Create a Meaningful Life Outside Politics, with Dr. Arthur C. Brooks

(atmospheric chiming) Headspace Studio. (gentle calming music) Hi friends. Welcome to Radio Headspace and Friday morning. My name is Arthur C. Brooks, and thank you so much for having me this week. I've really enjoyed it and I hope it's helped a bit with the big emotions that can accompany a huge election, and this is a huge election. So today as we wrap things up, I want to talk about something crucial, building a life of meaning that goes beyond politics. Yes, there is life beyond politics, a life of real happiness and fulfillment. It's the most important thing that you can do for yourself and for others. I want to talk about how you can take control of your life in a way that builds meaning, not politically, builds meaning beyond politics. Now to do that, I have to start by talking about what meaning well, means. Meaning has three parts to it. We call them coherence, purpose, and significance. Coherence is why do things happen the way they do? Purpose is what are the goals and direction in my life, and significance is why does my life matter or what matters in my life? Those are questions really worth asking. People ask them less and less, by the way. You know, the data show clearly that if you go back to the mid 1960s, that about 90% of undergraduate students said that that was their number one goal in college, was to find a sense of meaning in their lives. Today, it's under 50%. It's one of the least frequent goals that undergraduates have. They also are more likely to say, undergraduates, young adults in general, that their life doesn't have a sense of meaning to it. So how sad that life doesn't have a sense of meaning, which means that happiness can be elusive or even unavailable and people aren't even looking 'cause they don't know where to look. That's what I wanna talk about here, because one of the biggest mistakes that we can make in the search for meaning is trying to find it in politics. Remember the three dimensions. The three dimensions are coherence, purpose, and significance. Why things happen, what are my goals and what matters in my life? Think about it this way, why do things happen the way they do? Do you know? Do you have a theory of it? Well, the goal of figuring out what you believe about that is an incredibly exciting adventure into science, into religion, into philosophy. Think about all these things that can occupy your intellect outside of politics. And there's so many resources, so many more resources now than there were 20 years ago. Dedicate yourself to learning more. You can do all these things with almost effortless ease and that will give you a sense of real coherence. Second is purpose. What are your goals and direction? Do you know what your life goals are? That's a great thing to be thinking...