[APPLAUSE]
>> Well, thank you. And one of the strangest things about
sitting up like this with lights is I can't really see anybody [LAUGH]. Generally I like to connect with
an audience, but thank you. And I'm sitting here cuz I hurt my leg and
so I'm not as mobile. It is really an amazing thing
to have the opportunity to teach this stuff that I teach here now. I teach classes on happiness and
wellness and stress management and spiritual well-being, and
it's a real privilege. And when they asked me what
I wanted to talk about, and I mentioned something like
the science of happiness. I don't quite even know what that is but
what's so rich about that is that's what
we're all trying to figure out. It's a very interesting thing to be
teaching at a world-class institution and where intellect is so
prevalent and achievement. And yet underneath that is everybody's
craving to try to figure out how to have a happy life. And there's poignancy sometimes
teaching at Stanford because many, many of people here have achieved
great things but not happiness. And it's a very interesting kind
of the dialectic at some level. I remember I was a graduate student here,
and I would see some of my professors. Not necessarily professors, but the people in the building
that I was taking classes in. And some of them were
remarkably accomplished, but didn't seem like content people. And there's something very interesting
about that when your field is education or psychology. Cuz those who can't, teach. You know what I'm saying? >> [LAUGH]
>> And it's the biggest challenge
that we all have, is how to be content, peaceful, happy, enjoy a world that is in
constant turmoil and danger. And even just thinking about it,
as I was walking over here. I mean, I don't give long preparation for
talks like this, so you got the five minutes from
my parking my car to here. But that's more than some people get. >> [LAUGH]
>> But I was thinking about
the dual nature of this. That we all live reasonably wealthy,
and the world has accommodated us. And we have plenty to eat, and
we have the opportunity to say, maximize our potential. And so we have at one strand
tremendous opportunity and possibility and benefit. On the other hand, we have exactly
what every other human being has. Which is that we respond
to what the Buddhists refer to as the elemental suffering of life. That inherent in all of life
is some dissatisfaction, because everything changes and
nothing lasts. So even though I may have achieved a lot, it's an interesting thing because
I hear my achievements sometimes. That I'm on this and that, and I graduated then and I got
this thing, and all that's in the past. And that's a very different
question than what am I now. I did graduate from Stanford, so
I could get my little thing that said Stanford PhD 1999, but
that was 13 years ago. And so what am I now,
what makes me happy now? Or yes, I've done work in
troubled spots in the world and I believe I've made a minor difference,
but that was in the past. And what makes me happy now,
is it just memory traces? Or is it stories that I tell
myself about my accomplishments or my achievements of the good I've done? Is that what it is? Because that's what we're kind of taught
in an achievement-dominated culture, and that's how I'm introduced. And I'm introduced like this all the time,
so it's nothing that these people didn't
set out to introduce me wrong. But I'm introduced almost
always from the past, Fred was, Fred accomplished this back in the day. But what does he do now and
what gives him juice now? Those are missing from
resume exhortations and resume listings. And that points out that essential,
unbelievable difficulty of trying to be happy in a world
where everything fades away. I mean, it's really hard. I mean this is not a minor undertaking
of trying to be happy in this world. Because everything that we have done,
and everything that we have achieved. And everything that we have created,
both we did it in the past and somewhere as life goes on, it will end. And what might happiness mean
in that kind of experience? It's not an easy question. I remember talking on the phone
maybe a month ago to the person who was my supervisor and
sat on my dissertation committee. And actually was a co-author
of one of my books out there. And he was talking about how quickly,
when he left Stanford, everything that he built faded away. The programs that he built, and
the things that he worked on. They dissipated within a couple of
years and it was an existential. I mean,
he's done other things in other places. But he was commenting existentially
on wow, I was here for more than a decade and
built and then it fades. And so
the thing that makes happiness challenging is when you look at what might
it mean to try to be so. When things fade away and
when things alter. I remember once giving a talk,
and this where my kind of rude New York City kind of
attitude came out, which I do. I have less of it after being out here for
a long time, but it's not gone. I remember I was giving a talk on
aging and some degree of forgiveness. Which would [LAUGH] anybody
who looks in a mirror and knows you have to have
a lot of forgiveness. But I remember speaking about how aging is a challenge to happiness because
it just shows us what life is. It's an ever changing process of change. And a baby boomer jumped up out
of the audience in full denial just wearing denial like a cloak. Well, we're not gonna get as old
as our parents' generation did. And I thought she was a plant. You know what I mean? From like Candid Camera or something. >> [LAUGH]
>> Like what are you kidding? Like we're not gonna get as old. Come on, I mean get real, and
she's going on about how these all new scientific advances and
aging will be different for us. And I'm thinking well,
every single thing ages and dies, it's not just yo honey, [LAUGH] like
everything, and she's just so intense. And when I asked her if she had
looked in the mirror recently. >> [LAUGH] >> It's very hard to be happy in real life. Which has us change. And our children grow up. And our parents die. And we retire, and
the things we build alter. And so there has emerged in the last,
maybe 15 years, a science of happiness. It's nascent. It's not just beginning, but
it's not a robust science yet. But it's wonderful because
it's bringing the methods of science to that which
is right about people. When I got my PhD here in psychology,
what I thought and this is again me being sarcastic, I thought I was being
trained to be a high priest of misery. Like that's what a psychology was. Cuz all I learned about was depression,
and anger and anxiety and woe. >> [LAUGH]
>> Now who really is that interested
in woe all day long? >> [LAUGH]
>> But seriously, it's not that interesting. One woe walks in, another one walks out. I mean if you're a therapist,
it's just one woe after another. You know, you want to help. But I felt like the whole point
of psychology was missing, which is how do you do this life
in a way that makes it satisfying? Not just how do you patch people
up who have stumbled and fell. And that question struck me
all the time that I was here. Because I remember being
trained as a therapist. And never being told,
well tell your clients to love more. Not to worry about whether
their mother loved them. But to love more or
train them to be compassionate. Or train them to forgive or
train them to see if they're disagreeing with their partner,
whether they can be kinder, positive. What would you do if you had an hour to
live and you wanted your life to work? You wouldn't complain about your mother. >> [LAUGH]
>> It's that simple. You wouldn't mention anything about
what somebody didn't give you. If you had an hour left, you'd be trying
to touch whatever beauty there is. I mean, I don't have enough experience
with that, but that's just my guess. And so I realized there was
something just really wrong with what's wrong as
the primary orientation. And so I started
the Stanford Forgiveness Project. But it was based on this idea
that as the Dalai Lama had said, you have to practice the conditions
of happiness to be happy. So if you practice conditions
that make people unhappy then, duh, you'll get unhappy. So complaining, arguing as a pastime, those tend to create
conditions of unhappiness. If you practice the conditions
that create happiness, you have a better chance of being happy. So I created the Stanford Forgiveness
Project around that idea, instead of the Stanford Anger Project. >> [LAUGH]
>> Because I felt that people didn't need more
training in how to be angry. I figured they did that
really well on their own. What they didn't do as well is forgive. And so I was part of a group of people
in all sort to different fields, all sorts of different ways, discovering positive psychology
like what's right, what's good? And what can we hold on to so
that people can grow, I can grow to become more of a human
being. And as the research came out, and as it continues to unfold,
what's really interesting is a lot of it is everything you needed to
know you learned in kindergarten. It's not that complicated. It's not that subtle. And that's what's so fascinating,
trying to teach some of it here. Cuz we're not used to
the uncomplicated and the subtle. When you get a PhD here, you study like some minute field that nobody else is
interested in, you know what I'm saying? And you over study it. And here's happiness,
which everybody is interested in, and you under study it,
which is a fascinating thing. But it's not that, the research is,
it's not that complicated. So I was thinking, what are some of
the things that the research show and it's very interesting. So people who are more attractive than less attractive people
are not necessarily happier. No, they're certainly not less happy so
don't go making yourself less attractive. >> [LAUGH]
>> It's that attractiveness in and of itself doesn't contribute
that much to happiness. What does contribute to happiness
is liking the way you look, being comfortable. Well, that could have been told
by a kindergarten teacher. Probably more eloquently and without
wasting like, 4,000 undergraduates time, doing experiments. >> [LAUGH]
>> Right? So like yourself, kid. And you'll probably be happier. But you take somebody, whose modestly attractive,
feels good about themselves, they're fine. You take somebody who's highly attractive,
doesn't feel good about himself, or is always staring at the mirror. They're gonna be less fine. Attractiveness by itself,
doesn't lead that much to happiness. But we spend so much time trying
to make ourselves more attractive. Rather than trying to be
more accepting of ourselves. You don't watch TV with people selling
you stuff to be more accepting. Right, they'll sell you stuff that'll
make your hair fluffier, I think. Right? Fluffier, curlier,
you can run your hand through it better. All the things that
are vital to well-being. >> [LAUGH]
>> All right, imagine if you don't have fluffy hair
that you can run your hand through. I mean,
how can you wake up in the morning? But we're told that that's
going to make up happier, okay? But we're not told, even in our schools or
in our universities, that one of the things that will
make you much happier is to be kind. To be kind. To have good will in you heart to
other people will make you happier. And that can be cultivated. So, we can be taught to make sure
that we get the right shampoo, or we can be taught to make
sure that we get the absolute perfect extras on the perfect car for us, which contributes almost
nothing to happiness. Or we can be taught to
be better human beings. Which contributes more to happiness. You're not, our culture isn't
screaming at you to be a nicer person. But it is flashing stuff all the time
to make sure you get the right car and the right latte. That's another essential for happiness, is exactly what of the 40
kinds of coffee do you want? And we have been led to believe
that that will contribute anything. An attitude that does contribute a lot
when you walk into a place that has 40 coffees is to be grateful that you can
walk into a place that has 40 coffees. That attitude will make you happier,
getting your perfect coffee will not. Now, getting the wrong coffee
won't make you happier either. That's where it gets interesting. That's the piece that is so fascinating. Getting the right coffee won't
make you that much happier, and getting the wrong coffee won't
make you that much happier. But walking in and thinking, wow,
how did I get into a position where I can just walk in and
they have coffee from all around the world that I just have to order and pay for
with green things or credit cards? That's more happy. That's, again,
what a kindergarten teacher would know. Don't want what little Sally has,
want what you have, it's good enough. You think of, or I think of,
when I started thinking about and teaching happiness on this campus,
of course, I thought of the movie
It's a Wonderful Life. And the character is very dissatisfied
with his life because he pulls the stair, the thing on the stair and it comes off,
and that's not good enough. And his kids clothes are ripped, and
he never made it outside of Bedford Falls, and he's been a dinky little loan
officer in a bank for his whole life. And so his life was not successful
until he has his conversion experience, comes back, and realizes he's loved,
his work is valuable, and he's an instrumental member
of his community helping people. And he realizes how rich that is, but he has to have like a near
death experience to do that. And so what's interesting
about teaching happiness or even thinking about happiness is all of
us have so much cultural brainwashing that it's really hard to get past that to
think what really makes people happier? And most cultures brainwash their
people to not be super happy, but to fit in in their culture. They don't want joyful people because
they tend to think for themselves. But if you're satisfied with
the right latte, you're very, very teachable because that is
a very easy way to be bought. Or with a car with the right extras. Or with any of the millions of
useless choices that we make. And again, data is showing now,
that our culture's having an unbelievable availability of choices
for everything, is making people less happy 'cause they constantly think about
their opportunity costs missed. I should have gotten that one. How would I have loved the green
one instead of the blue one? My God, had I had a green thing to put my
butt on I would have been so much happier. And if I had only gotten that meal and
not this meal. And where it has become so dangerous
to me, this obsession with having exactly what we think we need all
the time is in relationships. It's one of the ways where we have
become disposable with other people. We have forgotten that people
are different than coffee. We don't get to just chose, we do,
but we don't get to be happy trying to make the perfect
choice with another human being. What makes us happy with human
beings is to appreciate them, is to bond with them, is to blend
with them, is to grow, is to learn. But we have become, because of
the unbelievably disposable nature in our material obsession,
we talk about people that way. I went out this guy but
he didn't have that. And I'm not saying going out
with the wrong person, but our language has become
of commodity with people. They're not this, they're not that. It's not good enough, it isn't this. We have taken the consumer mentality, which we have all been
unbelievably trained in. I think, I remember one time a friend
of mine wanted me to test, not test drive, but
drive his really fancy sports car. And I knew it just wouldn't make
that much difference to me. It could be, I'm weird, that's fine. But I knew, and I thought it was a nice
car, but I was too stuck in the point of a car in particular in a metropolitan
area, is just get you somewhere. Those commercials of going around
the curve at 80 miles an hour, I can't do that on 101. You know what I mean? >> [LAUGH]
>> And so he let me drive his very
fancy convertible sports car. And I thought, yeah, it's nice. I mean, it was nicer. But it wasn't nicer enough. And I thought, wow, I escaped something. I escaped something. I didn't get a certain way
that we're taught to think. And we're taught to, how would I say this, the simplest lessons are am I thankful for
it? Is it good? Does it add beauty to the world? And in my fleeting life here,
is it helpful? Those deeper questions
will lead us to have a perspective that will make us happier rather than, did I get the most
thrill out of this experience? Did I maximize like every
opportunity I had for thrill for me? Now there is nothing
wrong with those things. It's like success. I've been extremely successful. And one of the blessings
about working here is how many successful people I run into. It is astonishing and it's wonderful. And yet, more success doesn't
make people necessarily happier. And it is wonderful,
the conversations that I have here, the intelligence, the depth,
the accomplishment are staggering. And the people are fascinating cuz
they're all at the top of the heap in fields that I never heard of. [LAUGH]
>> But are they happier? Or do they look at things
from a point of view where they make other
people happier as well? To simplify it, when they look at
the research on what makes happiness, it's generally, give or
take, three things. Meaning and purpose, people, and positiveness. Do you have a point to your life beyond
just material or personal aggrandizement? People who have a point in
their life beyond material and personal aggrandizement
tend to be happier. People who appreciate people,
people who respond well to people, people who have social support, people who
give to other people, they're happier. And people have a tendency to like things,
appreciate things. They don't need it to be perfect for them. You made me dinner. Wonderful, it's not
exactly my favorite food. It's still wonderful cuz you made it. That's a happier attitude than wow,
I got exactly what I want. And there's nothing wrong
with getting what you want. But the drive to get exactly what you
want makes you not like a lot of things. An attitude of more thank you or
appreciation makes you like more things. From what I can see,
the biggest discernment point Is people. That happier people tend to
have better relationships. There's a lot of, not controversy,
but there's difference of opinion in whether marriage makes people happier,
or happier people make better marriages. I think they're tending to
fall towards the second now. That people who were a little
psychologically more healthy and happy tend to create better marriages, even though on the whole, people
are happier married than not married. People matter. Again, I have made so many jokes
at my own expense that if you got a really competent teacher of
five-year-olds, they may not speak in the way I do, but they get what it is that
separates happier from less happy people. And they would say it starts with how
they get along with other people. And it probably not ends there as well,
but that's probably the core quality of how is it that
I'm oriented in space. Now so much of the stuff that's coming
up about our neurobiology is that we almost don't see or experience the world
without other people's influence on us. You know it starts with mom. That our whole learning
experience is with the other. That the way our brain processes
information is us, other. We're not solitary. I remember once listening
to a Zen teacher, and he said, I mean I listened to him for
a long time. This is the only thing that I remembered. But this was so profound. He said he made himself happier
when he understood that the air between us connects us
rather than separates us. He said that simple pneumonic,
whatever it is, that simple aphorism,
that changed his whole experience. That it wasn't that he was separate and
encapsulated from other people because of air or space,
It was that's what joined him. And all of a sudden he
said his world changed. That wow,
there's this living ether that binds me to everyone and
immediately he was happier. So one of the things that I teach
in the happiness classes is I ask students to look at their
relationship to us and them. How do they define us and
how do they define them? And I postulate that people who through
whatever grace, upbringing, work, genetic disposition, have an easier time
with us, are gonna be happier people. So I would ask students to visualize,
or think about, or write about, what's it like when you walk
into a room where you don't know anybody? Are you walking into us, or
are you walking into them? Are you walking into a group
of people who may welcome you? Or you're walking into a group of people
with whom you're in competition or who may find you a threat. How is it that you go through your day? How much is us? Is us just you? And then there are some really wacky
people who us isn't even just them. [LAUGH] You know,
it's like they don't like anybody But this is one of the conceptions
I understood a long time ago. That the most, maybe that's too strong. There may be some people who
are really excellent solitarily. But even monks who choose to be alone,
so much of their practice is loving kindness towards humanity at
large if it's not towards individuals. But you go over to one end and
you get, I don't know, the paranoid schizophrenic,
the completely alienated and nobody is us. And you inch your way over on that
continuum until you get to most of us. And then you continue going on that
continuum all the way to the other side where you end up with Gandhi,
where everybody is us. Or Martin Luther King, or Jesus,
or Buddha, where everybody is us. There's not anything that isn't us. And that continuum seems so Important and elemental to whether or
not we are happy people, or happy enough. Because if it's us Then you
tend to wanna be kind and help. If it's them we're in competition,
we're fighting for resources. Many, many people make a life out of them. Everything's scare here in a dog eat
dog world and so very little is us. And there are other people
who you just see their share. They don't have that rigid tightness. And there're some people you'll
meet who are unbelievably generous within their own family. You know really loving,
and good, and decent. And you get outside of the family and
it's like a wall comes down. So we're all defining us and
them differently. It's just, in some of the work that I do,
I try to work with that. Who's us? Who's them? Where do you draw the boundary? Where does it end? Where does it, where is it? And that's one of the fertile
places that we can work with. There's an organization here on
campus that I teach with and I figure that before I was done I would
do a brief meditation on compassion. Cuz I'm working now for
CCARE, the compassion group, the compassion and
altruism training program. And they have set up a center to teach and
promulgate compassion. So that when we're with other people, we look to try to help,
to feel their pain. And there is something so powerful
about these pro-social positive things. So let me stop my yakking for a minute. I'm gonna do a brief compassion
meditation just with everybody. I taught this two nights
ago in a compassion class. So if everybody's please close their eyes. And just take a couple of slow, full,
deep breaths into and out of your belly. And so that your belly expands a little
as you inhale, so it gets bigger. And then on the exhalation,
your belly contracts a little. And then, what I'd like you to do is just
think of someone that you naturally and already care about, That you don't have to work hard to care about. Picture somebody in your world where
your affection is easy and genuine. And then what I'd like you to do is
I'm gonna say a couple of phrases. This is part of Buddhist loving kindness
but it's been totally secularized. I'm gonna say out loud three
simple phrases to wish them well. And when I say them, I'd like you to repeat silently
to yourself about this person. So the first thing I'm gonna say is,
may they be happy. And just say that now inside of
you about them, towards them. May you be happy. And now may you be safe and
free from harm. And now may you be loved. May you know you're loved. And now we're gonna do
one more piece of this. I want you to now,
just before we're done, think for a moment when this person had some
suffering in their life or some pain. Think of a time when they were troubled. And feel your natural
desire to ease that pain. Your natural wish that they be happy, that they be free from suffering,
that they know they're loved. And then return your attention
away from any kind of image. Just take a breath or
two before you allow your eyes to open. And I'm gonna have you do one
more thing before I'm done. But that kind of simple practice can change who's us and who's them. So you can practice something like that. A student can practice that before they
walk into a room where they don't know anybody, you just wish people well. Or you can cultivate it by thinking,
when I get home, who could I try to help who's in pain? Who in my natural desire to be good and tender towards, who would use that? And so
one cultivates positive affection and interest to other people. And by doing that,
one practices the conditions of happiness. We practice it. So I'm gonna ask you to do one more thing. I'm gonna ask you to turn to somebody in
the audience here that looks semi-safe, that isn't drooling or twitching or
something, cuz I can't see. And I'd like you to have a very
brief discussion of say, sometime in the next 24 hours,
how could you pay forward a goodness? Who in your world could use a kind word? Is there any kindness you can do? Just what would be one act
that you can make an intention to just make the world a sliver better,
okay? Just find somebody to share that with. The qualities that make people
happier are relatively simple. The one other piece that
research has shown is important. Is having a desire to do so. That's the missing x piece. I remember being trained as
a therapist numerous times, obviously because I needed
numerous training before I got it. But having gone through
a couple of programs, the thing that was always so
challenging was trying to figure out. Cuz the research doesn't really
know when does that switch get turned in a human being
that they get bitter. And the research would show with
therapists that they tended not to know when that time was. That they didn't know what
they said that was helpful. That it was usually different than
what the patient found helpful. And that the essential dynamic
was that there was something in the patient that got triggered. And it had a lot to do with therapist
qualities of being a good listener and empathic. But there is some ineffable
thing of our intentions that underpins change and readiness, and
whatever it is that we do differently. At some point we have to want to and
choose to. Some of the research on happiness shows, again like the,
that happier people tend to be those who wake up in the morning and
say I wanna be happy. It's very ironic to have to teach
a whole class to come to that. >> [LAUGH]
>> Seriously, [LAUGH] and you need a PhD? Happier people are those who tend to wake
up and think, I'd like to be happier. But not only do they have
that as an intention, they then act on it during the day. And it's so simple yet,
unbelievably not easy. But there are researchers who
went around the world and interviewed happy people in all
sorts of different communities. And they found that rich didn't matter,
and poor didn't matter, and attractive didn't matter,
young didn't matter and old. I mean, it's not gonna give matter. But it wasn't the core quality. That core quality was making it
a priority to have a good life. And doing so
in a way that was true to them. That they didn't tend to
be cultural followers, that they didn't just follow
the simple dictates of their culture. But they decided at some level
that they wanted to be happy but it took for our culture. One of the things that we
all do is have to do lists. And then we figure if we get those done,
we'll be happy. We can have 20 years of to do lists. We've gotten a lot of them done. It doesn't make us happier. I'm not saying there's nothing
wrong with to do lists, there's nothing wrong with rushing around,
getting a lot done. It's just that our intention is often,
when I get it done I'll be happier. So what the happier people
discovered through trial and error of intention, was some of
the things that I talked about before, about relationships, and
appreciation, and just a purpose. They generally tried to help others,
not just themselves. But the thing that is so hard to teach. Is it's almost impossible
to teach intention. Wake up in the morning and
really want this. Because our habits are so powerful. But the second piece is, now that you
want it, are you gonna do anything? And it's like when they do that at work,
so a person who tends to be more successful at happiness will say,
my coworker made a mess. I just didn't wanna upset myself about
it because I didn't wanna ruin my day. Another person might get really upset. Now, that doesn't mean you
shouldn't be assertive, it doesn't mean you
don't talk about things. But the happier people
tended to choose sometimes paths of least resistance to
not bother with certain things. Now you can't do that all day long, you have to be able to
choose that judiciously. But it is just so interesting how,
again, and I will wind this down and maybe take a couple minutes of questions,
how simple this is in its abstract? It's stuff from Sesame Street or certainly from Mr. Rogers, right? It's not from the Stanford X, but
the really interesting thing is that every Ivy League school now
has a class on happiness. And what was so interesting to me
was the one that was at Harvard that started all this,
was the most subscribed they'd ever had. It was like hundreds of people and
dozens of TA's because again, for each of us, we know that in a world
where everything changes, whatever we attain will
never fully satisfy. That it will slip away. And the really interesting data, and
this is a perfectly good place for me to end, people who want a lot of
money because they want a lot of money, the money doesn't satisfy them. It usually comes attachment
problems as a child. They didn't feel loved in some ways,
and so they're making up for that. The Buddhists refer to
that as the hungry ghost. The hunger in us that's never satisfied. But cuz what happens with those
people tends to be is they make the business deal that gives them money,
they feel the rush from that. But then they need the next rush where
they need the next whatever it is. The people who become
successful in business and make a good degree of money which
is a corollary of the success, tend to get more even
satisfaction out of the money. Because it's not as a consequence
of the hungry ghost. It's out of, and it doesn't have to
be just a desire to be a good person. It can be out of a desire to make
a product that will help people. Or out of using one's
talents to help the world. Some way that my idiosyncratic skills
are combinable in a way that is valuable. That even tends to have
people get more satisfaction out of their material rewards. Which to me is just fascinating data. So let me just encapsulate,
there is nothing easy about this, it's a process and everybody stumble and falls on their face all the time. It takes a desire to do so and
then an effort to practice and a willingness to be really
humble as you fail. That said, the qualities again that tend
to lead to a little more life satisfaction and the way psychologists are it's
never something simple like happiness, I don't know what it's called. Personal, no I can't even remember, perceived satisfaction or
something ridiculous. It's relationships, it's purpose and it's finding things to like,
finding the good. I thank you all,
I hope you learned something. [APPLAUSE]
