Arthur C. BrooksThe Art and Science of Happiness

Suffering is a sacred part of life

6 May 2026 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

0:53

In this brief talk, Arthur C. Brooks argues that attempting to eradicate unhappiness actually undermines true happiness and mental well‑being. He frames suffering as a sacred teacher essential for personal growth, warning that the common strategy of “fixing” sadness—especially among college students who seek counseling—fails to develop the full emotional spectrum. Brooks advocates for learning to manage negative emotions rather than eliminating them, suggesting practices such as prayer, fasting, therapy, and vipassana (insight) meditation as effective tools for cultivating emotional resilience.

Chapters

If you try to eliminate your unhappiness, you will eliminate your happiness. You never want to eliminate your suffering. That's the worst possible technique for mental health, happiness, and wellness. Suffering is a sacred part of life. It's your teacher. I talk about unhappiness as I talk about happiness, and I believe in unhappiness. I'm a big fan of unhappiness because you're not going to live life. And the biggest problem for young people today is they go to the campus counseling center and say, I still feel sad and anxious. They say, we got to fix that. That's bad. Because if you try to eliminate your unhappiness, you will eliminate your happiness. You will be not experiencing a full range of emotion. You'll feel bad about your emotions and you will not learn and grow from your negative experiences. So you need to understand how to manage that. And there's lots of ways to do it. For me, it's prayer and fasting. Some people's therapy. For some people, it's actually really valuable. For some people, it's vipassana, you know, insight meditation for self-management of emotion. But you have to get good at it.