Happiness is not a destination. According to Dr. Laurie Santos – host of The Happiness Lab podcast, and professor of a popular class on happiness at Yale University – happiness is a journey that comes with many roadblocks. Whether you call it flourishing, contentment, or just plain joy, the key to finding it involves rolling up your sleeves and getting to work. With rates of anxiety and depression skyrocketing among young people, Dr. Santos sheds much-needed light on ways that we can adjust our own expectations about happiness, and offer constructive support to the people who need it most. She also clarifies the unexpected role that resilience plays along the path: the stronger we become, the more we’re capable of post-traumatic growth.

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00:00 The social scientist definition of what is happiness
01:21 Is our obsession with happiness making us unhappy?
01:45 Is “happiness” the right word?
02:32 Other words we might used instead of happiness
03:03 Happiness is not a destination
03:45 Are some people genetically pre-disposed for happiness?
06:12 What sets you up for happiness
07:50 Post traumatic growth
08:36 How Katie Couric’s breast cancer experience was “life affirming”
12:16 How doing nice thing for other people makes you happier
13:32 Has the healthcare industry been a detriment to our happiness?
14:28 How does being a type-a super driven person impact your happiness?
18:04 How can we change the mindset and incredible pressure on college students
20:18 Parents have a role in scaling back the pressure and expectations on their kids
21:03 Why Yale students are so obsessed with Laurie’s happiness class
22:28 Did the baby boomer style of parenting lead to the way kids behave today?
26:05 How technology is affecting young peoples’ happiness
27:29 Why can’t colleges contact parents to discuss students’ mental health
28:51 Laurie’s new online course that is free to teens called “The Science of Well Being” and what advice she has to offer teens
34:42 How can we monitor social media and the comparison culture it has created
37:21 How much are we missing by spending so much time on our phones
41:27 What have we learned about global happiness - what makes people happy in other parts of the world?
44:22 How the pandemic created post traumatic growth in many people, and caused many to reevaluate what they are doing with their lives
47:20 Laurie’s decision to take a sabbatical and what she’s doing with her time off
51:09 Some advice from Laurie Santos on things you can do to be happier
55:16 The importance of gratitude