How can winning the lottery ruin your life - while contracting an incurable disease feel like 'a gift'? Dr Laurie Santos hears about dreams come true and nightmares realised; and talks with Dr Dan Gilbert about why human happiness isn't defined by these major events in the way we all assume.
For an even deeper dive into the research we talk about in the show visit happinesslab.fm
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This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
How happiness lab listeners I want to tell you about a new podcast. I think you're like it's called the last archive and it features one of my favorite new Yorker writers. The Harvard historian Jill Upward Jill asks the big question who killed truth. She looks for clues and events across the twentieth century from a brutal death in Burma to the invention of the lighted factor to the relief
of the polio vaccine. The last archive is, unlike any podcast you ve heard before it brings history to life with archival tapes, intrepid field reporting and old, timey radio drama reenactments.
The last archive unfurled, like a classic nineteen, thirty mystery, but takes on the big issues of today
wouldn't you like to know who killed truth then check out the last hour have brought you buy. Pushkin industries have included a trailer at the end of this at the so you can subscribe today on Apple Spotify or ever you get your part casts. It was the worst thing.
That ever happened to me. These were the words uttered by Billy Bob Harold Junior, a man whose
had been unremarkable before a fateful event that ruined everything on June twenty
Ninety ninety seven before that
thing ever event occurred.
Bob was a relatively happy middle aged texts. He was a religious family man who care deeply,
his parents, his wife, Barbara Gene in their three children, Billy Bob work
the local home depot stocking shelves with electrical equipment
it wasn't the most lucrative career but Billy Bob.
His wife found ways to make ends meet his life by all
counts, was relatively blast but
on hot summer evening. Everything
aged within months. His marriage had fallen apart, his body
bed, Barbara Jean filed for divorce, Billy Bob tried dating younger women but still felt terrible, he lost
almost fifty pounds making him look sickly and got his child.
Would later say that his personality completely changed. He switch from.
Happy dad. They knew into a moody depressive.
In May of ninety. Ninety nine less than two years after that incident, which have not yet named Billy Bob couldn't take it anymore. He locked
self in his master bedroom and took his own life. So what was that worse thing ever occurrence?
awful event that destroyed Billy, Bob's family and his entire
her life? It was this Billy Bob One, the Lotto Texas, Jackpot Little Texas dry
in a split second, he was thirty one million dollars richer. Now that
Wasn't that kind of worst ever event, your imagining when we think of tragedy,
we imagine the death of a family member, some disfiguring car crash or total financial ruin. What Billy bought experience is actually something many of us yearn for. He became a
multi millionaire overnight, he was so
The rich, beyond his wild streams, wealthy enough to
his job and to buy what ever
He and his family needed for the rest of their lives, but the one
four fortune. He literally prayed for its
we didn't make him as happy as he expected. I bet you think that would
be the case for you most
are convinced that making tons of money would feel good, but, as it turns out we're probably wrong
and not just about money. Research
that we suck at predicting. What will make us happy generally, both
When were imagining, how will feel when we get what we want? The good stuff like hitting the jackpot, getting the perfect job
being accepted to our dream school, but also
When we envision some of the worst events, a person could possibly into her. Why are we
so bad and making these predictions what's going wrong.
Our minds are constantly telling us what to do to be happy. But what, if our minds are wrong? One of our minds are lying to us, leading us away from really make us happy. The good news is that under seeing signs in mind when it's all back in the right direction, here listening to the happiness lab or is it.
If you have an enemy,
go buy them a lottery ticket because on the
chance that they win their life, is gonna, be
Really messed up, I'm speaking with clay cockroach
he knows that the misery Billy Bob experienced after winning the lottery wasn't a one off
he's a clinical social worker and psychotherapist. His business address is up near Colombia.
Nickel in New York City, but more often than not
He can be found in central park or on the banks of the Hudson River,
I do something unusual in that I walk with my clients instead of meeting in an office, walk and talk, I think better on my feet.
His methods is psychotherapists or novel, but clay also works with a rather
Particular clientele about
years ago, I started working with the super wealthy people in
one per cent of the one percent. Somehow my name got passed around this very small world as some
who doesn't ring judgment so
if you are struggling,
with I can't find a place to park. My yacht, I
had no judgment about that. I'm gonna help you. Your problem is as real as someone else's clarifying
that providing council to the richest of the rich generates
certain amount of hostility from the other? Ninety nine point: nine percent who think the mega wealthy had a pretty good
being anxious about yacht parking, doesn't play well with well
most people honestly, the general public,
when they find out what I do, they dont have a lot of sympathy because
they bought into this idea that
they have a certain amount of problems that are related to money, and they have this belief that if I have money, my problems will go away,
but when they find out that there's somebody out there that has a lot of money and they still have problems it busts that fantasy.
So this thing that their working toward I just need a little bit. More monies must all by problems. You really challenges that belief system claims right that most
people believe they just need a little bit more income for their troubles to end one study ass people how much
money? Would you really need to be happy? What's an income level that, if you got it
You wouldn't need anymore.
Who are currently earning thirty thousand dollars a year say they need fifty KGB happier, which makes sense, but do folks who actually earned fifty
I think that was all that's needed. Not really people earning twice them
a hundred thousand dollars said
I need a salary of two hundred and fifty k to truly be happy. This myth more money equals happiness, so I just gotta get some more I'll get there. I just gotta get some more. We ve all heard that money can't buy you happiness, but is that really true, two Nobel Prize Winning scientists, Danny Economists and Angus D in teamed up to find out they test
but how annual salary in the? U S today affects them,
different measures of wellbeing. What did they find? Well, it turns out.
The income does affect, while being for me,
lower salary levels, if you
in ten or twenty thousand dollars
earning more will make you feel less stressed and happier, but that effective income on while being starts to level off, and it does so really quickly.
Based on their estimate. It is much better to earn. Seventy thousand than forty thousand life is a lot different, but it's not a lot different from seventy thousand two hundred and fifty or to fit,
common Indian found that once you're running an annual income of seventy five thousand dollars getting more
doesn't help you dont, get less stressed or happier your well being just flat lines, even if
Double or even quadruple your salary, that's what the day
suggest, but it's
definitely not what most of us believe when I first got out of
grad school. I made fourteen thousand dollars a year, and while this is amazing,
you begin to think: ok, there's a correlation here, more money equals a better life,
I keep working until you get around seventy five
eight thousand dollars and your basic needs are met, but you ve learned a lesson: more money incremental
He is going to make you happier and your life easier, but you start
getting more more money and more more money and it's not working like it used to. When I went from fourteen to thirty five, I just need to work a little harder and get up to two hundred and fifty
our intuition, that more money equals more happiness means. We don't realize the host of problems that come with being incredibly rich,
but clearly seen these problems first hand. In his many clients they stood.
They're not sleeping at night. They dont have good relationships, one of the most common
Olaf's crises is guilt. The wealthy
Also by into the idea that money brings happiness, tat Cognitive D.
Of being so rich. Yet so sad and pitch
two emotional turmoil, my life is perfect, but each
would be. I shouldn't complaint. I shouldn't seek psychotherapy to help me deal with my problems, because I really shouldn't have them
and like Billy Bob Harold after hitting the jackpot, the rich, often struggle and their close relations
I do trust because they ve been burned a lot, particularly unromantic relationships,
you get into prenuptial agreements, and are you only getting into this relationship because I'm gonna buy you nice things. Even casual friendships can be hard to maintain
they caught the one percent for a reason. There's not a lot of people out there that have this kind of money,
so a majority, the population on a fundamental level, you're not gonna, be able to relate to theirs alone.
Isolation. Are you being my friend because of my bank account if we
after lunch, am I just expected to pick up the tab.
When you're talking about your weekend. I had this one client that gotta be friends at the local Jim.
They were talking about their weekend that they went out with their wives and that we
he just happened to have taken. His
how to Paris to try out this new restaurant
so how do you talk about that without it feel like you're, rubbing your wealth in someone's face, but the biggest problem places? Is it the Richfield trapped
for most problems we encounter in life, there are painful, but culturally
septuple solutions if
in a bad relationship. You can pack
bags and leave you hate your job so quit. But if you're loaded and Miss
trouble about it. You're not gonna, give away you're too attached.
It gives to my freedom, so you say your trap, the golden handcuffs, so I have
people who say, I can't get rid of it, because it's amazing, it's great but
are there so much unhappiness and isolation and guilt that comes along with having this. Ironically, the rich then fall prey
to the same bias. We do maybe the problem
Isn't that money? Maybe it's chow!
they need a little bit more. I've worked with people who
had fifty million dollars and they say yeah, but I really
I can't do everything that I want. Theirs is wonderful painting that would really eat into my savings. This one guy had
a hundred million dollars
but had a sense that what I hit, that billion
that's when things really change, and you think that's
it's crazy
you have more money than you could possibly spend, but there,
urging for happiness and people to
me and I understand its heart. It was hard for me to think that, but
living in this world. Working with these people, I understand money is not going to buy happiness, so be careful what you wish for.
Be careful what you wish for?
That's a warning. Many of us have heard before, but it fits with a groan
body of research showing that nearly every amazing thing in life.
Tons of money to an amazing house to the perfect grades. Those
Things simply won't make us as happy as we predict they well
Almost all of us believed that we would be happy if we could just get what we want and the only impediment to our happiness is that we can't always,
what we want. This stand, Gilbert he won't want,
favorite books on human psychology. It's called, Sir
pulling on happiness. It turns out that
people get exactly what they want their, not always happy when they give
opposite a movie. What they wanted. They often are,
That's a little bit of a mystery. It's kind of mystery that attracts psychologists, this puzzle as dear
research over the last two decades has shown stems
One of our most exceptional cognitive faculties are unique.
Ability to run mental simulations of the future.
Brand new faculty that is wired into the human brain? No other animal can do anything vaguely like it.
No chimpanzee is ever thought about whether it's gonna look good in a bathing suit when it retires, but
these brand new abilities are still invaded testing in a sense, we have an ability, you might call per
section one point oh and
still being worked on. So it's got bugs one of the bugs and
inspection. One point out that a Billy
We have to plan for the future is that your brain can stimulate all the parts of a given
tat, when you imagining things unfolding overtime, you can't imagine them unfolding in real time. Can you
Could then somebody would say, imagine moving Chicago and you'd have to spend four months imagining moving to Chicago that's how long it actually takes so of the wonderful thing.
Is about simulation. Is it gives you a quick,
sketch and then it runs into hyper speed, but that's also one of its flaws, because a quick sketch, often lack,
important details when things run at hyper speed. They run right over the details. That often matter we missed the critical d
else of almost any good event. We try to stimulate, but let's
Look in more detail. At the example we started with earlier getting rich
on our wildest dreams, what kinds of data
to say why
players miss when they think about winning all that cash
close your eyes and imagine winning lottery. Most of us imagined ourselves in a bathtub full of money or on a yacht.
Quitting our job buying a big house, all the things we can get with money. You're, not thinking about
the things you're gonna lose.
It's very unlikely you're going to continue all the same social relationships you have with people who need money, but don't have any.
Under the number of people and relatives that will come out of the woodwork begging you to help
over and over
fail to realise that the social groups to which you would like to belong, don't want to have anything to do with you cause. You got your money, the wrong way,
and on and on? None of that is in our mental simulation of the future.
Dan has shown. There's a nasty consequence to missing
important details. It means our emotional predictions of how these events will feel are way off track
Would you rather have a weakened in Paris or gum surgeries kind of a one item iq test in almost everybody gets that right,
Would they don't realises that the weekend in Paris won't be as good as they think it will be, and the
with feelings, won't last as long as they expect this.
It is true, thankfully, for the gum surgery, these tumors predictions
being wrong about how intention of it will feel and how long will feel that way is what Dan has christen impact by us and one famous study.
He asked young professors at the University of Texas to forecast how they feel
when they got tenure that permanent possess
and they all knew faculty crave. Dan tested people's predictions,
using a seven point, happiness scale. Most professors thought they'd be really happy if they got tenure
around a six out of seven on that scale. But how did professors actually feel
when they heard good news. They report,
only being five out of seven Dan. Also,
ass to what happened to professors who got bad news
the ones who found out they didn't get tenure. They assume they'd be
three point, four out of seven on that happiness scale,
but in reality, actual professors who got denied tenure will only afford
wait seven. On average, they felt a whole plead better than any one expected
I see a similar, Miss prediction all the time in my college students at Yale students are concerned.
They'll be ecstatic if they get a good bread and are sure they'll feel devastated if they do badly
psychologists have now seen the same pattern in many walks of life lovers per day,
they'll take a long time to recover from a sad break up, but bounced back far quicker.
Drivers believe they'll be devastated if they fail to get their licence, but aren't sad
out of the DMV empty handed as they think sameness
for job applicants who are passed over and even peace,
its guessing how they feel about a positive or negative. Hiv diagnosis. Put simply the good
won't be as good. The bad things won't be as bad as your mind lead you to believe. Dance has
that this pattern stems from yet another way our minds lie to us
We don't notice that we have a tendency to get used to stuff
even when something feels amazing at first, we can enjoy it forever,
This is a phenomenon that psychologists call. He dawning adaptation. You
be really really happy endlessly. All the time or your emotional system isn't doing its job, it has to come
the baseline. So it can once again guide you to the next good thing that you as an organism ought to be doing. He Donna
patient means that, after a while, we tend to go back to
baseline level of emotional satisfaction. My students are happy for a while, after getting a perfect grid for a couple of hours,
as they may be a seven out of nine. But
after a day or so they just go back to them.
Usual set point level of happiness. The good
bad events. Don't move US
or down for as long as we think. So.
Just a hard and fast truth that you can't.
Stay at ten for ever and ever and ever p
mistakenly think they can. They think happiness is a place that if they could get to it, they could build a house and live there. Their entire lives. It's only a vacation destination as place. You can visit more and more often few do there.
Things and you can stay longer longer, but you can't
day forever does an import
thing to know, because people often feel that if their happiness has come back to baseline after something wonderful, as happened, something's wrong,
why didn't this marriage this child? This promotion give me the eternal happiness I was seeking, because there is no such thing as eternal happiness, so happily, ever after is just not psychologically relays of all. Happily ever after is only true if you have three minutes to live, but this
process also has an important upside. We get
so all the bad stuff too.
Horrible break up the chronic illness.
Worse job with the lower salary,
as we totally adapted these things,
gradually start to distress us less. Unless the problem is, we don't realize it, despite the fact that
two months. Prior, I was sitting in my bag crying when, as out like wishing, I would die
it shows that lake life goes on
It's not the end of the world. The happiness lab we'll be back in a moment.
Basically. I remember I was on tender all these
great stories on timber
guns is telling me how she met the man of her dreams,
super, beautiful, beautiful guy blue eyes, full lapse and how
He changed her life forever. I
like TAT. I was so that in the home after chatting
and for a while and tender Raphael fail, agreed to a first date, something really Loki. The coupled just walked around getting to know each other. They didn't even tests, but things picked up.
After that we were hang out for hours and hours. We decided to go,
to my neighborhood, so we can.
Sit by the river by the Hudson River cause. It's
pretty its washes sunset over there and we ended up having sex
and I thought I did everything wary like. I carried condoms around
In my mind, I was doing everything right but
fail, I was about to hear the sort of news that
Nobody wants to hear the next day
sort of came down with what he thought was like a colder.
Thing here, like a sore throat and whose feeling very fatigued and.
Then, a couple days later, I start circle out the same thing: her beautiful boy with the blue eyes, with
first to seek medical advice. He sent a text. I went to
Doctor and they think all this might be a sign of herpes.
That was a weird text message
going to urgent her crying and I'm like Anita Herpes, does Raphia got her
he'll diagnosis soon after
those for a few days. I'm Ambrose sing about crying. You know I like
I an arrow honest die was the worst thing in the world. Not only was I like, physically uncomfortable, but how many
date, someone has anyone. Gonna love me, in addition to being a physical pain with red, bumps, honour, genital
She was also an emotional pain. Her dream, guy
dropped her in a flash yeah. He was like. Oh this changed my vibe. I knew he was a very, very distant. I thought like ok, we will have this thing like we can go through it together and sort of like learn
it together and figures out together, but he was very much sort of like in it for himself. I felt sort of
of betrayed, though I were, but also others. Coming to my mind, rough religion only feel
betrayed by the man who gave her herpes and disappeared her died.
This also freaked out the people closer to her. She was like one of my oldest friends but then
I can find it in her when, unlike certain my crimes that have all these itchy red bumps and
the guy's ignoring me. Now things changed, she's like
I just think you know be better from my own sanity. If you use toilets it covers when you were here, and you know
If you use hands- and it has our Latin is that so that was really hurt. For me, this was one of your orders.
Yeah. This is someone I've known nonsense wherein diapers and she's not supporting you for one
sounds like one of the most scary
times in my life here sounds off on. That's love is horrible. Let's take a second to predict
how you would feel and Raphael a situation. You can track
an incurable and highly stigmatize disease. Euro mystic partner has ditched you and
of your oldest friends are shunning you because of what happened with
describe all of this overall as a good thing. As
positive change in your life as a present from the universe.
Is that a rough analyses it she even wrote
of her ravishingly dot com, which she titled getting Herpes was a gift from people really
what the hell is. This aghast leg almost
angry.
Unlike my meal, delusional all sorts of things, and how would you possibly think that's it gets so why is it a gift? It's a gift, because I'm more knowledgeable.
It's a gift because I've been able to write things like
article that helps people Raphia
as all the fall out from her diagnosis has given her insight.
The people who really matter it's a strong litmus test for those who are
really going to be there for her.
Friend can't accept
all of you, warts, in all pun, intended.
There there not really are frightened their fair weather friends, you know, but it also
Raphaelites, a new filter for her dating life. It saved her
I'm figuring out, which guys were worth her time and which pies Justin get it
He said some damage shit about. Oh, am I gonna get it. If I kiss you and I'm like now, it's on my vagina. Do you think you know when you change anything? Would you do mean it sounds you learned so much from this like? Would you keep you? Do it over again
keep it first of all
of a dick ass. He was, he was really hot, really high and the sexual really good. So I don't regret that
Secondly, it
It helped me and my dating life. I feel a few months:
After I was diagnosed, I met my current boyfriend, who than the other for three years,
and I told him right away and he was fine with it. So that was nice to know. That's like, especially when you're.
When you can try something like Herpes, you tend to think with all my lights over north ever going to see the me again, don't ever going to want to date me again, I'm never going to get married this and that, but
fi, unlike their people, that have much
much worse problems. Then law.
Red bumps getting Herpes
much much better than
feel and may have predicted, and that kind.
Adaptation to adversity is some
Dan Gilbert has found over and over again, but we ve
and consistently? Is that in the face of negative events, people don't feel as bad as they themselves expected to other? Where pray,
bad at predicting. How will feel after a good event,
winning the lottery Dan has observed where worse
predicting how will feel after a bad event, losing a friend,
failing to get a job or even getting Herpes our impact biases. Even
when we make predictions about negative life circumstances, because where problems
overcome bad events more quickly than we think
one of the things we fail to do when we mentally stimulate. Is we fail to consider adaptation?
We are remarkably adaptive animal. We have been born and bred pick ourselves up by the bootstraps in soldier on when the going gets. Tough. We get going Dan cause this capacity to overcome adverse.
Eddie, our psychological immune system. Just as our visit,
immune system kicks in when we get sick are cycle.
Gloomy and system turns on when we're in mental distress and
psychological immune system works really really well as soon as we start
feel bad our mind deploys a whole host of mental defences. You ever had a friend experience a break up. You know at first the really unhappy and then pretty quickly they get around rationalizing.
She was never really right. For me, this is really a chance for me to start my life over. I don't think we had that much in common. In the first place she didn't like my mother when
mentally simulator break up you mentally simulate the anguish, but you never mentally stimulate the rationalizations what's amusing,
about all those rationalizations, though, is that the happiness
get from rationalizing. A bad event is just as real as the happiness we get from something objectively good
Well, there's no doubt that when people rationalize everybody around them feels that they found some sort of phony and sub standard form of happiness, I dont believe that firm in it.
Happiness you get when
The person you are love, says yes to the marriage proposal, isn't qualitatively differ
than the kind you produce for yourself when she says no
There is actually no data that I know of to suggest in its inferior form of happiness, and indeed, in some cases it can be more
long lasting rough
well as misery about contracting Herpes was very deep and very real.
But her misery was also short lived, but what about six
it that are so horrible there's no
a person can carry on normally what about events so profound and so on
that they change our lives forever. After the break will hear about the true power of us
the logical immune system, how it can,
hence the most terrible incidents a human can endure into a form of joy, we'd, never exe
act. Nineteen years old, amended humvee
I'm thinking, I'm gonna die.
Good to just just close my eyes and just count, let it
happen. The happiness lab will return in a moment.
I join as an average amount because I wanted to
I wanted to be in the action. Jane remarked,
as had just finish high school in a small town in the south, the only
of a single mother from El Salvador after graduation. He does
I did to enlist in the army. It was John
after nine eleven, and he had a few predict
of how things would go.
The process was three years
I would be in it. I would give back to this country. It would give me up truth travel to give more discipline. It would give me an opportunity, give money for college- and I remember one of my sergeants INA one day- sit down and talk to me and tell me that I need to be prepared because we were going to be deployed sometime soon.
Response to him was I'm not going anywhere yet I just got a basic training
very naive of me and he was absolutely correct and right in the sense of where two months later I was
play with the rest of you now hand over to the Middle EAST, going to war, J, ai.
Part of the initial invasion of Iraq in two thousand three. It was all
the tough transition for a nineteen year old and within weeks,
tragedy struck
here. We were, you know
a few days shy of a month of being in Iraq and escorted the convoy with City car Karbala when the four
after the heavy that I was driving, went over roadside bomb last
through the entire truck and everything it was carrying the ammo
there are few and other explosives. It was a fireball there's three other soldiers in the vehicle with me. They all got thrown out of the vehicle, but I was trapped inside
and within a matter of seconds, the somebody was engulfed in flames and I was completely conscious. J I was,
and inside the burning truck for several minutes.
He described screaming ass. He watched the skin on his hands melting. Eventually he was pulled from the vehicle, but the damage was done.
In addition to broken ribs and lacerated liver, he had third,
greed burns over his entire body and he'd been gulping flames into his lungs through the whole ordeal,
He was immediately met of act first to Europe
then to the? U S: Army Burn Centre in San Antonio Texas.
We're coming out of my medical indies. Coma
we Slater and my doctor,
essentially just kind of laid out
You know all the cards, and this is the circumstance you
and feed yourselves, you can't walk. You can't sit up. You can go to the bathroom by yourself,
they also told me that I will no longer be able to remain in the United States Army, which was incredibly difficult and challenging when this happened. You and ninety- and you spent like next three
I just twenty twenty one. Twenty two and ass well, the meeting next week there how much
to get thirty. Four percent of my body was burned, and majority of that was third degree. So
it consisted of for the listeners. I can't see me it causes that have my head, my face my arms, my hands portion of my bed
portion of my legs there's no way to really fully described the pain unless you ve been through it, but was incredible about being burned, survivor impatient at the time
The party you bite, it isn't burned, still hurts because they usually used the areas of your body that are not scarred, as
and to do scheme graphs and usually that donor cited, is more painful than the actual injury itself, but generous physical pain with now.
Think compared to his emotional anguish, when he enlisted he'd been something of a local
throb. You know it's when it is growing up. I always heard
you know from like my mom's friends, you know how these women need, I would say, hell my God, he's so cutie, so this he so that in
So our group just think alike. That's what I am you know. No one ever said he has an amazing personality. He's funny. Is these whatever tickled and nothing is cute.
In so suddenly
I look at myself, I'm like that's like you. What I see in the mere that's not
and that person that I see I do not recognise. I have no relationship with that individual
the old J had died and, as you can imagine, I fell into a deep
dark place of of I was deployed
I was angry. I was resentful. I was a victim in every sense of the word deep burns and thick skin
over his entire body
dozens of surgeries and hears of his young wife wasted in the hospital plus the permanently.
Of his good looks and his military career.
Those are some of the most profound and tragic events a person can endure. But how does g?
think about all these awful events today
I can tell you right now that what happened to me is a blessing. That's right as a blessing
Considering the fact that I was trapped inside of a burning truck for five minutes, unfortunately only have what I have
I have a lot of friends and I know a lot of people that unfortunately have missing limbs
are, you know have are more scarred in our or disfigured you know, so I in that sense, incredibly fortunate, so cool to hear you say that you are incredibly fortunate is again. I think people who just heard the story, you guys convey explodes expense that decent chunk of his twenties announcement,
having major major surgeries, lose whiskers, arrested his life and then you're, saying I'm working
like I'm the last year will I am because you know I think, about how I am blessed to have a second chance at life
I don't want to take this second chance for granted and J. I did take
free opportunity that came his way
a badly injured vat, open doors that J I never dreamed of. He became
mentor for other burn victims which led to a few loose
speaking gigs, telling
story, so openly built up objects,
confidence so much so that one
friend casually mention that jail should try out for an acting job. He decided to go for it.
I became
actor on a soap opera on my children and that led
dancing with the stars to ask me to be on the show and then add,
I in some other shows. After then, I wrote a book about my life and my mother's life in my family life and it became a New York Times best seller. I mean people magazine put beyond a cover, because
these cars. I have this incredible ability to get paid.
Attention
Fifteen seconds of curiosity right like who? Is that what happened to him, though,.
Fifteen seconds of curiosity that people have
it's. My job mine too,
that fifteen seconds and turn it into thirty seconds into forty five into sixty seconds into five minutes. Ten minutes ago,
if time of actual educated dialogue. This is who I am everyday
I thought I wanted in life. You know I wanted to be a fresh professional football player and have fame and have all this money and be able to do all these things. If I would have accomplished those things.
What I be as happy as I am now
you change anything when you do or differently.
Now in change, anything.
I ate one hundred percent mean that, but you wouldn't change like the explosion. This the is a surgery. You keep all that yeah because
The life- I have no mean a beautiful wife and beautiful daughter in
the beautiful eyes that I've crave for myself, I mean cash
I'm blast.
With bad events. We often don't realize that some good can come out of them. Then Gilbert his unsurprising that people like air Sea
positive, the negatives, even in the worst of circumstances,
he's seen it time and again in his work on he Donna adaptation
startlingly, if you ask people who lost a child, which is the single worst advance that people can imagine experiencing, and indeed it is one of the worst events, people can actually experience. If you ask people lost a child, they never say gee, I'm glad that happened, but if you,
the name, the good and the bad things that have come from it.
Tender more good than bad things. That's a very stunning fact that
we should just sit back and marvel at the possibility that the worst thing in the world could happen to us
and probably more good than bad will come out of it. There are awful events that
how'd you to feel pain and hurt and loss, but we're fighters. When push comes to shove
we're really resilient.
Problem is we don't realize that
can you understand the power of the psychological immune system are remarkable ability to rationalize in the face of adversity. It makes you braver
you realize that you will make the stakes and eight will be o k
there's a lesson there for all of us
After making this episode, I've become even more
convinced about that lesson. He Donna
Adaptation means the loss of life aren't going to be, as often as you imagine just
as the house will be more temporary than you hope,
psychologist I already knew that winning the lottery and other great circumstances don't bring lasting happiness. But, honestly,
We often forget about the flip side, so I'm not
make a conscious effort to be a bit braver, to stop worrying,
So much to remember that I haven't,
I, emotional superpower, one that
get me through the worst of circumstances, and I hope, you'll,
the same because
even though your mind might tell you otherwise
joy, doesn't come from everything in life working out perfectly. It comes
adopting better habits and better behaviors, all strategies will be discussing in coming episodes of the happiness lab with me doctor lorry centres,
If you enjoyed the shell I'd be super grateful if you could spread the word by leaving a rating in the review
It really does help other listeners find us and don't forget
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If you want to learn more about the science you heard on the show, then check out.
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The happiness lab is covered in and produced by Ryan Daily. The show is mixed and mastered by Evan, Vila edited by Julia Barton fact. Checking by Joseph Friedmann, Freedman and original music was composed by Zachary Silver special thanks to me all about Carly, Migliore, Heather, Fain, Maggie Taylor, Maya, king and Jacob Weisberg. The happiness lab is brought to you, Pushkin Industries industries me doctor, lorries.
A strange thing happened to me in the library, while back I needed to pick up a few books,
This was before the quarantine, a question.
Was nagging me.
It had been nagging me for a long time who killed truth.
This truth problem. It isn't just bad its deadly.
It's also way older than it might seem this mystery. Its historical Angela for
and I'm a historian of Harvard and staff writer at the New Yorker husband
out of time trying to solve mysteries like this one
so anyway, I was at the library
Everything seem normal hum swiped my card
the elevator down to the basement.
Upon volumes of the shelves, and then
I saw it
something I never seen before down here,
at the end of the rope,
hidden in the shadows
green door. There was a sign on the door, a tarnished breastplate,
We barely make out the words it read the letter
archive
tv and radio confuse hello
right, right
hello. How are you
no one's there,
the voice from the past,
places great. We waited very firewall, heralded the discovery which assured and want to ban time granted it in here
These long before Karuna Virus a congressional debate about the government's role in developing a vaccine. Is there any other term for them as socialized medicine, hold horror movies therein here to punch cards from the forgotten history of the National Data Center at work referred to as being that work is now operating in records of records.
Bird songs considered America, foremost Songbird hermits rush
all these voices from the past sound.
Nobody is heard for decades,
maybe somewhere in this vast last archive this corridor of the mind like a fine. What
Looking for
an answer to that question.
Killed truth,
I decided to start a podcast. It's called the last archived hotel.
Stories from
a hundred years, a history of America and our army.
It's about truth and evidence.
Have you any order found Mimi back here I'll leave the door unlocked the last archive coming
brought to you by Pushkin industries
Transcript generated on 2020-05-26.