Radically Genuine Podcast with Dr. Roger McFillin

Welcome to the Radically Genuine Podcast. I'm Dr. Roger McFilin. Over five decades, the General Social Survey has compiled data from thousands of Americans about their evolving characteristics and attitudes. This grant funded project from the American Science Foundation reveals that American self-reported happiness is at an all time low with only 14% reporting they were very happy. According to the World Happiness Report, happiness and life satisfaction among United States adolescents, which increased between 1991 and 2011, suddenly declined after 2012. Thus, by 2016-17, both adults and adolescents were reporting significantly less happiness than they had in the 2000s, and it's been on a dramatic decline since then. In addition, numerous indicators of low psychological wellbeing, such as depression, suicidal ideation, and self-harm, increased sharply amongst adolescents since 2010, particularly among girls and young women. Politicians, academics, and the medical establishment will attempt to convince you that the mental health problems experienced are a result of poor access to mental health therapy. It is a lie. Don't buy it. One in eight US adults now takes an antidepressant and one in five has recently received some kind of mental health care an increase of almost 15 million people in treatment since 2002. Even in the recent past from 2019 to 2022 use of mental health services jumped by almost. 40% among millions of US adults with commercial insurance, according to a recent study in JAMA Health Forum. There are too many people receiving mental health services. It's fueled an entire industry. It's clear to me, the more people follow standard mental health advice, the worse people tend to become. This is because we've got it all wrong. Our misery is a modern cultural problem that will not be solved by Western's cultures, inventions and ideas. In fact, I will argue today that most Americans, including the experts, know little about what it takes to cultivate joy and happiness. And actually entering into the so-called therapies provided by the experts can and do contribute to the mental health crisis that we currently experience. To prepare for this podcast today, myself, Shawn, and Kelly examined the science of happiness. This includes the work of Emiliana Simon Thomas, who serves as the science director at the Greater Good Science Center at University of California, Berkeley. The Greater Good Science Center studies the psychology, sociology, and neuroscience of well-being. There's even a science of happiness course. and many other labs across the country study happiness and well-being. I myself felt compelled to compare some of the science with some what we'll call sacred texts, historical writings, philosophy, religion. What have we learned? That will be the focus of today's discussion. When critical of the mental health system, which generally does constitute of drugs and therapy, people often ask me, well, if not that, then what? Those questions in themselves reflect the restricted and limited view of steps that we can all prove, or we could all take to improve our mental health. The mental health system in the United States and Western culture is a new creation. Humans have existed for millions of years and we are incredibly adaptive and resilient. I hope we can have a discussion today where we focus more on principles, principles that have stood the test of time. So I do want to welcome Sean and Kelly to the podcast today. I thought that the two of you would bring very interesting opinions because let's face it. These are not your typical. study points in your careers, in your life. Someone like me tends to really contemplate these greater questions and think about it deeply, almost on a daily basis. I'm actually kind of interested in how a non-mental health professional would define happiness and think about happiness in your own lives. So I wanna start with posing that question. What is happiness? Um, I would say it's, it's not just a feeling it's almost a, um, almost like a lifestyle because it's something you need to work at. That'll be my first answer. Okay. I think it's, um, I think it's like a mental state and it's feelings of like wellbeing, it's contentment, it's joy, um, satisfaction, those types of things. So I think it's a mental state. I think it's challenging to define because we are limited by language. You know, a lot of people, when you ask them about happiness, they might just identify the things that make them happy. I would say the English language is limited. The English language is limited. Yeah. Um, cause there's a lot of experiences. We have a difficult time communicating. The word love is one of those two, right? I love this latte. I love doing a podcast. I love my wife, I love my dog. Right. We have one word to describe a lot of different experiences. But when it comes to the experience of happiness, I think it is, there's a misconception. I think people know when they don't have it. You know, if we're looking at the antithesis of happiness, like when people are really struggling, maybe they feel empty or lonely or even depressed. I think they can acknowledge that. But when they just refer to what the idea of happiness is, I think it's influenced by a lot of cultural factors that are unfortunately, I think, are limiting our ability to create. strong quality lives. And the one thing that as a psychologist, that's really important for me to communicate and I do this often to my patients, is to consider happiness not as, and this is like similar to something that Sean has described as not just a feeling, right? Not just a state. Because the actual experience of happiness or joy where there's a smile or there's a laugh, it's actually fleeting. When you look into the scientific literature, that emotion, comes and it goes quickly. What's also interesting from the scientific literature is our predictions of what might make us happy are often not accurate. And we would overestimate how good we would feel when that would experience. Like a great example like that would maybe be winning the lottery, right? And we wanna get into this too about does money actually, you know, equate to happiness. But like the idea of winning the lottery makes us believe that we'd experience elation and joy. And we probably would initially, but then it returns to baseline very quickly. And those experiences that we think will give us lasting happiness and joy often do not. So one of the things that I educate my clients on is to rethink the experience of happiness. That it's not a consistent emotion. That our emotions are much like the weather. Some days are really sunny and other days are rainy and stormy. But we want to be able to have the capacity to experience joy when those moments are present. And so often the idea of happiness is misrepresented. And people will say this often in therapy that everybody is happy, you know, but me, of course. So there's like a comparison. So this belief that others maybe are more happy than they are is contributing to their own unhappiness. So I think it is more of a state and an experience. and the capacity to feel something that is aligned with what we see as joyful rather than a consistent being, right? Everyone wants to be happy, but it is not a prolonged experience. It's rather fleeting. I think what we seek to achieve is a focused attention on things that matter, a contentment that exists. and the ability to feel our emotions fully when they are aligned with the events of our life. So I think the first thing is when we start talking about this, everyone asks that question, does money equal happiness? And I want to just, let's just check in with your thoughts. Do you think money equates to happiness? So I would take it to the point, and I listened to the Huberman Lab podcast on this, and he makes a really good point about. You always hear on social media, money's never going to make you have money, but there are moments, I think, particularly when it comes to things like healthcare, things that you might need in order to progress, where if you have more of it, it's going to be a little easier on you. You know what I mean? Um, it'll be less stress. So in terms of less stress for, for certain things, I think money does, but I don't know that coincides with happiness the way that we're looking at what happiness is. I completely agree. And even like my personal experiences, there's, you know, you start off working in advertising and you're living in a city, you're not making any money, but you can still be happy doing the work that you're doing, but there does come to a certain point as you start progressing in your career and getting older that you realize you're supposed to be at a certain point and if you're accumulating debt or not being able to pay your bills and you got rent coming up, that could be very stressful, which can make you unhappy, but then there's a certain point where you reach. that, um, that tipping point where you're making enough to make ends meet. And you got a little bit more at the end of the month where you can go out and do some stuff and then you can be happy because you're less stressed. But then, you know, when you add tens of twenties and thirties, a thousand dollars on top of that, there's a point where it doesn't add any incremental happiness. Yeah. It's interesting when you look at the science of this, um, when money is such a stressor, that it impacts basic needs. Let's say that you live in poverty and there's violence or lack of ability to obtain food and the environment in which you live in is not aesthetic. So there's danger, there's... there's extreme poverty and it impacts like your ability to obtain health care and obtain food and adequate safety and housing and so forth. That is a level of stress or that without it. And I talk about these as being foundations of happiness. If you do not have that, you're in survival mode. You can't talk about creating a life of value and living when you are just trying to survive the same thing would be if you're in a war torn area or sort of, or in an abusive or neglectful environment. So, uh, yes. money does make a difference only to a point. The more that I used to, when I used to work in the schools, I used to kind of teach this class on money and happiness because kids were choosing their courses and where they wanted to take their path in their life. And there was in Western society, American society, capitalistic structures, there's often the belief that the... our own quest and search for happiness is equated to increasing social status and material goods. And once you do go past that initial stage where you have enough money to survive, there is not an incremental jump in happiness based on jumps in income. In fact, there is some interesting data that once you achieve more money and status, you than what would be actual middle class or average, your own happiness decreases. And I always pose that question to like eighth graders, ninth graders, why do you think that might be that your happiness may decrease when you start jumping in higher income levels? Obviously it's not across the board, but like when we speak about it in general terms. I would speculate is you've chosen a career doing things that you're not passionate about. So you may be making more money, but the work is not fulfilling. Possible. When I was younger, I grew up in a family who didn't have a lot of money. And so other families, like if I visited friends and let's say they had something that I didn't have and I'm the pure joy that I would be like, Oh my gosh, you have this, right? I guess what I'm getting to is when you then suddenly have the ability to buy anything you want, you kind of. Lack the. you know, the, oh my God moments, everything just, yeah, the awe is gone. And so part of that goes away when you can just do whatever you want at any given time. If you think about the first time you ever bought a car and you saved for it, or you had like a beater for many years and it was just falling apart. And then you finally, at that point where you can buy your first vehicle and it's brand new and it has that nice smell, you take care of that car so much because of how hard you worked to get it. And then maybe 10, 20 years later, you're getting new cars and it just doesn't have the same. Don't wash your car for like nine months. Yeah. My car's filthy right now. It almost seems like you can appreciate more of the little things. If there was a lot of work into achieving it. And there's some science around dopamine and things of that nature, like dopamine spikes in the pursuit of, uh, of something that's hard or difficult. But when it comes to people who are in higher income brackets. I think materialism is never going to really meet the needs for human beings in the way that we think it could. And so you begin to achieve things and you can have whatever you want. And I think there's a dip then in your life experience. The other thing that comes out of the data is generally speaking to make a lot of money, you work a lot, right? And I don't know maybe if it's a job that there's like really strong passion and purpose for, then it doesn't feel like work. But more hours, more time, your life may be committed to achieving that status in income. Well, what's the loss? What's the other side? What did you miss out on potentially, right? Are you not home? Did you go through a divorce? Are you lonely? Are you traveling a lot? Are you worn out physically, emotionally from overworking too many hours? What's your health like? What's your diet? Is alcohol involved? So there's a number of factors that can play into this. So when we look at foundations, money doesn't necessarily equate to happiness unless there's poverty. The other piece is health. So if you, when we talk about science-backed steps to try to achieve some happiness in life, we can't disregard the importance of health. So if you are in pain, you're dealing with chronic illness, sleep deprivation, nutritional deficiencies, things of that nature. It's very challenging to be able to focus attention on the things we're going to be talking about of the principles of happiness when again, you're back in survival mode and everything is difficult because you're of poor health. So even the little things tend to make a difference. some of the podcasts, especially when we were talking about things like little habits, life-changing habits, or when I've written about sun exposure, because sleep's so important. And when sleep is disrupted and circadian rhythms are disrupted, mood is disrupted. When your mood is disrupted and circadian rhythms are disrupted, you tend to overeat. There's a number of things that are associated with poor health, and that's why it's so important in the mental health field that you look at those little habits. Are you getting enough exercise? Are you, what type of food are you eating? Are you getting enough sun exposure? Things of that nature that are very well connected with feeling good. So, and I was watching an episode on Netflix last evening about the blue zones. You know, when I saw that pop up. Yeah, that stuff interests me. But one of the things that stands out about the blue zones is they're all in areas rather close to the equator. And have adequate sun throughout the entire year. Can you explain the blue zones? Blue zones is the areas around the world where people live the longest. Centenarians, is that? Yeah, so they have the most centenarians. The episode I saw was Okinawa, Japan. And Okinawa, Japan is a island. And it looks beautiful there, right? And they have the most centenarians per I guess it's per capita in the world. And so you start looking at everything about that blue zone. And I think some of the things that we're gonna talk about culturally today certainly play themselves out, but they also have plenty of movement and sun exposure. And there are island areas and things of that. So I think that matters because the further you go away from the equator and then have to deal with longer winters, What do we see? We see a lot of health problems start to rise and sun is just so critically important as we're moving towards ending the summer here in Northeast. So some things to think about. So once the foundations are there, so we're gonna now move forward. Let's say that you have adequate health, adequate finances to at least support your basic needs, okay? And now we're going to move in and talking about actually the principles of happiness.
So once you have some of those basic needs met with your health, with enough money, we're gonna jump into kind of the science of happiness. But I first kind of wanna do a kind of deep dive into Western American culture a bit. And try to see if we can get to some commonalities on how our society, American society in particular, actually kind of... thinks about happiness in the manner in which we approach our lives. And so the first one I want to start with is this Hollywood notion of happiness. How do you think it's portrayed to us in media, television, movies, music? There you go. You can talk about pursuit of happiness. We're not going to talk about that. It's broad because happiness can be relationships with a loved one or a mate. And it sometimes gives a false idea of what true love is, especially in relationships with a partner. And happiness is, is for some, it's almost like a constant state of being where they're walking around with a big smile on their face. I just don't think that's realistic. You don't watch many movies, television, social media anymore? I do all the time. Maybe we're just not watching the same things. I just get a completely different sense of what's being portrayed, especially to that demographic between 16 and 30. To me, it's highly related to materialism. Well, that depends on the programs you're watching. You're talking about the Kardashian stuff. Are you talking about reality TV or the pursuit of wealth? I think a lot of the movies and shows always go to that though, that even romantic movies, they always end up somehow finding wealth together. I mean, it always ends up being that like so-called American dream at the end of the movie. Yeah, it's very materialistic in my opinion, and even the relationships and the manner in which they're portrayed, they tend to be something that's unrealistic as well, right? Like, um, the love at first sight type of relationship and viewing love in terms of like this elated feeling where two people fall for each other in a romantic way. And then something is built, like the happiness is built through that and like career status and money. I think when you look at popular music, you know, there's often talking about travel and boats and money and parties, right? Sex, women, right? It's a lot of like trying to obtain something that reflects on your status as a alpha male or an alpha female, right? So it kind of really pushes us or even younger people to have this false idea of happiness. You go on any social media and you scroll, you know, you're gonna see people on islands and bikinis and... they're portraying themselves in a brand in a certain way. And I think that portrayal of the brand is important. So if we look back at some of this data, what happens post 2012? Why is this spike in distress? And part of that is the social comparison and people's viewpoint of what makes them happy. So the more that you are exposed to popular media and popular culture, social media like TikTok, like Instagram, the more you get a distorted view about the purpose of life. And what's interesting to me is when you see the spike in people seeking out mental health services, there's still a general theme of almost like a narcissistic self-focus of seeking pleasure, kind of this hedonistic viewpoint of what is going to lead to happiness, right? You... In the just standard therapies, I think that are not implementing this type of science and are not utilizing decades and decades, if not centuries of wisdom into therapy, there's still a lot of rumination and focus about what you don't have. Right? You can, in therapy and it's worse, someone come in and just gab about their week. They're gonna complain about their friendships, about their marriage, about their relationship, about what they don't have. And the poor therapist, the one who's quite ineffective, is just gonna guide them through that kind of rumination process in an unsuccessful way. And that's my problem. My concern with all of this is, is there anything in our science space that's going to suggest to us that the more we focus on ourselves, we become happier? or the more we seek out those material standards, right? That makes us happier. And the answer is no, in everything that I'm reading and everything that I understand, I think there is often going to be just a profound sense of loss and emptiness because life isn't going to have the same type of meaning. Yeah, I mean, I agree with that and I think I see that a lot throughout media. And... When you sent the notes, I looked up, he didn't, you had this on and the other one is called eudaimonic happiness. Eudaimonic would be the opposite, which is meaning and fulfillment. So Greek word. Yeah. Yep. So are we teach, are we, you know, teaching generations to, and you do often hear this in even like things like self-help books, even in education, you have to, you know, you have to do things for yourself, you have to Look over yourself first, take care of yourself first. You do hear those messages quite frequently. I don't think there's anything like evil about them, but that being said, we don't always sit there and think about, well, look for yourself, but you got to find meaning, you got to find fulfillment, you got to understand what those words mean and how much they're going to benefit you more than the money that you're going to make. Can we transition then to principle number one? And this is something that I feel like it is very clear in the scientific literature is the obtaining purpose and meaning to one's life. So if we are going to apply these principles to obtaining happiness in our lives, you have to, we all have to consider, what are we living for? You know, what are we getting up for in the morning? And the challenge as a... psychologist and the work that I'm doing when you see really severe depression is they often ask that question. For what? Why am I doing this? Nothing matters, right? There's this nihilistic kind of viewpoint of life. And I have to question, you know, what are the factors that relate to that? If we agree that life includes suffering and it's going to include struggle. Imagine if you don't attach some degree of meaning to that. If you don't attach any meaning to that, you are experiencing pain without purpose. So I want to pose the question to you and these are deep philosophical questions. And either one of you can kind of try to pontificate on this first. But when you ask the question to either one of you about the purpose that you've assigned to your own life. What is the meaning? Why do you get up in the morning? What comes to your mind? Actually, I'll share something with you because I think I've learned over the years things that I enjoy doing, things that I'm good at, and how I can bring that towards some ultimate goals that we're working for in this moment. We'll use the podcast, for example. So I'm gonna ask you this question, Raj. Do you know who Marty Seligman is? Yes, University of Pennsylvania, positive psychology. There it goes. Okay. So I stumbled upon him in preparation for this discussion. I was like, well, this is interesting because he, um, in his previous career back in the sixties worked on the idea of, uh, learned helplessness and he was kind of miserable with that. Didn't like that. Psychology was focused on misery and he wanted to focus more on happiness. flourishing is really where he focused his direction, which goes back to the Greek word that you, you'd a mania, you'd a manic. What is it? Sorry. Anyway, it's you day, Monique. Yeah. You day, Monique. Okay. Um, but he came up with, uh, basically this, it's a scale. It's called the VIA values in action and it's 240 questions. And it's about knowing our strengths. So that allows us to use those to benefit us consciously and more actively. and develop those that we might find potentially useful. And it's been connected to enhanced wellbeing, self-acceptance, greater happiness, improved mental health, positive work experience, and so on. And he broke it into six virtues, and then within there are those strengths. And I took the test to come up with what my strengths are. Now, when you get the output- Vacation? When you get the output from this- You do vacation really well. There's no vacation in my life because all I do is continue working. I'm just in a different place. So those 24, when you do the test, it ranks them out. So let me just give you what the six virtues are. There's transcendence, which is appreciation of excellence and beauty, gratitude, hope, spirituality, and humor as a virtue, transcendent strengths, connect us in a meaningful way to the world around us. There's wisdom, which is curiosity, creativity, perspective, love of learning. There's humanity. social intelligence, love and kindness, humanity strengths come into play by helping us build and maintain positive, warm relationships with others. There's courage, which is bravery, zest, honesty, perseverance, temperance, which is self-regulation, prudence, humility, and forgiveness, and then justice, which is teamwork, leadership, and fairness. So when you do this output, you get these lists of all these things that are more, and this is how you see yourself, because you're testing yourself. You're not having other people rate you, and it's a Likert scale of, it'll give a statement, and then you answer, it's very much like me, like me, neutral, unlike me, or very much unlike me. So I went through the 240. Are you curious what my top five are? Yeah. So I kind of want you guys to do it too, and I'd just like to see where you fall into it. Maybe we can actually, we can stop this and do it now and you can share them. Yeah, let's do it. All right, so we're back. Roger and Kelly just took the VIA, which is values in action. This is from positive psychology.com. The link is below in the show summary, if anybody wants to do it themselves. So we've all taken the 240 questions based on how we see ourselves. I'm going to go through my top three. I'm going to go three, two, one. So three for me, and these are the character strengths, uh, is judgment. And that's thinking things through, examining them from all sides. not jumping to conclusions, being able to change one's mind in light of evidence and weighing all evidence fairly. So think about the discussions we have in this room. And I mean, I've changed my opinion on a lot of things once I become more aware of information and knowledge. So keep that in mind. My number two is fairness, treating all people the same according to notions of fairness and justice. Not letting feelings. bias decisions about others, giving everyone a fair chance. Roger. Can you pause here? Yeah. I don't have on my screen. What you I have my things here, but I don't have you have to download it from where there. All right, Roger. Wait, hold on. I haven't done my number one. All right. Um, and then, uh, after fairness, my number one is humor, uh, liking to laugh and tease, bring smiles to other people, seeing the light side and making jokes, not necessarily telling jokes. So I was kind of surprised, not surprised, but I see those three things and they kind of come through a little bit in our discussions in here. What about you, Roger? What are your top three? So number three was honesty, speaking the truth, but more broadly presenting oneself in a genuine way and acting in a sincere way. In a sincere. In a sincere way, being without pretense, taking responsibility for one's feelings and actions. Number two, perspective, which is under wisdom. Being able to provide wise counsel to others, having ways of looking at the world that makes sense. to oneself and others. So clearly when I look at those two, it fits very clearly about everything that we're doing here, right? So if one is being a psychologist, that wisdom and perspective is a lot of meaning to me, but we're sitting here on the radically genuine podcast. And so in honesty and courage, it's like everything I'm doing on social media, standing out, trying to be very clear about what I believe, even if it's against what is considered sometimes mainstream and making. and taking some bullets for that, you know, it's because it's a high value. And interesting, my top one was spirituality or transcendence. So having coherent beliefs about the higher purpose and meaning of the universe, knowing where one fits within the larger scheme, having beliefs about the meaning of life that shape conduct and provide comfort. So none of those are surprising probably to our listeners because These have been topic areas for our podcast. Yeah. Kelly, mine said failed to produce results. All right. Three was love of learning, mastering new skills, topics, bodies, knowledge, whether on one's own or formally related to the strength of curiosity, but goes beyond it to describe the tendency to add systematically to what one knows. Two was creativity, thinking of novel and productive ways to conceptualize and do things. includes artistic achievement but is not limited to it. Number one was love, valuing close relations with others, in particular those in which sharing and caring are reciprocated, being close to people. And right before this whole thing started with Sean, you had asked, what's that thing that you purpose? Yeah, it's an interesting talking point. Because when I wanna open up that question to what is part of your purpose, obviously we're complex and it's never just one thing. But if you can look at these characteristics, how do they contribute to your purpose in life? What makes each day worth getting up for? Hey, can you can we do fun thing was your last one? Mine was teamwork. My last one was love. Oh, and I'll be honest with you. That is it's truth. Because like I, I'm a horrible friend. Like people reach out to me because they know that I won't reach out to them. And I get caught up in things. I get, I get stuck, um, kind of in a work rhythm and I can just, I can stay so focused and just realize that it's been such a long time that I've reached out to somebody. And even like with my wife, you know, I need to, I need to put effort into connecting at the end of the day. It's just, it doesn't come easy to me. It's something I actually have to work at. Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah, did you wouldn't see it during like social situations, right? Because I'm very kind of connected to the moment and you know, especially with you know, my son like I'm very like connected to him but like at the end of the day like I decompress like I just I almost like wanna Like have some time to just you know be by myself But that's the only time that I have to connect really with my wife. Gotcha. What's yours? humility I was honest. Yeah, you were. Yeah, I mean, it's just probably not anything that is in my forefront of my mind in anything, right? Like if there are things to speak about, you know, and I wanna talk about something, I'll do it without caring, you know, necessarily how it's gonna come across to somebody else. But humor's on the low end too, like really low. Yeah, you are not laughing at any of my jokes most of the time. Um, no, I mean, it's, that's, there's nothing about what I do in my life that is designed to try to make somebody laugh. Yeah. No. So you, and you deal with situations that are not humorous. Generally speaking. And, and, you know, I've had to pull myself back in a lot of our discussions because I realize it's just not appropriate. So, well, you've always made jokes when things throughout our life, when things are stressful or serious, you always make a joke out of it. Yeah. Remember when dad died and we were all, it was like, maybe like a couple months after he had passed away. And we were all sitting around the dinner table. We went back to my mom's house and Roger was making fun of me saying, like, I make jokes about things all the time, even in like uncomfortable situations, cause I don't want to deal with stress. And I was like, that's so ridiculous. And I was like, Hey, where's dad? Is he on a business trip? But everybody laughed. Yeah. So I want to go back to, um, to Japanese culture. And that's actually what got me down this path. We didn't get Kelly's. Yeah, Kelly did. What did you say? Oh, love. Wait, what's love? Number one. Teamwork was his last one. Yeah. That's definite. Yeah, that's definite. That is absolutely perfect. So anyway, I thought that was a fun exercise. And when I stumbled upon it, of course, was really curious how I would come through and what my strengths were. And then I was looking at other cultures. You know, because we focus so much on the American culture. And I think this drives our own happiness based on us being a nation of immigrants in the pursuit of wealth and getting up to that next level. I think a lot of that connects to where we fall short. And I was on a business trip at one point. I went to Argentina and I was there because their economy, their currency was, um, going through a highly inflationary period. And. We were selling to them in my previous job. So I went there to just kind of like see what was happening with our customers. And they were so happy. Like they're something about that culture to me, son, it could, well, they're down at the Argentina's. They're down South, you know, that's South America. So they don't have sun in our summertime. They, they haven't, they're winter, right? So they're not towards the equator, but the culture there is just more communal. or maybe not communal is the right word. They embrace each other. When they greet, it's very Spanish, they give themselves the kiss on both cheek. They do a lot of asado, which is like barbecue, they do meals together, they're outside and they'll eat together with, you know, just lots of meat. And might the meat, maybe one of my one of my takeaways from that trip was like, boy, they were all so happy and smiling and they hug each other a lot. And I just I felt like almost sad. When I came back to the United States and I was just, I would walk, P walk by people and you know, nobody smiles at each other. They don't make eye contact. There was just like a, almost like a, people were disconnected from each other a little bit, but anyway, um, I looked at other cultures and I was looking at that word, you know, happiness. How do other cultures or languages describe happiness? There's actually a word in Japanese.

Kel:
meaning. So when it is brought up in conversation or somebody has asked, you know, what is your Ikigai, then it becomes more conversational. So also the in another word in Japanese for happiness is Satori, which is that state of enlightenment or sudden understanding. It is often described as a feeling of great happiness and peace. So there's multiple words to describe what we would just put into happiness here. I want to get back to purpose and meaning because we just jumped away from it after we took that. Um, you know, when you think about what gets you up in the morning, it's funny because when spirituality is the top of mine, like I deeply believe and I'm connected to that I have a purpose each day and that drives learning for me. So I'm like very interested and I actually look forward to learning something new. One of the value values of the podcast is you learn so much, like each guest that comes on here forced learning. Yeah. We do research. Like I've had. read books. Like a previous podcast, you had Dr. Adam Uradu on and we're talking about fetal medicine and postpartum, you know, an area that I didn't have any expertise, but then you start reading that and now you have information that you can share. When you start talking about the science of happiness, you're moving beyond what you might believe to be true or you might understand and you're saying, what does the science inform us? So when you look at what you value, it certainly should drive what you do day to day. If you value humor or relationships or love, for example, then the priorities in that day are going to be about attempting to achieve that and optimize that. So it's a really important point when we open up the idea of purpose and meaning, there's not one thing, it's very unique to the individual. And I think that's what's so important and it's what makes life so beautiful is there's diversity. and everything integrates itself in such an interesting way. I don't think anything would work if everyone is the same, obviously. And it fosters that community, right? Ultimately, as human beings, we are tribal, and in the tribe, you have to contribute. And so when there's diversity in strengths and ability, well, then that creates that communal becomes stronger, and you find your place in that. And that's another important thing when we think about mental health. What happens then when you don't feel like you are part of a community? If you are removed, if you are not contributing, if you are isolated or you are alone, that profoundly impacts our experience. And I think that's the difference between an Argentinian culture and the United States, the individual nature fosters competition, the individual nature of our culture. does not allow for that connectedness that is really important. And I think a podcast like this, like I see us as a team, right? And it's important that each person plays a certain role while at the same time valuing other aspects of one's life. So you have to find a way to contribute to this while achieving the balance in other areas of your life. And when you can create a team that respects that fully, well, then you grow. then you're going to evolve. But if you think only of yourself and your own needs, that drives misery. And that was that narcissistic self-focus that I think is way too much part of our American upbringing and culture that we see in media, that we read in books, that is fostered in the competitive nature of a lot of our community and the lexicon of American culture. And the more that we feel separate, the worse that I think we're ultimately going to feel. Yeah. You started talking about the world happiness report and the, you know, topped rank countries are Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland, Netherlands, Norway. Those are communities. Nordic. They are very Nordic, but they're very focused on community, right? They're very connected to one another, even though they may be spread apart. There's something that's happening there where they take care of each other a little bit more. And maybe that's what's contributing to happiness. I saw an interesting meme with the purpose of talking about architecture and beauty. And they showed the differences between it might have been a Nordic country with this beautiful architecture. I mean, snow. It's probably Spain and Italy though, right? I mean, the architecture there is incredible. Yeah, but this was a Nordic country. Oh, it was. Yeah, it was Sweden or Norway. And it was the picture of a city. And it was this beautiful. architecture of different colors and you know, there was just a lot that was put into the, the visual aspect of what that neighborhood looked like. And then they were comparing it to a neighborhood in the United States that had like gas stations and electric wires and pot holes and the homes looked exactly the same. And they, they compared it to like the, the communist block. Eastern countries post World War Two, about how everything was built to look the same. And how important that is on that there was a write up about it on, you know, individual motivation, the beauty that surrounds you. I just thought it was a really interesting point. purpose and meaning want to give you an opportunity to speak to that Cal. Well, I mean, that test purpose and meaning and I've said it several times when we've had discussions has always been to me the most, I take so much more pride in just family, growing up in a family that's been amazing and then not having let's say everything that everyone else had. So we had game nights, we had community, we always had large picnics, large gatherings. It was always that way. So growing up with all that and then wanting and desiring that. as I got older and then being able to have my own family. I think that still resonates no matter how much success I'll find and will still find. I still feel as if that serves purpose and meaning for me. I really, I look forward to it and family is always a struggle. I mean, you know, having children, but I just, God, I love them. No, what's interesting about the three of us is if I would have taken that test a decade ago. it would have come out different because of where my kids were. So there was a, you know, a period of time in my life that everything was dedicated to, to them. Even as I was starting my practice in my business here, I'd set up my schedule around their activities. You know, life was more consumed by them. I travel for sports, a number of things. That's exactly where you are right now. Subjective wellbeing. It's all subjective. It does change happiness does change over time. It actually has to. Yeah. You have to be able to shift and adapt. And purpose. And your purpose changes. Yeah. Like, um, you know, I think about our, our grandfather when, uh, our grandmother had a stroke and his entire purpose had to shift from his own self interest in his hobbies to actually taking care of his wife and how much meaning was attached to that, you know, it's just like that flexibility. in order to in each stage of your life to be able to continue to evolve and grow, I think is critically important. And his perspective on that was how grateful he was that our grandmother had a stroke because it allowed him to spend those last five years of her life where he was taking care of her and they reconnected in a way that they had not for many years. And he was appreciative because it forced him to learn how to cook. It forced him to do little activities with her and take care of her. And it was, it was actually a good lesson, at least for me at that point in my life to just see what true love is. Yeah. That's why there's so many circumstances with happiness. That's why I think the science behind it is very hard to come to just conclusions because you think about you're in your early twenties, you still have your health. You know, you're, you're probably very vibrant. Um, then you have your children mid thirties, forties, you start to go. And then there's maybe a point. that in the 50, 60 range, but then your kids start having children and it all changes. The perspective of everything changes, but so does your physical health and so does your sleep deprivation and so all of this stuff. It doesn't change principles and that's why I think it was really important today to talk about what are the principles. And so principle one is in order to be able to obtain that level of happiness and be able to optimize it in your life, it's establishing a clear purpose and meaning. and that will get you through very difficult times. So my question to everyone in the mental health field is the identification and the work around purpose and meaning and transitioning that into behavior change, is that part of standard mental health therapy? If it is not, then you're missing out a strong foundation that is going to allow somebody to be able to overcome something that's difficult. purpose is absolutely necessary. Let's transition to principle number two, meaningful social connections. And the interesting thing about the research on this area is it doesn't really have to do with quantity. It's more about quality, almost as if human beings desire at least one close connected intimate relationship. The more the better, right? But it's almost necessary for our survival, even if you are an introvert, right? And you draw your energy from your time alone and you might struggle when there's lots of people. Introverts still require that social connection. And whether that's a romantic relationship or a friendship or some strong connected social support. that seems to be really critical in happiness. So the absence of it is certainly a risk factor for the antithesis of happiness, which is really despair and depression. And then the other thing is that it seems to like transition into other areas. So once you have at least one established meaningful connection, the more types of connection that you have, even if they're transient, And even if they're superficial and not in great depth, seem to matter too, like a coworker, how was your weekend, right? Being around people matters. At the top of this hierarchy, right, is being in the service of others. If your purpose and meaning is connected to somebody or the world or group, In order to serve them better, it could be in terms of creativity, it could be in intellectual pursuits, it could be in helping professions, it could be nurturing and take caring of a family. If your purpose and meaning is attached to a social connection, it seems to enhance and elevate or optimize happiness with which you can get into compassion and empathy. as like necessary attributes that can be cultivated in that in that purpose. The a lot of people express love through certain ways and my wife and I and I think I, I learned this through time, as I like to express my love through food, like I do love providing a service in terms of like cooking for people, watching them consume food, enjoy it, that actually makes me happy. And my wife is the same way. And I think she got that from her side of the family. She comes from a Taiwanese background and her mom, her culture doesn't really express love, but they do so through food. And her mom would cook these very big meals. And she also loves seeing people sitting around a table, enjoying it together as a group. That's how she expresses love, not by hugging or kissing. Let's stay on the science of this because I think it's critically important. We're talking about this industry of mental health. Again, does the therapy that's being provided, does that promote meaningful social connections or in some ways? lead to the continuing growth and distance that people may experience? Like if there's too much attention on where they're not being served in relationships, does that then drive a lack of satisfaction because where our attention goes and what we create really matters versus the idea of learning the skills to be able to build and grow relationships? by attending to that person. Right, so there's so many interesting facets of this. There's too many psychotherapies that are, you know, allow for the person to, for an excessive period of time, focus on everything that is wrong in their own lives. And that narcissistic self-focus, I think, is a contributing factor to that misery. Wouldn't we be best served if like these therapies actually created behavior change? and skills to foster purpose, meaning in social connection. So it obviously would require a lot of experiments and more of a behavioral therapy to be able to push this to try to create it. I mean, I think it's something that we almost universally see what drives somebody into therapy in the first place. It's often in terms of like crises in love or work. So meaningful purpose, intellectual pursuits or. you know, having somebody to love or be loved yourself. So these are like our critical things that I think are when we talk about principles, if we're going to start prioritizing our lives in manners that are going to serve us best, those are principles one and two. Number three is mindfulness. Mindfulness, as validated by research studies, emerges as a potent catalyst for cultivating joy and happiness. Research consistently demonstrates that the practice of mindfulness with its focus on present moment awareness and a non-judgmental stance can significantly enhance emotional well-being. Because humans, we possessed a remarkable ability to generate our own emotional distress, even in situations where the present moment holds no inherent problem. I mean, that could be from ruminating on past pains or fixating on future threats and uncertainties. It just becomes evident that we have the power to nurture emotional suffering through the workings of our own minds. So by engaging in mindfulness or other meditative practices, we can actually enhance connection to the present moment to be fully there and increase our capacity to actually savor those positive experiences, amplifying feelings of happiness and joy while conversely staying out of that story that our minds often create about the next bad thing that can happen. Studies indicate that regular mindfulness practice can lead to a decrease in anxiety and depression, which further supports that idea that it promotes wellbeing. And often, you know, in our modern psychiatric, psychological, scientific evaluation of interventions, we like think about, all right, what is the optimal need for something? So as little as five minutes a day, of kind of a mindfulness or meditative practice has shown benefits, but upwards of like more than 13 minutes seems to enhance it. So if we can talk about anything that can be implemented through just short-term dedication, discipline on a consistent basis, the ability to meditate, engage in mindfulness, and then take that skill and incorporate it back into your life seems incredibly necessary. So another reason that people come into therapy, obviously, is their own struggles with fear. Their minds create threats. They are worriers. They become neurotic. They control things in order to prevent that threat, which inhibits their ability to really feel connected and live fully. This can have a detrimental effect on relationships. This can have a detrimental effect on one's own purpose. And then all the other aspects about health that we've talked about previously. When you are in a state of worry or stress or neuroticism, then you are in a constant state of fear, even at low level stress and releasing cortisol and other stress hormones can have a detrimental effect on sleep. We talked about sleep deprivation and mood. It's a vicious cycle. That's why cultivating mindfulness is not just an in vogue term in therapy in 2023. It's a necessary foundation of being able to live well and experience happiness. What are your thoughts on, um, when it comes to mindfulness, there's generally a level of optimism, right? So if I, I do not meditate, but I try and be mindful. So if I go for a walk around the block, there's certain spots on that walk that I appreciate either there's a spot on the top of the hill where I can see all over into the distance and see hills and in the background, or there's a house that I appreciate. I just try and embrace that stuff along that little walk and then try and bring some level of like optimism about what I'm working towards Into my daily life. Do you feel like people who are optimistic are generally more happy than those who might be pessimistic Well, I think that's obvious right I think that goes back to the uh idea and we're gonna get into this in the next one I think it's separate from mindfulness though. Sean. So i'm gonna add it into the next conversation Mindfulness would be the first part of what you said. Yeah. The, if you, so you're on a walk instead of in your head, thinking about what you're going to do when the walk is over, replaying the day, you are connected to where you are in that walk. And so if you then are connected to something that you find that is beautiful or there's an appreciation for where you are, the connection to nature often brings this, so it's people who love hiking, for example, the hiking is. the experience of beauty, of nature, along with the physical benefits of that. But the hike wouldn't have the same value if you were just thinking about getting to the peak, right? I just want to get to this place to look at that view. Then you miss the journey. And that is one of the learning lessons from the Blue Zones. It's one of the learning lessons from people who have lived a high quality of life. It's not about the destination. It is about the journey. And so the more that you are connected fully in that moment in the journey has such positive benefits on overall happiness. So mindfulness is about being where your feet are, being here fully now, in the now. Everything you add onto it is about your own attitude, right? And so we can get into that. But my guess is the two of you... have not incorporated meditation and mindfulness in into your life. I have, but I'm like, I told you, I don't know that I'm doing it right. I mean, I do it every morning. Yeah. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. But I mean, I breathe. The meditation part of it. Yeah. But I don't, I joked about this before because I'm not sure that I'm doing it right. And so what I do is I allot about five to 10 minutes, usually five, and I, you know, go to a quiet place and I, I just start to think about a certain spot that I remember from And then I start to, I say things in my head about being gracious, you know, I don't want it's too personal, but I say things over and over. I breathe and that's that, but I have no idea if that's actually mindfulness. I don't know, you know, exactly what it is. I just know I want to appreciate the things that I have and the, and the, and the people that I've lost. And you know, there's things like that. I think that might be into our fourth one, which is, is gratitude. But there's also various forms of contemplative type practice that seems to have benefits too. And it's not, I mean, we can separate the two and they can all be one part of a practice that one engages in every day. For me, mindfulness is of controlling attention. It's about attentional focus and the practice of attentional focus in the now. So that's why, you know, if you were just to focus on your breathing, that mindfulness practice, that meditative practice is that. opportunity to train the attention, to train your mind to be fully ingrained in the moment. Your mind will naturally wander, right? It'll go into the past, it'll go into the future, it'll judge something in the moment, that is normal. But it's cultivating that sense of ability to observe that and then shift your attention back to the moment. Prayer, contemplative practices, gratitude, you know, that's, I think that's something separate that has its value. But even like when we talk about meditative work, we're expanding consciousness when we do that. So I've been talking to a lot of people recently about psychedelics and mental health. And it seems like the value of psychedelics and mental health is the expansion of consciousness. So maybe you learn an expansion of consciousness that there is something separate from the self. The self being who you are in this moment, in this life. You are Sean, you are Kelly, I'm this dad, I have this son, I have this job, I do these things. But when you expand your consciousness, you are now coming to these revelations that you would not otherwise be able to come to when you're only connected to the self. Those tend to be around larger concepts about the universe and purpose, like that we are all connected, that I am a divine soul outside of the self, that there is an eternal now. that this time is very short. Like all these revelations that people have come to when they're taking a psychedelic seems to have these positive mental health benefits because if you go back to what we're talking about, the lack of personal purpose and meaning or the lack of meaningful social connections, the consequence seems to be that people begin to give up. their neurotic self-obsessions and worries because they come to the conclusion it doesn't really matter, which allows them that expansion of consciousness allows them to direct their attention into other meaningful pursuits. And so that is a fascinating addition to the idea of mental health intervention. But for me in meditation, I have been able to obtain those ideas, that connection without going into using psychedelics. And so I, I wonder if we have greater capacities of expanding consciousness through meditation. So here's my concern is yes, there are people that ruminate and they're neurotic and they focus on all these horrible things and maybe that adds value to their life. But what about the people? No, it doesn't. I mean, in terms of science would say it does not add value to the expansion of their mind so that they wake, go on there, say more about that. So if somebody who is neurotic or worrying, right, You know, it's the little things that affect them negatively. And then they take a psychedelic. Okay. And then they take a psychedelic and they expand their consciousness and they come to this realization that none of this matters at all. Yeah. So I would think that could be a bad thing. How? My concern is that when you talk about, I am Sean, I am a father, I have a child and this is my job. Let's say I did a psychedelic and I realized that none of this means anything. then do I withdraw myself from my responsibilities in terms of my loved ones and my community and my sense of purpose, because I'm like, what the hell's the point of any of this? You become Obi-Wan Kenobi and then head out to the hills? Yeah, old Ben Kenobi. Yeah. It's interesting because you guys know how I'm reading some of these things from these books that are somehow from the guides, right? And those questions, that exact question comes up, because it comes up in my mind too, like how much does it change you? Yeah, and should it? That's my fear of doing like mushrooms, ayahuasca ceremony, ketamine. Yeah, you gotta start following like fish concerts. That it changes me in a profound way. But the truth of the matter is I don't think that's what happens, right? Because yourself is important, right? When you go into that expanded level of consciousness and realize that we are all connected of source, of God, and you return. to the self, it's like you have an improved sense of purpose and connection to the life that you have. So, what you're talking about is the energy aspect of it. So if you realize that we are all energy and frequency, then are you then applying your energy and frequency in a positive way that you're contributing more to your job, your wife, your son being a father and what you're surrounding yourself with? In the theory around this, in all likelihood, you would become more loving. you would become more productive. Uh, you'd be more creative because you've now tapped into, uh, a new energy and you've kind of transcended from fear and neuroticism into courage, wisdom, and love, because those little things that bother you before that can ruin your day or cause stress or that aren't really that important. I mean, they just don't have any meaning anymore because you're in this grand realization of a such a larger extended universe. But can you get there by just practicing gratitude and not having to do a psychedelic? Cause I would say yes. Like if you constantly remind yourself, what you're grateful for and how these things that you have are extremely rewarding, then you can just push the things that annoy you to the side. Well, let's go to principle number four, which is gratitude. Okay. So let's, again, review, we're getting into long discussion here, but purpose and meaning. is a is a necessary principle, generating meaningful connections, mindfulness, the ability to stay connected in that moment. And then the fourth one that I have that science really supports is this idea of gratitude. So gratitude, Kelly is back to maybe what you were referring to in the things you might do when you take your 10 minutes, right to sit, right. And it's we have this innate capacity to control our attention. We can't control what happens to us to a large degree, right? We only can control our reactions to it or our response to that. And that's what like you learned from a lot of the stoic philosophers that, you know, our strength is in our response and our reaction. Our quality of life is in how we respond. It's our attitude. So where we focus our attention into our life matters. Are you going to focus? You can focus if you want to on every perceived slight, every failure. You can develop a victim status and oppressed status, right? And you can you can fight for the rest of your life to try to make yourself meaningful for justice and a number of things. The question is, does the focus on everything that's wrong or where other people hurt you. Does that in any way sustain? this degree of happiness that we're seeking in this life. And the answer to that question is a resounding no. Even if you've gone through trauma or some horrific experiences in life where it is very valid for you to be able to come up to the conclusion that life sucks and people hurt you, living in that state in that sense is going to lead to a profound sense of emptiness and disconnection. Yet, if we enter into what's called a gratitude practice, and this is a daily exercise that I would certainly recommend that you do, which can be in the form of writing, or it can be just in the form of sitting and experiencing your blessings in that way, attending to everything that makes your life special. It tends to enhance the positive experience about it. And it's also where our attention goes, our energy flows. So our energy is going to flow into, and we are going to attend to those things that we really value. And so it leads to the grander question, is happiness a choice? Is happiness an action, a behavior, that we ourselves are going to intentionally decide to engage in regardless of the struggles and the pains around us? So put it all together. If you can find purpose and meaning in struggle while also balancing that attention into what is special in your life, what you're grateful for, and engage your energy into the moment, the present moment, away from the worry, the neurotic fears, the slights, in a manner to create meaningful connections, that is going to optimize your experience during this life. So gratitude absolutely is an important factor. Yeah, I would think, I mean, it really does help, especially thinking about everything that I'm grateful for. And oftentimes I have to remind myself, but that's why that five minutes each day, like I was joking around a couple months ago because I was doing this. I didn't know that I feel so much better after five minutes. I don't know how to explain it. It doesn't like, oh, all of a sudden I can take on the day, but it's kind of like taking a little jolt of caffeine. It's perspective. It puts a lot of things in perspective when you start to say in your mind, I'm thankful for my family. I'm thankful for this. I'm thankful. Yeah, I think it's very important to do. It helps. Combining meditation, mindfulness and gratitude, I think are an absolutely necessary and profound experience. For me, when I'm at my worst, I'm in my head because I'm thinking of all the things I need to do, or I'm disconnected from the present moment. And I have found that just sitting down for five minutes on my breath, and then just gathering some gratitude for this moment is enough to completely change how my body feels. And so that's just so important. If again, if it's about the journey and not the destination, then every single moment of our lives is an opportunity to learn, to grow for these lessons. So you can see, you know, when I took the test, spirituality is at the top of that because it's assigning meaning to this life. And I wanna now connect this to our modern society's growing mental health crisis. I can't help but believe that a lot of those four principles that we say are backed by science generationally, historically, are missing in our Western American culture. We live in this tribalistic country, and I think it's purposeful, where we're being divided against each other. So right there, we are generating a distrust for each other. And that drives a disconnect. You know, and in actual reality, most Americans are not that different, right? Even I was watching a show about a, I think it was sometime this week where they were just talking about Democrats and Republicans. and how much they have similar actual values that are not discussed on mainstream news or by the politicians. What they'll do is they'll post the extremes of either side's way of living, and then they'll try to forge that as the idea of who that person is. So if you would vote Republican, for example, they would show images of January 6th and of a certain person that makes you believe you're not like them. And that person is a threat to your way of life. And then if you're a Republican and they want to show images of the extreme on the left, they'll show somebody who is like a, somebody who is supporting like transgender use of bathrooms, all right? And they'll create a man who doesn't really look like a woman, who looks more like a pedophile, and then wants to be in women's spaces or children's spaces, right? So that provokes fear. Or they'll do the same thing on extreme ends regarding actual beliefs about the role of government. So the... if you're voting Republican, then you support use of guns, guns kill people. And if you are, you know, if you're if you're a democrat, you're going to you're going to fear that Republican on the Republican end, they'll, they'll promote ideas to say we want to take every single opportunity to defend yourself away, they'll just continue to provoke extremes that creates a divide. And I think that is purposeful and it's driving on happiness. It's a lot of negative energy. It's very pessimistic in its way. It is, but I wrote down in my notes, does public policy have an effect on happiness and well-being? That was a question that I was going to bring up today because this very well could be. We know now media is run by six companies. Government is involved. We know that. Pharmaceutical companies are involved. Is this public policy to keep us from leading a life of that is meaningful. Yes, you have to create chaos in order to obtain control. And so I have no doubt that that's what's happening. Other things about our current society, that distance, that isolation, that driving against each other is one of them. But there are so many opportunities right now to distract your attention into something else. So if we think about mindfulness and meaningful social connections, It drives us away from meaningful social connections. Social media connections aren't meaningful social connections, right? Having your face in a screen doesn't promote mindfulness. It promotes a disconnect. In fact, it promotes an emptiness and it distorts people and it distorts what life is. That's why you see that distinct change post 2012. And so it's so nefarious to say, that we have a mental health crisis and it's an identified disorder or illness and you require mental health treatment. Oh, and by the way, that mental health treatment can include being on an app, taking a pill, right? It's just a disgusting cycle that serves itself when the truth of the matter is that the happiness and the joy that we're going to be able to obtain is not gonna occur in a therapy room and it's not gonna be obtained by a pill and it's certainly not gonna be obtained by watching media or a face on the phone. It's going to be out in an active way. We have to change lifestyles, we have to change mindsets if you're going to feel well. It's a big giant scam what is happening now. And it's not like there's no value to psychotherapy at all, it's just for who, when, and under what conditions. Generally, it's going to be something that's short term unless someone is stuck in a post-trauma state to such an extent that their reintegration back into life is going to take a little bit longer. But there, you know, there is some value to only replaying the past when you are stuck in the past. But even then, it needs to be short term and it has to promote integration back into the now because you can only live in the now. So I don't know if you have both read the book into the wild john crackhires book. So that came out like 1996 nonfiction book about Christopher McCandless made a movie about it made a movie. Movie was fantastic. I enjoyed it. Uh, at the end of the movie, you know, spoiler alert, he, he's dying and he scribbles into his book, his last words, or at least in the movie, they made it look like it was his last words. Um, that is happiness is only real when shared. He died alone in the wilderness in Alaska in his pursuit of finding meaning and happiness thought he could do it on his own, but he was flashing back to all the experience he had on his journey, traveling across the United States where he was connecting with people, having conversations, shared moments. And that's what true happiness is. It's not you. He thought it was about disconnecting from the modern society because of, well, I mean, but isn't that crazy? And then how he died. I don't want to give too much away. Yeah. But the, um, your idea of like the media and how it influences us, I mean, there's a choice, we all have a choice. Happiness is a choice to answer your question. Roger. I think. Yeah. Yes, it is. It is a choice. You can choose to watch those programs that may make you feel miserable or angry, or you can turn it off and you can read things independently on your own, come to your own conclusions about what's important to you and then making sure you're making the right decisions. But you don't have to engage with those things if they make you feel miserable and negative. Just step away from it. Yeah. Go back to game nights instead of watching TV. Spend more time with your family, your friends. Yeah. I mean, the last thing I want to, I think, refer to, and I think it's problematic for Western societies is a degree of spiritual emptiness. And this isn't in support of any one religion, right? It's not necessarily in support of one religion because when you think about the history of humans, spirituality was the search for something that was bigger and greater than you. and there were stories and there were myths and things passed down. You know, if you're listening and you're a Christian, it is following Christ, right? And the lessons in the Bible provides a sense of direction on how to live the life. You know, there's so much wisdom that you can get from reading the Bible or philosophy. But the more that we are spiritually empty, It's like human beings are naturally seeking out a God. They are seeking out something. Like that's why you're more likely to follow leaders in a country that loses its sense of spiritual connection. We had Dr. Gadeon and he says, I don't fear the American Academy of Pediatrics. I fear the judgment of God, which is bigger than man. Following man is a problem. And so spirituality, happiness finds its roots in alignment with one's life in a higher purpose or calling and that calling is bigger than you. And that calling also is a pursuit of the greater good. So the more you get disconnected from religion or spirituality, the more there fuels an emptiness. And then you try to seek out your own joy and your own happiness from the attainment of material goods. or sex without love, or any other short-term pleasure that ultimately leads you to being miserable. And when you have an entire industry in the mental health world, in the academic world, that is secular, and does not in any meaningful way recognize the connection to spirituality or religion, in fact, I think a lot of people might say it undermines its value. and creates its own religion, its own religion of social justice or diversity or political correctness or rightness in that area, I think that's going to continue to drive more distance and emptiness because you're never going to feel fulfilled in that way. So I think my greater point today, and I hope this came through in the podcast, is a lot of the things that we believe are going to make us happy and the way that we live can actually make us miserable. And the modern approach to mental health treatment is certainly not going to serve any of us well. In fact, it can maintain the problem of self-obsession, narcissistic rumination, just processing emotions without any greater purpose or meaning and not optimizing or driving behavior change that's going to lead you to be able to have that quality of life, the relationships, the purpose, the meaning, and so forth that are really necessary. You know, how much... People wanna come into therapy to talk about everything that's wrong with them without any attention to what they're grateful for, because it will almost be viewed as invalidating instead of looking at it as a necessary balance and being able to control our attention. So let's take a critical look at these statistics in our deteriorating culture, and let's make sure we use that information to drive change, change that can serve us well as a community that can... change that can serve us well as an individual in trying to create a life of purpose and meaning.