A short spoken excerpt from a YouTube video by Jim Penman in which the speaker challenges the idea that buying material goods increases happiness. The speaker cites Dr. Arthur Brooks (Harvard Business School) and summarizes Brooks's distinction that increasing happiness and decreasing unhappiness are separate brain processes—both must be addressed to improve overall wellbeing.
I think that more material stuff you can buy, the happier you'll be. And it's just not true. I know that more recently started, you know, consuming Dr. Arthur Brooks information, you know, Harvard Business School. But he specializes in happiness and talks about the difference between, like, there are things that make us happy, but there are also things reduce our unhappiness. And he talks about how they're two separate experiences operated by two separate parts of the brain. So if you it's not like a seesaw. If you do do things that make you happy, it means you'll be less unhappy. That doesn't work that way. Or if you reduce your unhappiness, you'll be more happy. You've got to do both. You've got to do the things that increase your happiness and decrease your unhappiness. And it was just a fascinating, fascinating concept.
Rising mental illness and falling birth rates have the same cause, it is this.....
