Earlier this month, I got the opportunity to observe a talk by Professor Arthur Brooks on happiness at the SEEK conference in Salt Lake City, Utah. His talk addresses the deep-rooted need for meaning in adults today while also providing a scientific foundation and clear steps forward.


Seeking Happiness: Pleasure, Satisfaction, & Meaning

Based on a talk by Prof. Arthur Brooks


Look around at the world and consider what people are seeking. Most young adults would answer that they are seeking a particular relationship or career.


But at the root of it all, people across all ages are seeking happiness.


“Happiness is a gateway drug to heaven.” - Arthur Brooks, Professor at Harvard University Business School.


What is happiness?


Is it a feeling? No, feelings are evidence of happiness.


Prof. Brooks defines happiness for his class at Harvard Business School as “enjoyment (of life), satisfaction (in accomplishments), and meaning (of existence).”


INGREDIENT ONE: Enjoyment


Enjoyment is NOT pleasure. Pleasure often leads to pain; if you make every choice in life in pursuit of the most pleasurable thing, it often turns into suffering. Pleasure is incomplete. No, enjoyment requires the sources of pleasure PLUS people and memory.


Enjoyment is a human experience that requires intentionality and election. Pleasure is an animal experience that eliminates choice for addiction.


Enjoyment = shared experiences that create memories.


IMPACT: Consider inviting people along with you to do something you might typically enjoy alone, like painting or reading.


INGREDIENT TWO: Satisfaction


Satisfaction is joy after struggle for achievement.


Example: Parents telling a child not to eat before dinner so that the child enjoys dinner more thoroughly.


“There’s a sweetness, a savoring, to suffering even in neuroscience” - Prof. Arthur Brooks


Here’s the issue with satisfaction: It is temporary.


Professor Brooks proposes a simple math problem: If satisfaction is what you have divided by what you want, there are two possible ways to increase satisfaction.


  • Either, you increase what you have
  • OR, you decrease what you want


Therefore, to increase satisfaction, practice reducing what you want. Simplify and detach. What are you giving away? What habit are you cutting out? What goal can you check off your list. Less is better.


INGREDIENT THREE: Meaning


So many people today do not know or care to look for the WHY of life.


There’s a good two part test for determining if you understand the meaning of your life. I’d encourage you to pause and think about these two questions now:


  1. Why are you alive?
  2. For what would you give your life?


Prof. Brooks uses the example of his son, a father and marine, who answered 1. I am alive to serve, to serve & 2. I would give my life for my fellow marines, my family, my faith, and for the United States of America.


If you don’t know the answer now, take the time to interrogate your own happiness.


What are you doing that brings you pleasure that you need to turn into enjoyment? What are the ways that you have been pursuing haves to the exclusion of your wants? How can you manage your wants better? What are your answers to the why questions? Make them specific and real, and SHARE them with others.


Cheers, to being happier.

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