EP. 227 — The Science of Happiness with Professor Bruce Hood

Jameela: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to another episode of I Weigh with Jameela Jamil. Now, we know that this podcast is largely around mental health and how I can help all of us feel happier. And I have all these kind of theories that I talk about on this podcast via other experts or, you know, via my own findings about my own personal life, but it’s very rare that I can back it up with research because I left school at 16. So I went out and found an actual expert on the specific subject of happiness. His name is Professor Bruce Hood, a real life professor in a real life university, teaching real life students in real life courses. He’s a cognitive neuroscientist and a psychologist, and his work is all around the human mind, and particularly in this area of happiness in the last few years of his life, and he’s written a book called the science of happiness and he he takes it away from being this sort of ethereal elusive concept that we’re all trying to work towards as if it’s a final destination rather [00:01:00] than just a uh a transient experience based on the lives that we’re living and so in his book he breaks the road to happiness down in a really unpretentious and and a very optimistic way and it’s rare that these books don’t give me the ick and I thought his was fantastic. I really like his work. I really like him as a person. He’s a very straight shooter and in this book we talk about what’s a little bit unhelpful about the current chat around mental health and the way that we encourage people to protect themselves and to boundary themselves. We just challenge, well he challenges and then I just chip in from absolutely no experience, um, but I just agreed with him, but he’s talking about the fact in this book and in this episode, that there are things that might be holding us back in the current way that we’re told to deal with our mental health.

He also investigates labels and whether or not those are [00:02:00] more helpful or more hurtful and that is not without its controversy, but I just want to reiterate before the episode starts that even when he’s challenging labels or diagnoses, he does keep affirming that he’s, you know, pro diagnosis, pro medication, um, pro understanding yourself. He just has some skepticism about the way that it’s being handled. And so in this episode, we talk about that. We talk about actual things you can start doing from today, ways you can start challenging your thought patterns, ways you can start living your life from now that can alter your actual capacity to feel happiness, what’s robbing us from our happiness and how to look at it as this ongoing journey of growth that is something that we can be excited about rather than completely daunted by and so there are tiny moments of debate in this episode but largely he and I really agreed on a lot and I really enjoyed this chat and it helped me recognize that there are some things that I still have to go away [00:03:00] and work on that I will be doing straight after I put this microphone down. So I hope you enjoy this chat. I hope it makes you feel affirmed or I hope it challenges you. I even hope it pisses you off if that’s something you would find exciting. Either way, I’m sure I’ll hear about it, um, in my DMs and I look forward to hearing from you. But for now, this is the excellent Professor Bruce Hood.

Professor Bruce Hood, hello and welcome to I Weigh. How are you?

Bruce: I’m very well, Jameela.

Jameela: I’m so happy to have you here, and I thank you for making time in your busy schedule given that you are an actual real life professor of a real life university, and I know that you’re very busy, so, uh, you’re much appreciated. How’s your mental health state? Before we get into the science of everyone else’s happiness, how happy are you feeling?

Bruce: Um, pretty good, actually. On a scale of, say, 0 to 10, I’m about an 8 to 9, so that’s pretty good.

Jameela: [00:04:00] Wow. I was wondering if you have had to go on a journey to get to that 8 and 9 yourself personally, and has it been via the tools that you’ve acquired over the course of learning so much about how to become happier? Has that impacted the happiness that you have now?

Bruce: Yes, it has. I mean, I think It’s worth pointing out that happiness is a fluctuating state, so you’ve almost got to be unhappy at times to appreciate when you are happy. So you just happened to catch me at a very good time. Maybe if you got me last week, I would have been on a sort of five. So it does go up and down, but in general, my disposition is more positive than it was, uh, five years ago, I think six years ago. And, yeah, the world’s, you know, it’s going to hell in a basket and everything’s up in the air, but I have a very optimistic disposition. So, uh, but that has been helped by, you know, the work that I do at the university.

Jameela: That’s really reassuring to hear, and I also think that what you talk about in your work, which is that happiness is a consequence rather than necessarily a destination or something [00:05:00] that we are definitely going to achieve as a goal. I think that’s the only sane way to look at it. And there’s this ginormous industry built on the belief that you can spend all this money on these different types of treatments or retreats or practices. Uh, and you can follow these influencers online and they will help you achieve this perfect destination of ongoing happiness and peace. And it’s simply impossible. I’ve never, I’ve never heard of it.

Bruce: Well, true. We’ve got to remember that just about every decision we make in life, every choice we make is based on the assumption that we’re going to be happier after we’ve made that choice. We don’t deliberately try to make ourselves unhappy, so our purchases and our relationships and the work that we do, it’s all geared towards achieving some positive state. But you need to recognize that, um, happiness is a constantly fluctuating state. Um, one of the most difficult things about it is that we get used to everything. So, you know, you might have a bit of retail therapy and buy yourself that designer bag, but after a while, you know, [00:06:00] you get used to it and then you want the next thing. So that’s one of the big problems about happiness is this, this principle called adaptation or hedonic adaptation to give more specifically, which is that you just get used to good things. You also get used to bad things, so that’s the flip side of it, but it means that constantly chasing something gets you onto what’s called this treadmill. This treadmill chasing, you have to work harder and harder to achieve the same sort of levels of satisfaction and pleasure. Uh, and that’s why we never really ever get to that destination because we’re on this hedonic treadmill.

Jameela: Six years ago you were talking about the fact that you were still in a place of searching for gold and that seems to be the theme of many of the people I’ve even interviewed on this podcast or anyone I’ve spoken to is that those goalposts have to keep moving for you to continue to chase that high almost like a dopamine addict.

Bruce: Sure, yeah. I mean, I think goals are, they give you structure, they give you purpose, they give you direction, they give you meaning. Ambitious people tend to set themselves more and more goals, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I think the question is, at what cost? [00:07:00] I think that’s the danger. I don’t think pursuing goals is necessarily a folly, but if you’re doing that at the cost of personal relationships or your health, for example, then clearly you’re getting your, you know, the work life balance wrong. So I think that it’s worth just sort of checking in, especially with others around you.

Jameela: One of the things that first caught my eye when I was looking at your work is the fact that you refer to your books as rather than self help, more self destruct. And, uh, and I really, that really tickled me as a concept because it feels as though your practices are more Eastern than Western, not to overly generalize, but there is a familiarity with Buddhism that I find in a lot of your teachings and what is wonderful is that you sort of, not that it needs to necessarily be legitimized, but you legitimize it with science and break it down for us in a way that we can understand in a way that feels much less, uh, it feels non negotiable in certain ways. So can you explain what you mean by the self destruct aspect?

Bruce: Okay, so I’ve [00:08:00] been fascinated by the self for a number of decades now, and it’s something that people don’t even question. I wrote a book called The Self Illusion because I was trying to point out that we walk around with this little version of ourself inside our heads, and we, we think we’re coherent, integrated, uh, sensible individuals. And I make the point that actually, from a neurophysiological point of view, you’re actually constructed. You’re a story. Uh, you’re a narrative. There’s lots of different inputs that create this sense of self. So it’s not just one self, it’s a multitude of things, and I think people can kind of recognize that, that sometimes in some contexts they behave in one way, and then in a different context they behave in a different way, but from the outside it just seems it’s just the same person. But again, the neurophysiology tells us that there are multiple stages of processing which generate this sense of self. Now, um, this is a process which is developmental. Children start off as a very egocentric little creature, you know, they just think the world revolves around them [00:09:00] and actually in most nurturing families that’s generally true, but when they start to develop and interact with other children in the playgrounds and they start to come into competition and form peer groups and friendships, then there’s a kind of constant changing sense of self and now we’re starting to encode much more information from culture, who am I, which groups do I belong to, what’s my identity, and so this is constantly evolving and constantly changing.

Now the reason that’s important for happiness is that if you are so self centered or so self absorbed, then you’re at danger of just listening to your own voice, and we’re our own worst critics. Our inner, you know, critic, or this inner dialogue that we have is very often derogatory. Uh, some people obviously have, you know, narcissists who completely, you know, a very distorted view of their self importance, but for many of us, um, there’s lots of concerns, there’s lots of anxieties about who we are. And that’s where I think if you’re overly egocentric [00:10:00] as a self, then you’re gonna, you know, you’re gonna suffer. Which is why I recommend that in order to be a happier person, you have to shift away from that very self inwardly looking self to one which is more what I call allocentric, which means other focused, thinking about others. And the reason that’s a good thing to do is, well, first of all, it makes you probably more popular if you’re someone who’s so self absorbed, then very soon you’ll be kind of ostracized. But the other good thing about it is that if you start to concern or care about other people, you’ll start to get things into context. We blow our own problems out of proportion when we’re very self absorbed, but when we are helping others or seeing their dilemmas, then we can start to get a better balance of what our own situation is. And moreover, we can engender the social support from others because we’re a social animal and we need to live in groups and we need other people, we need relationships. And so that’s why I talk about the shift from the egocentric to the allocentric. And in fact, I would argue that many positive [00:11:00] psychology interventions are shifting that sense of self away from the kind of inwardly focused individual.

Jameela: Well, yes, perhaps, but what I am seeing online, which I’ve been speaking about for a while, is really disturbing me, which is that the rise of self care culture is increasing a very navel gazing attitude, you know, an intense self obsession and also ruthlessness under the guise of boundaries. Now, I’m a big fan of having a boundary, obviously, regarding your own self preservation, but not to the extent where you’re being made to feel as though no one should ask for your time or your compassion if it’s of any inconvenience whatsoever to you because that’s not how the world works and it’s not how great friendships and relationships are forged. I never think anyone should overextend themselves for, you know, regarding their health as you were saying about goals, right? I never, I think balance is always key, but it feels as though this sort [00:12:00] of really intensive narrative is building online telling people to protect themselves from each other, which is just heightening this era of individualism that I find is really hurting people because loneliness is the pandemic, you know, of this moment. And, and it feels as though the two things, I’m not going to hold the self care industry responsible for that, but I don’t think it’s helping because we’re, we’re being taught that self isolation is a good thing, whereas you have scientific data to prove that it isn’t.

Bruce: Yeah, and there’s, there’s good studies demonstrating that when you force people to forge those social connections, they’re a lot happier. And it’s kind of interesting that in, and I know you live in the U. S. as well as the U. K., these two cultures are very awkward cultures in the sense that people find the notion of speaking to strangers, for example, is intensely embarrassing or something we just would hate to do. But Nick Epley at Chicago has shown that if you get people into a situation where they literally have to strike up a [00:13:00] conversation, they feel so much better afterwards for it, as well as the other person who’s being approached. Now, you clearly have to be careful of the boundaries there, but you are right. I think social media is ironic. It’s called social media but it’s really anti social media because it’s actually creating pockets of siloing people into different categories and different subgroups and cultures and I think that’s kind of difficult. That’s one of the unfortunate consequences when you have so many people with so many specific interests, and of course, as you’ve pointed out, um, there is a kind of incentive for the self care, um, not only for marketing, but also I think that this, this sort of pursuit of identity is really, you know, it’s obviously the big thing at the moment with younger generations. And I think it’s somewhat dangerous or dangerous isn’t the right word. I think it can be self defeating because in isolating yourself, you’re actually, you’re missing out on all the benefits of being a connected group. And that’s why the countries which are the unhappiest in many [00:14:00] ways are the ones which have a very powerful individualistic view of the world. And those which are much more interconnected tend to do better on the sort of national scores of happiness, for example, so the Nordic countries typically are the happiest countries. And part of that is, is that they’re not running around deliriously kind of smiling away, but they feel that they are more interconnected. They feel trust. And they trust their governments, trust their authorities, they trust people. We’re not trusting in this country, we’re suspicious, we’re kind of a little bit worried. So I think there is a culture for individualism, and that’s been amplified by social media. And we heard a lot about social media being a problem for mental health, but I think it’s, what it’s actually doing is it’s amplifying, or it’s an echo chamber, I think it’s amplifying what is the disposition in the first place. I don’t think it’s necessarily creating it. It’s just taking situations and making it worse.[00:15:00]

Jameela: I’ve been locked away in my house for about 10 days now, and I haven’t seen anyone. My boyfriend is away working, my dogs even are with his parents, and I have immediately, as a high functioning happy person, watched myself descend into, into squalor, not just of my lifestyle, but like internal squalor, like I, I have, all my good habits have completely gone out the window within 10 days of not seeing people. There’s an accountability that comes with, uh, human contact that I don’t have, and I’m, I’m not even really opening the door to any kind of delivery person. I’m, I’m finding it more intimidating so quickly, the idea of interacting with anyone. It’s like, it’s like the kind of lockdown setting has immediately emerged in me and my focus is going and I’m buying shit that I don’t need on the internet. And, [00:16:00] you know, I always veer towards at least near a tinfoil hat, but I’m like, there is a lot to be gained from social media saying, “You know, don’t talk to other people because they might need you. Stay in and conserve yourself and do face masks and hey, buy this other face mask and buy this at home gym and buy this thing that you don’t need and this thing and look at this shirt you can buy and go away and lose 60 pounds and don’t let anyone see you until you have.” And I’ve become hyper aware partially from the fact that I’m also reading your work at the same time as existing in this, this squalor internal and external squalor and really noticing that, God like there’s so much benefit for capitalism to be had from us distancing ourselves from each other because I simply don’t spend or behave like this when I’m in contact with other human beings. And

Bruce: That’s true.

Jameela: And so I wonder if anyone out there can relate to this, that the more it just, it’s such an extraordinarily quick, slippery slope, possibly more so for me than other people because I’m an introvert, but I’ve been horrified. I mean, I’m glad we’re not in the [00:17:00] room together. I smell.

Bruce: I can’t believe that. I mean, it’s kind of interesting, isn’t it? Because part of the drive to acquire stuff, I mean, I wrote a book called Possessed, and it was all about this overconsumption and why we do it. And part of it is actually for status. It’s also partly to do with, you know, having something to do with your time, having too much spare time. You go online and you look at things. And of course, marketing is directed towards us in an exquisitely tuned way, but a lot of the acquisition of things is often to try and achieve some level of status and certainly some things like cars are designed, you know, deliberately tapping into that insecurities that we have. But I think what you were describing is a really interesting point that when we do interact with others on a regular basis, when we do have those kind of social interactions, I think that behavior gets reined in a little bit. If we’re left to our own devices, I think there is this danger that you can kind of be easily led by whatever is the next shiny thing.

Jameela: And you also build up more anxieties about [00:18:00] yourself because you’re thinking about yourself and not other people. Whereas I find that when I’m around other people, not only am I focusing on them, as you were talking about earlier, but I’m also consistently reassured that I’m not this like shitty ogre.

Bruce: Yeah.

Jameela: That I can build myself up to be when left to that negativity. I think a lot of people have a misconception about their brains and people who have a lot of negative thoughts think that everyone is by default very positive and that there’s something wrong with them and I think because of the hyper pathology of everyone’s brains and you know the way that we label everyone’s discomfort in such an uncomfortable world as, uh, a pathology or an illness or a depression or anxiety or some sort of disorder means that people are walking around not knowing that all human brains are predisposed to negative thinking. Can you elaborate on that? Because I think it’s something that hasn’t really broken through and I don’t think people understand the severity of like how hard you have to work to avoid that negative thought.

Bruce: Yeah, [00:19:00] it’s a well known phenomenon that given all sorts of information the brain pays special attention to negative information and the argument is that this is an evolved mechanism to always uh, pay attention to threats because it’s much more important to respond to a potential threat than to be complacent or just, you know, fixate on when things are going right. So it’s a way of, if you like, for survival. That’s why a critical review stands out much more than all the positive reviews. So for artists, you know, that’s one sort of, one star review just devastates you because you’re so focused on that. It’s why the news is so biased towards negative stories. I mean, they’ve tried in the past to have news channels, which only have positive stories, but they generally don’t work because people want to know about the bad stuff. And I think there’s a real interesting phenomenon going on that there’s almost a mockish attitude in media, certainly in the UK, where they’re going over these terrible stories over and over again. They’re just milking it for its emotional content because they know that people [00:20:00] find this really compelling to watch. It’s almost like a mass kind of emotional contagion. And I, I think that this is, um, again, part of what I call the negativity bias, and I have a whole chapter about how you must reject negative comparisons. You’ve got to realize that, uh, you know, things are not necessarily as bad. And the other point you made, I thought was really, is really spot on, is that, yeah everyone has an atypical brain. There is no typical brain, and despite, you know, I understand the neurodivergent movement, I understand where it’s coming from, and I get that, but there isn’t a neurotypical world, or there certainly isn’t a neurotypical person, and actually all of us have deep anxieties, insecurities, stuff that we may not even be consciously aware of, because quite often we kind of manage to, you know, bury it deep down.

I think negativity is the default position in many, which is why mind wandering, you know, that I go on about this and it gets back to your point about when you’re focused on tasks or [00:21:00] interacting with other people. If you’re left to your own devices, we spend a lot of time just kind of running simulations about what we’ve done in the past, what we’re going to do in the future, and very often it’s negative. Very often we’re kind of worrying about the things we’ve said, or we haven’t done, or what we’re going to do, and worrying about the future. But that is, you know, that’s in many ways self defeating. So yeah, I think, um, we all have a tendency to be our own worst critics, we’re hypersensitive to anything which is negative, and that’s why you’ve got to really work hard sometimes to be more positive and more optimistic. You can do it, but it actually requires conscious effort. We have to, we get the students to do exercises where we get them to kind of take a negative setback or something which hasn’t gone wrong. And then to really articulate it, what is it about that that was so horrible, and then really come up with alternative, more positive ways of seeing it, positive spins on events.

And actually, you know, anyone with a little bit of intelligence and a little bit of creativity can soon find good things, even in the worst [00:22:00] situations. So I, I think it’s, it’s a useful exercise just to take stock and recognize that it doesn’t come naturally to us, but you can learn to become a more positive person.

Jameela: I, uh, once heard a tactic for working away from anxiety, which is that instead of looking at future scenarios as “what if,” it’s more empowering to look at them with the lens of “even if” and so I’ve been trying that for about eight years and it has massively helped me because now it has hugely reduced because I already then in my head have a plan of action rather than a fear of my own victimization. And so I’m like, okay, these are the worst case scenarios. Rather than try and pretend that my brain isn’t creating them, because I’m naturally predisposed to some sort of anxious thoughts, I’m going to allow the thought in, and I’m going to see it through, which is kind of, I think, what you’re also suggesting. I’m going to see the anxious thought through, and then I’m going to answer back in the way that I would if a [00:23:00] friend brought me any kind of anxiety. I’m so, so proactive in, in helping a friend come up with a solution, but for myself, I just allow myself to just go straight down the drain. And so I started to, to take that same approach I have with anyone else who asked me for advice. And I’ve started to take the even if approach and it has complete, I don’t know how it has shifted my nervous system, but I’m just so much less intimidated by everything now.

Bruce: Yeah.

Jameela: And I’m someone who was intimidated by everything.

Bruce: Well, you know, the Stoic philosopher said it’s not what happens, it’s how you react that matters. In other words, you know, shit happens, to use the vernacular, but it’s how you respond to it, which determines whether you go down, or you become more optimistic about it. So we use another technique, which is called psychological distancing, which sounds a little bit similar to it, which is if you take any problem and just imagine how that problem will be in five years or 10 years time. I think most people realize that life goes on, uh, we get over stuff and in the big [00:24:00] picture, these things will eventually not be that important. But when you’re in the middle of the storm and you’re in the middle of that kind of anxious panic about things, it’s very difficult to be that objective, which is why I think these exercises are helpful.

There’s another one I like, which is to use the third person. So when you’re speaking about yourself, rather than using I and me, you talk about yourself like Bruce is having this convo, conversation and Bruce thinks this and whatever, because we never talk about ourselves in the third person unless we’re kind of royalty. And

Jameela: That’s highly discouraged in society. So maybe keep the third person to yourself, but, uh,

Bruce: Yeah, exactly. Don’t walk around and say that. That would be a bit weird. But yeah, that’s a simple trick of language, rather than saying, I’m feeling really anxious about this. You say, Bruce is having a bit of anxiety. And also not describing yourself as an anxious person, but having an episode of anxiety, again, is getting away from this sort of sense of the self as being someone who’s in that, it’s almost like, um, separating yourself, if you like, from the mental states.

And I think any of these [00:25:00] tricks, I mean, in the long run, you’ll get used to them, but in the immediate situation, they can be very helpful getting you out of a situation. Another one I remember was a, was an actor friend of mine said, um, if you’re having a degree of anxiety, don’t say you’re anxious. Just say you’re excited because, you know, from the brain’s point of view, anxiety and, and, and excitement are literally the same neural firings. It’s just the story you’re telling yourself. So you can switch it to a much more positive account rather than one, which is more fearful.

Jameela: And do you feel as though those things, how long would you say it would take for, everyone’s different of course, but roughly how long do you think it would take for someone to practice these things and to be able to see a shift?

Bruce: Yeah, we’ve, we’ve demonstrated shifts within about four weeks. We’ve run short versions of the course. Uh, the course currently runs for about 10 weeks and we get about a 10-15 % increase on all sorts of measures of well being. The trouble is after six months it goes back down to baseline again. So whatever shift you benefit you might get, you lose it unless you keep up with the activities. So students who’ve kept [00:26:00] up with the various exercises, well, they can sustain their elevated happiness up to two years later, just before they graduate. So I make the analogy that mental health is just like physical health. You know, you can’t go to the gym, you know, pick up a couple of weights and then say, Oh, look, I’m physically fit. It requires constant effort, constant vigilance because of the way we naturally tend towards the negative, tend to draw the wrong comparisons and tend to focus on things which are not necessarily good for our well being.

Jameela: Someone on this podcast, when talking about happiness, said that they believe that we are something like 80 % negative thought. Do you think, as a neuroscientist, would you say that that’s around accurate? Because I thought that was really fucking alarming.

Bruce: Well, I think, yeah, I question how they got to that measurement, but I do know studies which have looked at this issue of mind wandering I was telling you about. So when you look at mind wandering, which is a situation where you’re not focused on the task, that happens on average about 50 % of the waking day, and that’s something we’ve also replicated. So that’s a real phenomenon. So that’s kind of scary if you think about it. People are not thinking [00:27:00] about what they’re doing for half of the waking day. But what’s interesting is if you actually do a measure of happiness at the same time. So this is a study done by Matt Killingsworth and Dan Gilbert. What they did is they got people to download an app onto their phone, which kind of alerted them at various points of the day and said, what are you doing now? What are you thinking about? And by the way, how happy you are? When you do that, as I said, mind wandering is 50 % of the day, but also when they’re mind wandering, then they tend to be unhappy. And the reason is, is because when you’re not focused on a task, there’s a circuit in the brain called the default mode network. Now that can be a creative network when you’re kind of actively doing something positive, but a lot of the time, the the default mode network is running simulations. Again, it’s, it represents yourself, it represents other people. So what I think is going on with the default mode network is that when you’re not in a kind of creative situation, which is a rarity for many of us, then actually what you’re doing is running simulations about things which are not going right in your life or worrying about things, so I think that is the default mode. [00:28:00] And I guess, I’m not sure it’s 80 percent, but it’s a lot of the time we’re actually kind of running these negative thoughts.

Jameela: So you’ve written a book, it’s called The Science of Happiness. In this book you have kind of seven

Bruce: Seven lessons.

Jameela: Seven lessons.

Bruce: Yeah.

Jameela: And I would love to be able to make sure that people leave this episode with as much practical help as possible. I’m hoping that they will feel inspired to go away and then read the book. And, you know, as you said, this, this takes constant reinforcement. And so these types of books and I don’t have people who write these types of books on very often because it’s very rare that I find someone has actual tangible good advice and they can keep referring back to it. So we’ve kind of already covered avoid isolation via my squalor

Bruce: Yeah.

Jameela: Situation. You’ve talked about rejecting negative comparisons. When you did that, we sort of went through that quite quickly. Can you elaborate further on the negative comparisons? Because given that we are in a social media era where [00:29:00] everything is comparison based, where we are, I’ve never known a period of this much comparison because I’ve never been exposed to so many different people’s faces, lifestyles, thoughts, intellects, et cetera.

And we are, In an era of striving for such superiority, whether it’s moral superiority, intellectual superiority, or aesthetic, this isn’t something that we are just generating by ourselves. We’re not just a bunch of competitive assholes. This is being fed into us. And so how, as a young person, or any person, who exists in this world, who might be online, who might be using social media a fair bit, what are they supposed to do when we’re talking about rejecting negative comparisons?

Bruce: Well, the first thing to note is that if you’re comparing yourself upwards, in other words, looking at your role models, everyone’s going to feel a little bit inadequate because by definition they’re, they’re successful people. So what you have to recognize is that even successful people have negative views of themselves and feel inadequate and they’ve also got their concerns and anxieties, so that’s one [00:30:00] thing. It’s very easy for me to say that, but unless you actually know people who are very successful, it might be very difficult to imagine that their life isn’t perfect.

Jameela: Well, they don’t show anything other than.

Bruce: They don’t show anything other than that because that would be a weakness. So that’s right. So we’re not encouraged to really disclose. Although interestingly, mental health has become one of these things that people are much happier to talk about now, so it’s become de stigmatized, but in many cases, it’s almost becoming a new identity. So that’s something we might want to talk about in a moment.

Jameela: I do.

Bruce: Good, uh, cause I think it’s a real problem, but I think the, um, I think what I try to get my students is to, is to recognize, to compare themselves downwards. In other words, to consider those less fortunate, which is why one of the thing you can do is, you know, you can write a gratitude letter. You can actually literally like write a letter, just thinking of someone that has helped you along your way who you wouldn’t be where you are today without them. And just writing a letter as if you were writing this last letter to give to them, and, and in doing so, what that forces you to recognize is how tenuous [00:31:00] life is and how lucky and how much chance is involved, but also that there are so many people who are less fortunate and I think those exercises force you to look in comparison downwards rather than always looking at the role models on social media who seem just like these exotic creatures you could never aspire to be like. And that’s, I think, I think the way you can do it. You can kind of take stock of where we are. I’m a great believer in trying to be less egocentric, trying to see humanity in its biggest forms, you know, and realize our lives are short. There’s a great passage by Carl Sagan when he was describing the last picture of Earth from deep space from Voyager. It’s this little blue dot. He said, look on that planet, every tyrant, every priest, every king, every leader, all lived out their lives on that planet. And I think that kind of scope gets you to kind of get things into perspective, which is one of the big messages in the book, which is to recognize, you know, we shouldn’t blow things out [00:32:00] of proportion.

Jameela: In defense of those who I don’t think I am a public figure who tries to show a perfect side of myself. In fact, I would love to be better at that because there’s so many flaws of mine that are available to everyone, um, but we are a culture that also finds, we have such disgust to seeing imperfection in a way that feels worse than it was in the 90s when I was growing up, where if someone doesn’t look perfect, if someone doesn’t say the perfect thing, if they apologize and the apology isn’t perfect, we shit on them as if they are like a convicted felon. And I wonder where that comes from, you know, given that that is the poison that’s also killing us, is that perfection that we then continue to seek out? What is this cycle? How do we get out of it?

Bruce: Opinions are like arseholes, everyone’s got one, you know, and you know, and everyone has an opinion now. [00:33:00] Social media has liberated, or unleashed is a probably better word, and it’s done in a way which is never, no one’s really ever accountable for it, because a lot of it is anonymous. A lot of it is from opinions which are not, they’re ill formed. Again I think it’s just one of the phenomenons of social media which make it such a distasteful. I’m not, by the way, don’t get me wrong, I mean social media is here to stay, so we’ve got to kind of recognize it’s not about to be, you know, eliminated. But we, we’ve got to recognize the nasty side of human nature can be sometimes, and it’s, it’s partly to do with social psychology and the group mentality, in group and out group, but also people just like, sometimes people can be nasty, uh, for the sheer hell of it. And they become hypercritical. And of course, uh, if you’re in the public, in the public eye, then that’s all the more easier for people to pick on you.

Jameela: Is it a feedback loop where we feel imperfect, we see these perfect sort of deified figures in the public or even in our school, you know, the person who’s like top of the leader board, et cetera, um, the popular girl, the popular [00:34:00] boy. So we see this perfection. It makes us hate our own imperfection. And then when we see any kind of imperfection in others, we want to push it away, almost as if we’re pushing, almost as if there’s a, I don’t know, like a contagion for that imperfection. It’s almost like we’re trying to distance ourselves from our own imperfections via attacking theirs. Does that make sense?

Bruce: Yeah, it does. And I think, I think you’re right. I think what technology has done and because the speed and the scope in which it moves, information moves so quickly and criticisms move so quickly, um, you can get this, this echo chamber effect, so it can actually say, as you say, feedback. And that’s, that’s, um, not just for being nasty to other people. It’s also feeling inadequate. I mean, take, for example, people are pathologizing normal variations and they’re now identifying as if they’ve got problems because of the way that when you hear about some sort of symptom or whatever, invariably, people will take normal fluctuations and say, “Oh, that means I’ve got this problem.”

Jameela: When you say variations and fluctuations, just to [00:35:00] clarify for anyone who’s listening to this, what do you mean?

Bruce: Okay, so let’s, let’s take a, let’s take anxiety.

Jameela: Okay.

Bruce: We all have episodes of uncertainty, anxiety, a little bit of fear. And you might say, for example, that, uh, oh, I went to a party last night and I, it was awful because, um, I got rejected or something happened. I think I’m, I don’t want to go to parties again, I find them too stressful and then you identify someone with social phobia and then you stop, you see that there’s a, there’s a condition called social anxiety disorder, uh, you identify as that and then you stop going to parties and therefore you never get a chance to really normalize or overcome the situation. So that kind of mechanism, I think, is responsible for the rise in just about every form of mental illness since the invention of the media, social media and the internet, because people take normal fluctuations and then they will interpretize or pathologize, as you said earlier, and say, oh, this means I have a disorder. It may do, but it can’t really [00:36:00] explain these incredible increases in, in these problems of we’ve seen over the past 10 years. And that’s why I’m critical of people who say social media causes problems. It’s causing it indirectly because of this echo effect, this echo chamber, the amplifying, as you said, we’re looping back. Uh, and then that places demand on resources. People start to, I need to get Adderall, I need Ritalin, I’ve got ADHD. I’m not suggesting that these people don’t have symptoms, but it’s becoming, it’s becoming a bit of a snowball effect and that’s, I think, problematic.

Jameela: Yeah, 100%. I had a realization a few years ago about myself where I’d always said I have social anxiety because I rarely enjoy socializing at a party. And later, as I, you know, I turned 30, I realized I actually, I don’t feel anxious when I’m having a fantastic conversation with someone. I don’t feel anxious at all at the party. I’m not worried about myself or what I’m gonna say. I think that I’m bored. I think I might be under stimulated and I’ve [00:37:00] been taught, I’ve been socialized to blame myself for being bored. Sometimes you’re just fucking bored. Sometimes you’re just, you just haven’t met someone you have any social chemistry with and that’s just the person you should pretend that you need to go to the toilet and get away from them and go and find someone else to talk to. But for such a long time, and this may be as exacerbated for awkward English people or maybe for women that we feel as though we can’t just excuse ourselves and so that we blame ourselves being like, why am I not enjoying this more? Why am I not enjoying this group conversation about this thing that I don’t give a shit about or with these people that I have nothing in common with? And so turning 30, and I think probably a lot of people get this as they get older, you start to realize, you start to, I don’t know if this kind of maybe goes away from what you’re trying to teach, but you start to identify your own actual tastes. And I realized that I think I just need to adjust the kinds of parties I go to, or I need to learn how to excuse myself from boring conversation, and since doing that, I no longer feel socially anxious. I no longer identify as a socially anxious [00:38:00] person. I don’t think that’s the same as being an introvert. An introvert just means I’m sort of recharging on my own. I need that time and that space, but I don’t consider myself socially anxious. I think a lot of us are bored and overly blaming ourselves and turning it into a sort of identity.

Bruce: Yeah.

Jameela: It doesn’t need to be. I think it’s really just that you haven’t found your people.

Bruce: I think the trouble is that people like labels. They like categories, and so

Jameela: Why?

Bruce: The trouble with medical, why? Because it provides a veneer of explanation. If you say I’ve got a condition that is medically recognized, it’s sort of provides an explanation for the normal fluctuations that they’re having and that means that they can identify with that. But the trouble with that is that it might lead people to then seek out medications or that they don’t necessarily need. By the way, I’m not anti medicine, but there’s a long history of over medicalization of mental states. We have no good models of our understanding of depression, anxiety, even schizophrenia is not fully understood, autism is not. There are [00:39:00] no good neurological models for this. Certainly there are lots of medicines and lots of treatments, but we have to be careful that, you know, just because you have provided a label, you haven’t provided an explanation of what’s going on. And typically it’s going to be something situational, like you were describing. I just don’t like going through these situations. It doesn’t mean you have something in your brain which is wrong, it just means that you just are, you’re a person that doesn’t like going to parties.

Jameela: Yeah, absolutely. I also have shifted my thinking to, and again, this might be the antithesis of what you’re trying to teach, I’m not sure. But I, when I’m interacting with someone, now that I’m about to say it, I realize that I might just be a prick, which is totally fine to be called out on. But I, um, when I’m talking to someone, I, you know, for the longest time, for maybe the first three decades of my life, I was always wondering, do they like me? Did they think that was funny? Do they think I’m smart? And now I’m just wondering, do I like you? Do I think you’re especially funny? Like, am I enjoying [00:40:00] this conversation with you? Are you smart? And, uh, unfortunately that, that probably would make people feel more anxious if that’s how we all start to think. But ultimately it, again, removed my anxiety because the lens was no longer on myself. I had moved the, you know, the spotlight over onto them. I was like, do I enjoy, are we, do we have chemistry? No, that’s fine. It is wild that we are expecting to have this chemistry. We know we’re not gonna have sexual chemistry with everyone, and yet we expect to have social chemistry with all these different strangers from all these different backgrounds and experiences. Not to say someone has, can’t be different from you and wildly different from you and be stimulating, but it’s too much pressure. There’s too many people in the world. How can we ever, look how much we don’t like everything online? How can we then expect when we’re in a room with everyone to just have a taste for everything and everyone? I think it’s not dangerous, but I don’t think it’s, I think it makes life too complicated.

Bruce: Well, that makes us both pricks because I, I also have a problem. I mean, look, [00:41:00] I, uh, for a long time was, um, it’s kind of funny people, my colleagues think I’m on the spectrum. They’ve kind of described me like that because I find interactions awkward. I mean, although I teach the science of happiness, it doesn’t mean I’m perfect. I’ve got my own insecurities. I’m terribly bad at reading what people are meaning because I,

Jameela: Same.

Bruce: I, like you, I, I just can’t, you know, I find it a very awkward difficult thing to do. But I wouldn’t describe myself, uh, in those words, as I’m saying, because I don’t, I think these are just normal variations that we have. And you’re right, yeah, I think that we all start off, you know, as, as I said, as children and then we become adolescents and young adults and we’re trying to pair up and get relationships and we’re navigating a very complex social world. I mean, the reason the human brain is so big is because we live in large social groups and it’s a social brain hypothesis. Because figuring out other people is really tough because they’re not transparent and there’s often agendas and there’s things that we, we, we don’t pick up on. And I’m really bad at that, but I wouldn’t pathologize it. I [00:42:00] just say, well, I’m a bit of a prick like you.

Jameela: Right. Hahaha! I have been told by many people, both professionals and strangers on the internet, that I am on the spectrum and I have taken that as a cue to mostly just go because I think something that I worry about with even friends of mine that I see is that they get a diagnosis of ADHD or ASD rather autism spectrum disorder and then they go I am that thing, so now I have a reason for why I am the way I am so now I’m not going to change it, I’m just gonna protect it. And I think there’s a level to which that is healthy that it’s good to not completely fight your neurological instinct but I also think that for me I found it more empowering to go, ah, I have a problem understanding tone or I misread things, uh, and so I need people to be a bit more straightforward in communication with me, so I’m just gonna ask for that. I chose to take it as like, Oh, I didn’t know that this was any kind of difference in me. And so now I’m gonna learn how to work [00:43:00] my way around it, you know, within reason, not making myself completely uncomfortable, but just going, Oh, I actually didn’t know that I, I lack that skill. I’d like to try to work on that skill.

Bruce: Yeah.

Jameela: Because then my life will be easier. And as you said, I don’t know where these neurotypicals are. I don’t know what this neurotypical fantasy of someone who has no problems who’s always living at a ten of happiness, this would be like finding the fucking Loch Ness monster at this point.

Bruce: Yeah, I totally agree.

Jameela: I don’t, I don’t know where they are.

Bruce: Yeah, look, I think, I think that when the neurodivergent thing came around, I totally got behind it, I totally understood why we had to be inclusive. Absolutely. But the trouble is with categories is by their nature, they broaden and broaden so that it becomes more and more people identify with the category, so it loses its value in terms of identifying this particular subgroup. So I think that’s part of the problem. But also it can be used and it can be abused in different ways for people just to dismiss their behavior, say, Oh, that’s, you know, it’s [00:44:00] not me, it’s my brain, but we are our brains. You know, we’re not, we’re doing, and we don’t exist independently of our brain. And if we happen to have a brain which is not very good at doing certain things, well, that’s it. But we, you know, as I said, we don’t even really understand what is actually going on in terms of mechanisms. All we can really just see is human behavior and say, well, that person clearly has a problem in those sorts of situations. But rather than pathologizing it, just, just kind of, you know, deal with that as a variation.

Jameela: Yeah.

Bruce: And the other thing, you know, now we’re talking about autism, autism is such a broad broad church. I mean,

Jameela: I agree.

Bruce: So I think we have to be very careful about how we, we, we must recognize that the labels don’t explain anything and the categories by their nature become extremely broad.

Jameela: 100%. I do think that people understanding their neurodivergence is helpful because otherwise so many of us walk around thinking that there’s something fundamentally broken in us, but I just think it should be the start of a journey rather than a destination. That’s my opinion, which is that it was very helpful for me to understand that certain [00:45:00] like, you know, issues that I have in the world, I felt anxious and depressed because I didn’t know what was going on, and I felt ostracized, and I struggled in certain situations that other people didn’t struggle, and I didn’t know why, and I felt persecuted, and I thought, is this some sort of, like, do I just need to still continue to, um, um, I don’t know, I just felt very broken and once I understood that I wasn’t broken, I was just different. I was able to go, okay, great. This is an amazing starting point for me. And it felt like a rebirth from which I was like gonna go like, well, then I’m gonna, I’m gonna work around these things. I’m gonna, you know, make sure that I do it within my comfort levels, but I’m going to go after it. And I have not taken anxiety medication or any kind of antidepressant since and it’s been like six years because I realized I don’t have, I’m not an anxious person. I was feeling anxious.

Bruce: And of course we change. I mean, I, it’s very difficult to imagine myself. I mean, this is the interesting thing, most people can recognize that they’ve changed since they were children. I was a different person 10, 15 years ago, but no [00:46:00] one thinks they’re going to be any different in 10 years time. Everyone thinks I’ve reached my final, you know, I’m finally baked now, you know, I’m not going to change in any way. But everyone thinks that it doesn’t matter how old they are, and this is called The End of History Illusion. People just don’t recognize that they’re constantly changing over a lifetime. And that’s the role of context and environment and situations and things shaping us. And I think that’s kind of interesting. I think it’s optimistic in many ways, because it means that we can keep recreating ourselves and rethinking ourselves. And, uh, that’s, that I think is reassuring. The fact that if we’re never going to change, that’s somewhat depressing to some extent, but yeah, we are rewriting ourselves with each, with each year.

Jameela: And so what do you think is your most frustrating misconception that the world has about happiness? If you haven’t already said it.

Bruce: Well, um, I think we’ve covered it to the extent that it’s a permanent state that can be achieved. Um, I think that’s the most frustrating aspect about it because, um, you know, you have to experience all the negative things in order to appreciate when things are [00:47:00] going right.

For me personally, my frustration is with my daughters because I want to impose upon them my experience and my wisdom to say, look, it’s going to be okay. But it’s easier said than done, and anyway, no one listens to their parents.

Jameela: They are going through a very different experience to what you and I would have experienced when we were their age.

Bruce: Yeah, absolutely.

Jameela: Yeah.

Bruce: Yeah. No, they’re definitely going through a different experience, and the challenge is very different. And I, I, I gave a, I gave a speech at the, uh, recent graduation, and I pointed out to the parents there that, you know, they had to recognize that many of these children are going to have maybe five, seven, ten different jobs. They’re not going to be able to afford houses. I mean, the, the challenges for this generation are extraordinary. Um, we had a kind of a recipe, a kind of plan when I was young, like this is what you did in order to be sort of happy and successful. A lot of that’s been thrown out the window. So we’ve, we’ve got to sort of appreciate that things have changed in a way which makes it very unpredictable and unpredictability makes people unhappy. I mean, the lack of control is what makes people distressed. And so I think [00:48:00] that’s part of the issue. And you’re asking about frustration. For me, the frustration is that it’s really difficult to teach these kids at university now because they are so focused about the failures and, you know, trying to achieve success and achieve happiness, that they’re really not enjoying the process of learning about the world around them. And I think that really is frustrating. And that’s why I actually did the course and then wrote the book, because I wanted to try and remind people that life is precious and wonderful and just extraordinarily, you know, amazing and try and appreciate the value of that.

Jameela: I do think that as much as you’re right that we can’t blame everything on social media I do think that distancing ourselves somewhat from it more often the kind of numbers and hours that people are doing are unhealthy because again it leads to more comparison and you know this is something that’s natural for our brains, um, stepping away from anything that encourages those predispositions to navel gazing or obsessively comparing yourself to others I think it’s very important. You talked about the difference between shopping for yourself versus shopping for [00:49:00] someone else, which I thought was a lovely example that kind of encapsulates this. Could you expand on that?

Bruce: If you think about it, you could use your money and your resources just to buy yourself a present and that will make you happy. And you’ll enjoy your purchase, but very soon you’ll get used to that purchase. Then you want another purchase because you’re bored with that. You want the next new thing. If you took that time and effort to actually buy something for someone else or give something to someone else, then that actually not only enriches their lives, but it has this, um, you know, this, this, uh, feedback that they think you’re a great person and, and you can bask in reflected glory thinking, oh, they really enjoyed that present. And what a great thing, what a great person I am. So, the happiness generated by directing it towards yourself is, it doesn’t feel authentic because you’re, you know, you’re the purveyor of it, the instigator of the act of happiness, and you know when you’re bored with it. But if you’re doing it for someone else, then you never really know once they’re fed up with it, uh, and so you can just say, oh, that’s amazing. They think I’m such a good person, so that’s why I call it more authentic. It just feels more genuine, [00:50:00] uh, and more generous. And, um, yeah, that’s, that’s why you should try and enrich the lives of others around you.

Jameela: So then I’m curious to know what you think about the amount of philosophers who have said that if you do a good deed, and then you feel good about it, or you want, you know, it to be noticed or acknowledged that there, that it takes something away from the good deed. I’ve never, that’s never totally resonated with me and I’m curious to know how you feel about that given that you’re saying that one of the benefits of spending for another is like reflecting like I am a good person, I made that person happy now like our, you know, bond is maybe strengthened, etc. How do those two things coexist?

Bruce: Yeah, so that’s, that’s the old conundrum. Is there anything such as true altruism?

Jameela: Yeah.

Bruce: Because if you’re, if you’re doing something that makes you feel better then ultimately you’re the benefit, beneficiary of that, so

Jameela: Yeah.

Bruce: There’s an episode in Friends, I think it’s Joey and Phoebe and Phoebe’s, uh, uh, criticizing Joey for being selfish and he says, uh, he said, well, you’re selfish, you’re having, you’re being [00:51:00] a surrogate mother for your brother and it makes you feel good, therefore you’re selfish. And, uh, I think you can’t really argue with the logic of that. I think it’s absolutely true.

Jameela: But does it matter?

Bruce: It doesn’t matter.

Jameela: Exactly. I think we’ve become so afraid. It’s like, you know, this, this, uh, button that, you know, that you’re like making a donation to someone and it’s like, do you want this donation to be anonymous? And if you don’t press that button, then you’re just, then you feel like a massive wanker because you’re like, I want people to know I have donated to this thing. But also, what you’re talking about is, is wanting to have that communal feeling of like, I feed into others. I, I give in, you know, I pay it forward. I don’t think it goes challenged enough. We have such a stigma around, uh, and, and I carry that same stigma. I was on a TV show called The Good Place, which is about moral philosophy that massively demonized literally my character for wanting to be acknowledged all the time for all the great philanthropic things that she did. Uh, and it’s one of the reasons she’s [00:52:00] in hell is for that, that desire. She’s the archetype of everything you’re talking about in this book, by the way, but it’s, it’s just, it’s fascinating to me that it’s such a big thing now, um, that we’ve demonized when actually there can be something very nice about like, it’s okay to feel like a good fucking person. It’s okay to give yourself a little pat on the back. The world is so terrifying and miserable. If you get a little bit of joy from doing something for someone else and you enjoy that exchange or that moment of thank you, I don’t think it makes you a bad person. I don’t think it cheapens the act either. In my opinion.

Bruce: I agree with you. I mean, the cynicism towards virtue signaling and all this sort of thing misses the pure fact that on outcome or cost benefit analysis, if you’re helping other people and it’s increasing and making life better and making society better, then yeah, if it makes you feel good and you’re doing it for selfish reasons, it doesn’t matter. I mean, when I started this course, I was effectively doing it for selfish reasons because I was finding it difficult to teach the students. I wanted them to be [00:53:00] happier, so ultimately I could argue or anyone could argue that it wasn’t entirely altruism. So I don’t think it really matters. I think, uh, as you say, as long as ever, as the bottom line is, if people benefit, well, the hell with it.

Jameela: Well, given that these young people are in a world of the social media, of the news being the most negative it’s ever been, um, given that they do have to have multiple jobs and have very little time for themselves, for socializing, for pleasure, because they’re having to just survive in a cost of living crisis that feels increasingly global. What do you hope their takeaways will be from your book that they can actually apply to their lives? Or what do you hope is a takeaway rather? That’s a less broad question.

Bruce: Yeah, I think it’s just to slow down and stop racing, running to the end. I mean, certainly the students I teach are so ambitious and they’re so focused that they’re not actually getting time to really enjoy the world. They’re not getting time to enjoy social relationships. They’re not getting time to really smell the flowers, and [00:54:00] it sounds a bit of a cliche, but it’s true. And I think that if you do take the time to look around you and take stock of things and get things into perspective, it can be such a enriching experience. And that I hope is, is, uh, you know, the message that the kids get from, from my teaching in the books. I mean, I, the way I teach is I, I, I try to inspire them emotionally. And once you’ve got them emotionally, then they’ll do the learning, but if they’re just kind of running through facts and trying to sit exams, it just, it doesn’t really, I think, um, provide a sustaining experience, so, yeah.

Jameela: But do you think that’s because they’re, do you think that’s because their goals are excessive? Or do you think that’s just the stress of the fact that they’re trying to achieve because they want to be able to get a good job to be able to survive in this economy like, do you think it’s because they’re overly ambitious, would you say, quote unquote, because I also, you know, we’re both older and we’re both financially comfortable, so, it’s easier for us, in certain degrees, for us to say, and we’re from a different generation that wasn’t completely [00:55:00] mindfucked by the internet, um, and so, I want to make sure that we don’t, that we aren’t callously like, hey, stop, chill out.

Bruce: Yeah.

Jameela: You know, and so I kind of mean it as just in a tangible way for these young people.

Bruce: No, I think you’re right. The reason we’ve got a problem is that we’ve kind of sold them the story that if they work really really hard at school and get into the best universities and get the best degrees they’ll get the best jobs and then they’ll be set up for life and this will make them happy. And certainly a lot of the international students that we have are very determined and this is a real focus on their thing, um, which is why discussing mental illness with them or mental health is something that is very awkward because they don’t acknowledge it because it would be seen to be a weakness. But I think we’ve been kind of forcing the numbers, um, being counting, getting them so obsessed about performance that they’re getting anxious. They’re perfectionists. They’re kind of overly concerned about the fear, the fear of failure is, is, is tangible. And you know, it’s, it’s easy for us to say that cause we’ve all, you know, I’m sure you’ve had failures in life. [00:56:00] I’ve had, certainly had many failures and it’s what makes you stronger and what makes you realize what you really want to do in life and what you don’t want to do. And so you’ve almost kind of got to go through that, but they don’t seem to be having any opportunity to fail because of this pressure to be sort of pursuing. And then you’ve got the student debt, and then you’ve got the costs of living crisis and all, the fact they’re never going to be able to own a home. I mean, it’s just overwhelming, isn’t it? So I guess, yes, it is easy for people like myself to sort of say, oh, look, just slow down, smell the flowers and that. But if they’re actually making themselves physically and mentally, uh, ill,

Jameela: It’s time to adjust the goals.

Bruce: You need to change the goals. Exactly.

Jameela: Well, that’s that, that’s kind of what I was getting at because that’s something that I myself have done in the last two years. I’ve been speaking about it a lot on this podcast that a few years ago I got very, very sick and anyone who was sort of watching my career will notice I’ve massively pulled back and I didn’t, I refused to be on a film set for a long time. I’m going back to my first film set in like, two and a half years, almost three years [00:57:00] next week, because I was like, I don’t have the physical capacity to get up at that time. And I’m away from my friends. I’m away from my dogs. I’m away from the things that keep make me really happy. So I sold my expensive house in my expensive city that I was living in. I’ve moved to a cheaper city into a much cheaper, much, much like 10 times smaller property. And I’m immediately adapted. Immediately adapted and my nervous system has completely calmed and so many people have been angry with me for the fact that I had all that momentum and as far as they’re concerned, I’ve pissed my potential down the toilet by doing that, but I think I have grabbed my potential for happiness and actually living this life rather than just performing, you know, success for others. I think I have maximized on my potential. I don’t think that I was, you know, the potential that they are asking, they were expecting me to go towards was was something that would make them happy and then lots of money.

Bruce: Yeah.

Jameela: And I’ve already been there, already had that [00:58:00] tremendous success in my early twenties and it led to a nervous breakdown, so I already know where this goes. So I’ve pulled back and I think in in that way, perhaps that could be relatable, which again is a thing of privilege to even be able to pull back because I don’t have children. I don’t have responsibilities, but I did literally divide my life by 10 and live in a 10th of what I had lived before and adjusted my goals and decided the level of success I had set for myself when I was younger, I simply don’t have the capacity to do in this older body. And I’m, and I’m tired and I’m actually not that happy. I feel very lucky. I feel very grateful, but I’m not happy. I haven’t had joy. I’m not peaceful. I’m not relaxed. And a lot of people made me feel afraid of making my life smaller and lesser quote unquote, but I have never felt more sane or stable or happy in my life ever, and I will never, ever, ever reenter the rat race. And so perhaps that’s a way to just sort of contextualize that for anyone listening. [00:59:00]

Bruce: We got to remember one size doesn’t fit all. I think that there are some people who do want to be ambitious, who do want to chase things, and we’ve got to recognize that, but I keep coming back to the point at what cost, you know, at what personal cost does that mean? Does it mean you lose personal relationships, that you end up being by yourself, alone in a large mansion at the end? You know, nobody wants to lie on their bed, I mean, the last thing you’re doing when you’re taking your last breath is saying, I wish I bought more crap. You know, you don’t need to have all these, chasing this consumerism, chasing all these goals because I mean, people believe that this is somehow a measure of success, but it’s not necessary if it comes at such personal costs. So I think each of us has to kind of make those choices about what is it that we really enjoy and need and want in life. And that’s, that unfortunately comes with a bit of experience, but going back to the original point about the kids is that they’re not really having that message or they haven’t been for a while. I mean, hopefully it’ll start to change. They’re certainly more aware about mental health now. It’s become, um, destigmatized, so who knows? I’m [01:00:00] again, I’m optimistic. I’m hopeful that people will start to prioritize the really important things in life.

Jameela: Yeah. And get back to each other and I’m going to leave the house tomorrow. After this chat, I’m going to leave the house. I’m going to go outside and see people.

Bruce: Speak to someone.

Jameela: Yeah, I’m going to go speak to someone because I’m slowly turning into a puddle with nipples. So on that note, uh, Professor Broussard, um, thank you so much for joining me today. And anyone who enjoyed this chat, go and find the book. It’s called The Science of Happiness. It’s very good. It’s very easy to read. It’s not pretentious and it, it’s a deeply reassuring body of work. And so thank you for that. I really enjoy optimistic bodies of work that make people feel like there’s something I can do now. I am sure we will speak to each other again soon.

Bruce: Great.

Jameela: Take care.

Thank you so much for listening to this week’s episode. I Weigh With Jameela Jamil is produced and researched by myself, Jameela Jamil, Erin Finnegan, Kimmie Gregory and Amelia Chappelow. And [01:01:00] the beautiful music that you are hearing now is made by my boyfriend James Blake. And if you haven’t already, please rate, review, and subscribe to the show. It’s such a great way to show your support and helps me out massively. And lastly, at I Weigh, we would love to hear from you and share what you weigh at the end of this podcast. Please email us a voice recording sharing what you weigh at iweighpodcast@gmail.com.