you're lost. And usually a gridlock is around, usually it's around one of four areas. one of four areas. Those four areas are children. So if you have children, how do you raise them?

What kind of education do you give them? So that's one potential gridlock. Another one is over money. How much do we spend? What do we spend on? How much do we save? If at all, do we go to this vacation and spend so much or not? And so on and so on. Money, second one. Third one is around sex. How much sex? What kind of sex? How important is it central to the relationship?

So that's the third area. And the fourth area of potential gridlock is, this will not come as a surprise to couples who've been together for a long time, extended family. So for example, in-laws, should we see the in-laws? How often should we see the in-laws? Should we throw them over a cliff or what should we do with them and so on. So these are the four areas of gridlock. Every relationship, no exception, after three, four, five years reaches a gridlock. Now, there are three ways of dealing with a gridlock. One way of dealing with a gridlock is saying, okay, we're just not meant to be

together because I thought we were perfectly compatible. This is the right theory, the right person theory. So we'll just have to split. This, by the way, is why we see so many relationships dissolving after the four-year mark or around that. They've reached a gridlock. So one thing to do is to separate. The other thing you can do with it is to stay together but not really to be together, meaning you stay together because of financial reasons or because of religion or because you have kids or because you don't think there are better options out there. You stay together. And the other approach, the third approach to a gridlock is to go through it, to deal with it, to fight, to have that conflict,

to, in the words of David Schnarch, hold on to yourself while holding on to the relationship. Hold on to yourself while holding on to the relationship. And more often than not, couples who do that, hold on to themselves, to their values, and hold on to the relationship, they emerge from this gridlock stronger, better, more intimate, more passionate. However, it takes work and it's not easy. At the same time, knowing that gridlocks are inevitable, I say it for myself and I know for many other couples, it's such a relief because when I got to gridlocks, when I get to gridlocks, knowing that there is a way out and a healthy way out where you can emerge actually stronger from it, that provides hope. And remember, the difference between sadness and depression is that depression is sadness without hope. Yeah. That's really fascinating and insightful.

I guess my only question to talking about gridlocks is, especially in that first four year mark, so to speak, because I'm assuming it's not like it's not like, oh, you're four, we're going to face a gridlock. Obviously, you're just kind of giving averages and numbers, but how do you determine in a relationship whether this doesn't work? Or we just have to face a gridlock. And I'm, well, you know, cause you're talking about, you know, money, kids, sex and extended family, but in a dating situation, and I guess I'm maybe more speaking in terms of finding that person, coming to the conclusion, this is the person I want to try to get to the gridlock point with, you know,

the inevitable gridlock that you say is without exception. And usually in those cases, kids aren't involved. Money maybe plays a much smaller role, but you have your own finances. Certainly there's an extended family potential option in a dating situation. But yeah, how do you kind of come to those determinations? But yeah, how do you kind of come to those determinations? Yeah, it's a great question. And first of all, as I said at the beginning, there is no prescription for knowing when should we go through this gridlock versus when should we just go our separate ways. And the one thing to accept is that, yeah, we'll make mistakes. And, um, the one thing to, to accept is that, yeah, we'll, we'll make mistakes. You know, I'm sure, you know, we had many people have had relationships where, yeah,

they should have, they should have gone through that gridlock. They would have been in a, in a much better place today. There are other relationships that should have gone their separate ways 10 years ago. So, um, there, there is no, you know, hard and fast, or there are no hard and fast rules. Well, this has been really insightful to kind of put a bow on this entire conversation. I know you talked about things like eating right, exercise, meditation. What are things that we can all, setting reasonable expectations, but are there any other best practices or things that you can share with us about happiness to, especially given the times that we're in, the uncertainty that we're in of how do we give ourselves more hope? How do we make or put ourselves in the best possible position to continue to try to improve the happiness

we feel on a daily basis? Yeah, so really the first, the foundation, what I see is the soil that is necessary for flourishing is what I've come to call giving ourselves the permission to be human. The permission to be human is about accepting and embracing all our emotions, bringing them in, as I said earlier, as guests, rather than rejecting them. Because paradoxically, it's when we allow in unhappiness that we increase the likelihood of happiness. So that's the first thing, not fighting anxiety, not fighting sadness, accepting. What does it mean to accept and embrace? It could mean to shed a tear. This is accepting

rather than fighting our emotion. It could be to write about it. There's a lot of research by Jamie Pennebaker or Laura King and others on the power of journaling, that when we write about painful emotions, they're more likely to flow through us, and hence we'll experience them more, and then to flow out of us and open us up to more pleasurable emotions. Talking about it, whether it's with a therapist, or whether it's with our best friend, just talking about painful emotions, is giving ourselves the permission to be human. So that I would say the first step. The second step is, I mentioned this earlier, physical exercise. There is research showing that regular physical exercise contributes to our well-being in the same way or the same ways that our most powerful psychiatric medications do. It releases norepinephrine,

serotonin, dopamine. These are the feel-good chemicals in our brains. So regular physical exercise, you know, at least three times a week for 30 minutes each time of walking, jogging, playing ball, doing interval training, whatever it is, is critical for happiness because of the connection between mind and body. Third, relationships, this is no big surprise. Relationships are the number one predictor of happiness. Now, the interesting thing is, and this is what all the research shows, it actually doesn't matter what kind of relationships, meaning it could be a romantic relationship that you're cultivating. It could be relationships with close friends. It could be working relationships where they're intimate.

It could be extended family relationships. It doesn't matter as long as there is social support, as long as you have people whom you spend time with, you talk to, you open up with, you know, and are being known. So relationships, number one predictor of happiness. Ideally, these relationships are real rather than virtual. However, even during these times when it's difficult to meet and interact and hug people, it's okay to have deep relationships on the phone or via technology. Another very important element or contributor to happiness is gratitude, expressing gratitude on a regular basis, whether it's keeping a gratitude journal, whether it's with your

friends or family going around the table and expressing gratitude, whether it's writing a gratitude letter to a person whom you appreciate. Expressing gratitude, it turns out, is a huge boost to happiness. And I'll say just one more. And that is giving generosity. Yeah. One of the best ways to increase our own levels of happiness is giving happiness or contributing in some way to others. And as Anne Frank wrote in her journal back in the 1940s, we can always,

always give something, even if it is only kindness. Well, I think that's a great way to end it all. This has been really enjoyable for me. It's certainly made me happier to just have this conversation about happiness. So I really appreciate you taking the time. Can you end it with letting people know where to find you,

talk a little bit about the Happiness. Can you end it with letting people know where to find you talk a little bit about the happiness Academy that you have? And, you know, some of the books that you have out there and again, maybe more ways people can access what you're putting out there. Sure. Thank you. So I co founded the happiness studies Academy, where we offer courses up to a year long courses on happiness, sharing the scientific foundation of a happier life. And my books are available online on my website, which is talbenshahar.com. Great. Tal, it's been a real pleasure. I really appreciate you taking the time. As always,

I appreciate you guys listening. I hope you found this as enjoyable as I did. And yeah, we'll just leave it at that. Thank you for listening. Don't forget to send in your reviews, rate us five stars if you have the time. And if there is nothing else, we will see you on Monday.