The Invisible Psychology Of Happiness & Meaning - Lionel Page

I want to push back on the "kids today are objectively better off than their parents were". If that were true, there wouldn't be the wide-spread delay in home ownership and parenthood that we've seen in the under-40 crowd.

21:22 Current Harvard Law School 2L here. I am made to feel dumb and always anxious every day here. Everyone has ridiculous anxiety and delusional fears about not even being able to get a job. Its ridiculous, especially considering most of my friends back home never got a college degree and/or are working hourly wage jobs. At HLS I’m happy to have landed a job at a top 10 BigLaw firm but I’m seen as unambitious because I’m not shooting for a clerkship on SCOTUS or at least the 9th Circuit. My mentality is that my classmates can keep their anxiety - I know I’m in a great spot and am thankful to God every day for letting me get to this point.

Hello you savages. Get my free Reading List of 100 life-changing books here - https://chriswillx.com/books/ Here's the timestamps: 00:00 The Issue With How We View Happiness 05:35 We Always Compare Ourselves to Others 15:36 Why We Think We Are Worse Off Than Our Forebears 25:23 How Goal-Setting Impacts Happiness 38:22 The Difference Between Happiness & Relief 46:19 The Ideal Income for Happiness 52:52 The Role of Habituation in Happiness 1:03:55 Why Status is Less Subject to Habituation 1:07:28 Relationship Between Happiness & Meaning 1:20:32 Myths About the Meaning of Life 1:26:42 Where to Find Lionel

I hear Chris’s voice and immediately I’m interested and chilled at the same time

1000% agreed on people being predisposed to pleasure vs meaning! I've always felt something was off when I even remotely felt "comfortable" and didn't have "something" going on.

In his poem, "The Elephant in the Dark", Rumi uses the analogy of an elephant in a dark room to illustrate the limitations of individual perception: The story In the poem, several men enter a dark room to feel an elephant and try to guess what it is. Each man only feels one part of the elephant and bases his guess on that part. For example, one man feels the trunk and thinks it's a water spout, while another feels the ear and thinks it's a fan. The moral Rumi's poem illustrates that people often only sense a part of the truth and ignore the greater whole. He suggests that if the men had gone into the room together with candles, they could have seen the whole elephant. The message Rumi's poem emphasizes that the human intellect is limited and that people can never understand the whole of the truth. He also suggests that people should be open to changing their minds in light of new information. Rumi's poem is based on an old Indian fable, where the men are blind

Incredibly interesting and important — well done!!!

11:38 I just got called out. My mom's a senior partner. And I'm in art class rn, listening to this. I am thinking about law school tho. 😂😂😂

OMG it's Lionel!! A UQ colleague on Brit-hosted MW makes me feel like I've arrived home in all the ways! 😄

Great podcast. Love pondering the "why we do what we do." Never thought to consciously optimize behavior as someone who drives more from meaning than pleasure.