Arthur C. BrooksThe Art and Science of Happiness

The Happiness Equation | Arthur C. Brooks - "The Life You Want" Class with Oprah Winfrey

10 Aug 2022 · 1 min

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A short lecture excerpt by Arthur C. Brooks defining the three central components ("macronutrients") of happiness: enjoyment (deeper than mere pleasure, tied to relationships and memory), satisfaction (earned reward from work well done), and meaning/purpose (life's coherence and significance). The speaker emphasizes attending to all three to achieve happiness and contrasts pleasure with richer enjoyment.

Chapters

The happiness. Macronutrients are enjoyment, satisfaction and meaning, also known as purpose. Those are the big three. If you want to be a happy person, you have to take seriously and do the work of actually thinking about enjoyment, which is more than pleasure, by the way. We're not animals. Pleasure is great, but when you actually bring in your relationships into it, when you think about these things. So Thanksgiving dinner, it's pleasure because it fills your belly and it tastes good. But. But it's enjoyment when it's with your family and you can enjoy it over and over again with your memories, your satisfaction. That's your joy for a job well done. A reward that's actually earned when you earn your success and meaning. Of course, this is a tough one, and we're going to talk about it a little bit later, but meaning is the significance, the coherence that's actually in life. We got to talk about all three of these things and I know we're going to. But that's what happiness really is.