Tal Ben Shahar left computer science to study philosophy and psychology after winning the Israeli squash championship as a teenager, only to feel empty hours later. He argues happiness isn't a destination but a continuum that improves over decades without ever ending.
And I remember waking up one very cold Boston morning, going to my academic advisor and I said, well, I'm leaving computer science, moving over to philosophy and psychology. And she said, why? And I said, because I have two questions. Question number one, why aren't I happy? Question number two, how can I become happier?
Tal Ben Shahar is the creator of Harvard's most popular course in Harvard's history. It's a course on happiness. He was also a teacher of happiness studies at Columbia University. He is a best selling author. So, Tal Ben Shahar, welcome.
So good to be here. Thank you.
I love the fact that you started with questions. I remember attending Tony Robbins Date with destiny around 10 years back, and he made us all define the questions that we perpetually ask ourselves. And I love that your question is, how do I make myself happier? I learned that from Tony Robbins. He said, if your question is how to be happy, it implies that you are unhappy. But if your question is how to be even happier, it implies that you are good, that there's more to go. So I love that that was the question you asked yourself.
And you know, Vishen, there are two very important distinctions that you pointed to. The first one is a question. Look at the word question. Within question, there is a quest. This is the beginning of our journey. And related to that journey is the journey of happiness. So I grew up in Israel, and at the beginning at least, there were two tracks in my life. One was school traditional. The other, which I must say I was more passionate about at the time, was playing squash. As a child, I was not happy. And I remember thinking, okay, so I'm not happy now, but when I win the Israeli national championship, then I'll be happy. When I was almost 17, I won the national championships and I was extremely happy for about four hours. And after four hours I went back to where I was before being unhappy. The same knot in my stomach that I felt so many people ask me, so, Tal, you weren't happy then, 30 years hence, are you finally happy? And my answer to this question is, I don't know. I don't even know how to begin answering it. Why? Because I don't think there is a point before which we're unhappy, after which we are happy. In other words, it's not a binary 01. Rather, happiness resides on a continuum. So yes, today I'm a lot happier than I was 30 years ago. I certainly hope that 10 years from now I'll be a lot happier than I am today. It's a lifelong journey and it's a journey that ends when life ends.
