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learning program out there at

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the best price Hello,

1:18

we're here for more happier a podcast

1:21

where we get more happier Today's

1:24

episode will focus on

1:26

sharing some practical advice

1:28

for recent graduates We're

1:31

in graduation season now and that got

1:33

me reflecting on my own various

1:36

graduations from high school from

1:38

college from law school and

1:40

also the high school graduations

1:42

and college graduation of

1:44

my daughters When

1:47

my younger daughter Eleanor graduated

1:49

from high school I was thrilled

1:51

and honored to be invited to

1:54

give the commencement address For

1:57

that occasion. I wanted to

1:59

explore transcendent timeless themes.

2:01

I wanted to tell a few good stories,

2:04

maybe get a few jokes in, and I wanted

2:07

to be brief. That

2:09

meant that there were many concrete,

2:12

useful suggestions that did not make

2:14

it into the actual commencement address

2:17

that I delivered. Nevertheless,

2:20

I couldn't resist

2:22

writing up everything that I wanted

2:24

to say, even if I

2:26

couldn't include it. So

2:28

while I actually delivered the

2:30

profound commencement address on that

2:32

graduation day, here I will

2:35

share the practical commencement

2:38

address that I never

2:40

did deliver. Coming

2:42

up, I will share my

2:44

list of my simple secrets

2:46

of adulthood. This

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so here are my simple secrets

5:08

of adulthood that I would have

5:10

given as the commencement address. Now,

5:12

of course, I would have given

5:15

initial introductory remarks. This

5:17

is I did in the regular commencement address,

5:19

but after those standard introductory remarks,

5:21

this is how I would have

5:23

continued. For

5:26

years, I've been collecting my

5:28

simple secrets of adulthood, the

5:30

lessons I've gleaned with time and

5:33

experience. This is

5:35

wisdom that I gained the hard way

5:37

through trial and error and

5:40

experience. I hope that perhaps

5:42

I can save you graduates from

5:44

making the mistakes that I've made.

5:47

Out of my hundreds of secrets

5:49

of adulthood, I wanted to suggest

5:52

some that seem particularly relevant to

5:54

your stage of life as

5:56

graduates when you're grappling with a

5:58

lot of change. and a

6:00

lot of decisions. I

6:02

offer these observations for

6:05

your consideration. First,

6:09

working is one

6:11

of the most dangerous forms

6:13

of procrastination. Because

6:16

when we're working, we may

6:18

kid ourselves that we're being productive,

6:21

when in fact we are just

6:23

postponing doing the work that we're

6:25

really supposed to be doing. Number

6:29

two, the place that

6:31

hurts isn't always

6:33

the place that's injured. I

6:37

learned this from back pain, that

6:39

the place that hurts isn't always the place

6:41

that's injured. But it's also

6:43

metaphorically true. Because sometimes

6:45

we notice that something's hurting, but

6:48

we haven't identified the problem. Sometimes

6:50

we're not honest with ourselves about

6:52

what's bothering us. And

6:54

so identifying the pain point is

6:57

sometimes just the first step in

7:00

figuring out what is actually the

7:02

problem. Number

7:05

three, if you can't find

7:07

something, clean up. This is

7:09

just surprisingly true. Anytime I can't

7:11

find something, instead of running around

7:13

my apartment, frantically looking for it,

7:15

if I take 10 minutes

7:18

and just start cleaning up, almost

7:20

always, whatever it is that I'm looking for,

7:22

turns up. Number

7:25

four, it's okay to

7:27

ask for help. Why

7:30

is this so hard? I do not

7:32

know. No one is surprised if you

7:34

ask for help. There's nothing wrong

7:36

with asking for help, and yet over

7:38

and over I have to remind myself,

7:41

it's okay to ask for help. Number

7:45

five, you

7:47

can choose what you do, but you can't choose what

7:50

you like to do. This

7:54

is important to remember as you're trying to

7:56

have fun as you're going through

7:58

life. where

8:00

you want to spend your time, energy, or

8:02

money. You can choose what

8:05

you do within reason, but

8:07

you can't choose what you like to do. And

8:10

what you like to do may be very different from what

8:12

the other people around you like to do, or

8:15

what you expect that you'd like to do, or

8:17

what you wish you'd like to do. It's

8:20

important to be honest with ourselves. Number

8:24

six, if you don't know

8:27

what to do with yourself, go outside or

8:29

go to sleep. If you're

8:31

restless, if you're bored, if you're lethargic,

8:33

if you're feeling down, almost always going

8:36

outside or going to sleep will help.

8:40

Number seven, be

8:42

polite and be fair.

8:45

When I was working at the Federal

8:48

Communications Commission not long after

8:50

I graduated from law school, I

8:52

had a terrific boss, a very

8:54

stern woman, a few words, and

8:57

I was getting a big promotion, and I was

8:59

worried about whether I would be able to do a

9:01

good job. And she told me, be

9:03

polite and be fair, and you'll

9:06

be fine. And she was

9:08

right, being polite and being fair can take

9:10

us far. Number

9:12

eight, what we do every

9:14

day matters more than what we do once

9:16

in a while. So it's

9:18

better to go for a

9:20

one-mile run every day than

9:24

a five-mile run once a month, or

9:26

it's better to eat pretty healthily most days

9:28

than to eat extremely healthily once in a

9:31

while. When it comes to habits, what we

9:33

do every day matters more than what we

9:35

do once in a while. Number

9:38

nine, now this is useful when

9:40

it comes to work. Try

9:43

never to ask for an extension on

9:45

an assignment. Now this was a

9:47

lesson that I learned the hard way in college and

9:49

in law school. It's still gonna

9:52

be due, things pile up. If

9:54

you're gonna do it, it's just better to

9:56

try to hit it, that first deadline rather

9:59

than extending. extending. I saw

10:01

people really get themselves into tough

10:03

situations. I try never to ask

10:05

for an extension. Number

10:08

10. Every day

10:10

ask what's something that I

10:12

can do to put my values into

10:14

the world. Now of course

10:17

this means you have to know your

10:19

values. Maybe your ideal is kindness. Maybe

10:21

your ideal is justice. Whatever your ideals

10:23

and your values are, try to find

10:26

ways to put those values into the

10:28

world, into practice. One of the

10:30

things that makes us happier is to feel right,

10:33

to feel that our life does reflect our

10:35

values, and so it's a good question to

10:37

ask ourselves every day, are we living up

10:39

to our values and how are we putting

10:41

them out into the community. Number

10:45

11. Happiness doesn't always

10:47

make you feel happy.

10:50

Now this is something that I can say because

10:53

I'm not a scientist. If you were a scientist

10:55

you would have to define happy and you couldn't

10:57

say something like happiness doesn't always make you feel

10:59

happy because that's a contradiction. That's a paradox. But

11:02

I can say it because what I mean by

11:04

that is sometimes we do things to put our

11:06

values into the world or sometimes we do things

11:09

that don't make us feel happy

11:11

in the moment but that overall

11:13

increase our happiness. So

11:15

happiness doesn't always make

11:18

us feel happy but

11:20

over the long run it makes

11:22

us feel happy. So it's a question

11:24

of thinking about the present and the

11:27

short term and what makes our life

11:29

happier overall. Number

11:31

12. Try by 25. Many

11:34

lifelong preferences are set by young adulthood

11:37

so try new things now as graduates.

11:39

If you're under the age of 25

11:41

it's a great time to try new cuisine,

11:44

to listen to new kinds of music. One

11:46

of the things that I learned when I was writing my book

11:48

Life in Five Senses is that our

11:51

tastes get set and later on it's harder

11:53

to develop a fondness for something and so

11:55

if you try it by 25 you're more

11:58

likely to enjoy it for your whole life. life. Number

12:02

13, don't treat a gift like

12:04

a burden. Another way to

12:06

think about it is, do you have to do it

12:08

or do you get to do it? Another

12:10

way to think about it is to ask, is it

12:13

a bug or a feature? Sometimes the

12:15

very things that we're complaining about are

12:17

the things that we love and wouldn't

12:19

trade away. I remember when

12:21

I was in college, I was an English major

12:24

and a friend was an art major and we

12:26

were complaining about all the work we had to

12:28

do as seniors and then my friend said to

12:30

me, just think, one day we'll

12:32

look back and we'll say, hey we were

12:34

complaining because I had to paint some pictures

12:37

and you had to read some novels and

12:40

I've never forgotten that. Don't treat

12:42

a gift like a burden. Number

12:45

14, one of the best ways to make yourself happy

12:48

is to make other people happy. One

12:51

of the best ways to make other people

12:53

happy is to be

12:55

happy yourself. This

12:57

took me a long time to understand.

12:59

I think it's much more widely understood

13:01

that one of the best ways to

13:03

make ourselves happy is to make other

13:05

people happy but it is

13:07

also true that one of the best ways to

13:09

make other people happy is to be happy ourselves.

13:12

Robert Louis Stevenson wrote, there is no

13:14

duty we so much underrate as the

13:16

duty of being happy. Happy

13:19

people help to make other people happier.

13:22

So by working towards our own happiness, we're

13:24

also contributing to the happiness of others. Research

13:27

shows that happier people volunteer more

13:29

time. They donate more money. They

13:31

have healthier habits. They make better

13:33

leaders, better team members, better friends,

13:35

better neighbors. They

13:38

have more emotional wherewithal to turn outwards

13:40

so they're more interested in the problems

13:42

of the world and the problems

13:44

of other people. So if it is selfish

13:46

to be happier, we should be selfish if

13:49

only for selfless reasons. Number

13:51

15, something that

13:54

can be done at any time

13:56

is often done at no

13:58

time. This is why I'm a big of

14:00

any catalyst for reflection, whether

14:02

that's a birthday, or

14:05

New Year's Day, or July 2nd

14:07

being halfway day, often we just

14:09

need something to remind us to

14:11

stop, think, and

14:14

ask ourselves what's something that can make

14:16

us happier. Because we might think,

14:18

oh, I would love to start a book group,

14:20

soon I'll start a book group, or oh yeah,

14:22

I need to start going to bed on time,

14:24

I'll do that at any time, or I'll make

14:26

a plan to visit my hometown, but

14:28

something that can be done at any time is

14:30

often done at no time. Coming

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up, I'll finish my list, the

14:36

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weather's getting warmer, so it's time to

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16. When packing an item

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just say I learned this through

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bitter experience. You will never regret

17:57

putting that tube of something into

17:59

a bag. waterproof bag. Number

18:03

17 mishaps

18:06

often make the best memories mishaps

18:09

are often super annoying

18:11

when they are happening but looking

18:13

back they are often the times

18:15

that stand out in our memories

18:17

most vividly and often that we

18:19

find ourselves laughing about so it

18:21

may be comforting to remember yeah

18:25

something has really gone wrong but later I

18:27

will enjoy looking back on it. Number

18:30

18 if you

18:32

accept the blame when you deserve it

18:35

people will give you responsibility this

18:38

is advice that I got from my father when

18:40

I was in college and I have found it

18:42

to be true so many times. Often

18:46

it's tempting to think well I should deflect

18:48

the blame or people will think less of

18:50

me if I admit that I did something

18:52

wrong or that I made a mistake but

18:54

in fact if we accept the blame when

18:57

we deserve it people understand that we recognize

18:59

that we did something wrong that we're willing

19:01

to address it and that's what makes them

19:03

want to give us responsibility. Number

19:06

19 the more you put in the more you

19:09

get out this is true of

19:14

just about everything the

19:16

more you put into reading a novel

19:18

the more you put into planning a

19:21

vacation the more you put into understanding

19:23

astronomy the more you put

19:25

in the more you get out. Number

19:28

20 get your driver's

19:31

license you will be very

19:33

happy later in life if you have your driver's

19:35

license it's a bit

19:37

of an undertaking to get a driver's license get

19:40

it when you're young you will be happy later

19:42

I say this is

19:44

someone who does not like to drive and

19:46

yet I am very happy that I have

19:48

my driver's license. Number 21 don't

19:51

do something to make yourself feel better

19:53

if it just ends up

19:55

making you feel worse sometimes

19:58

when we do something to give our a

20:00

bit of comfort or a bit of a

20:02

lift. It makes us feel better in the

20:04

moment, but then looking back on it, we

20:06

just wish we hadn't done it. So try

20:08

to look for healthy treats. Find ways to

20:11

get yourself a feeling of comfort and energy

20:13

with something that is not gonna make you

20:15

feel worse. Something like a crossword

20:17

puzzle is better than something like an extra

20:19

brownie. Number 22,

20:22

by doing a little bit each day, you

20:24

can get a lot accomplished. We

20:26

often overestimate what we can do in

20:28

a short amount of time, and we

20:30

underestimate what we can do over a

20:32

long period of time if we just

20:34

do a little bit each day. So

20:36

if there's some big project that you

20:39

need to tackle or some big undertaking

20:41

that feels overwhelming, just try to

20:43

do a little bit each day, but to

20:45

do it very consistently, and you will be

20:47

surprised over time how much you

20:49

can get accomplished. Number

20:52

23, somewhere keep

20:54

an empty shelf. Somewhere

20:58

keep a junk drawer. I

21:00

love my empty shelf because to

21:03

me, it represents possibility and openness

21:07

and the sense of having a broad margin

21:09

to my life, which I love,

21:11

but I also love a junk drawer. I like

21:14

opening up a drawer and just not knowing what's

21:16

there, not knowing what I'm gonna find, their serendipity,

21:18

it's a place to put everything that doesn't have

21:20

a place. I

21:22

love an empty shelf and I love a junk drawer.

21:26

Number 24, when

21:28

you can't decide between two courses

21:30

of action, choose

21:32

the bigger life. Sometimes

21:35

when we have to make a decision, the

21:37

pros and the cons seem equally balanced.

21:39

It feels like there's no way

21:41

to make a decision because they're

21:44

both equally balanced. But often

21:46

when I've stopped to say,

21:48

okay, I feel like

21:50

the pros and the cons list are the same

21:52

length, but which choice represents the

21:54

bigger life? Almost always,

21:57

it's very obvious which choice

21:59

represents. the bigger life. And

22:01

that is a great way to make a

22:03

decision. In my own life, I couldn't

22:05

decide whether or not our families should get a

22:08

dog. I felt like the pros and the cons

22:10

were perfectly balanced. And then I said to myself,

22:12

but for our family, what's the bigger life? And

22:14

I realized, of course, for our

22:16

family, the bigger life is to get a dog. And

22:19

we got a dog and we're so happy with our dog,

22:21

Barnaby. Number 25.

22:24

Sometimes to keep going, you have

22:26

to allow yourself to stop. We

22:29

need to take breaks. We need to

22:31

feed our energy. We need to be

22:34

reasonable with setting boundaries for ourselves. If

22:36

you're going to keep going, you have to

22:38

allow yourself to stop. And

22:40

then finally, number 26 is

22:43

hell is other people and

22:46

heaven is other people. Now,

22:49

some credit for that last simple secret

22:51

of adulthood goes to Jean-Paul Sartre and

22:53

he's right. Hell is other people. I

22:56

remember my mother once remarking without any

22:58

rank or just matter of factly, everything

23:01

would be so easy if it weren't

23:03

for people. And that is true. But

23:06

what Sartre didn't write and what's also

23:08

true is that heaven is other people.

23:11

As we go through life, what matters

23:13

most are our relationships with other people.

23:16

In fact, when people ask me, what's the secret

23:18

to happiness? If you had to pick one area

23:20

to work on, what would it be? If I

23:23

had to choose just one area, I'd

23:25

pick relationships. Ancient philosophers

23:28

and contemporary scientists agree to

23:30

be happy. We need enduring bonds.

23:32

We need to belong. We need

23:34

to get support. And just as important, we need

23:37

to be able to give support. We

23:39

have to cultivate relationships with the people

23:41

close to us. And we also have

23:43

to cultivate relationships to the people of

23:45

our larger community. And

23:47

that's why graduates, in your next

23:49

stages of life, when you're spending

23:51

your precious time, energy and money, anything

23:54

that broadens or deepens your relationships

23:57

is probably a good choice. bonus

24:00

here are a few additional simple

24:02

secrets of adulthood specifically

24:04

for relationships. Number

24:07

one, frequency of

24:09

contact is more important than

24:11

duration of contact. Number

24:14

two, one of the

24:16

best ways to make friends is to

24:19

make friends with the friends of your

24:21

friends. There's no easier way to say

24:23

that but if you're trying to make friends think of

24:25

the people who are friends with your friends and

24:28

become friends with those friends. Number

24:31

three, give warm hello's and goodbyes. Show

24:33

people that you're glad to see them.

24:35

Acknowledge the fact that they're walking away.

24:37

It makes us all feel like people

24:39

are paying attention to us. Number

24:43

four, to make friends join

24:45

or start a group. This is

24:47

a great way to forge relationships.

24:49

It's easier sometimes than making one-on-one

24:52

friendships. Also sometimes working with

24:54

people is easier than just socializing with

24:56

people and you can have a group

24:58

that's working towards an aim or you

25:00

can have a group that's just meeting

25:02

for fun. Number

25:04

five, when you can make the effort to say

25:06

this made me think of you. It could be

25:08

a photo, it could be an article, it could

25:10

be something funny you see on the street. People

25:12

like to know that you're in their thoughts. Number

25:16

six, remember what's fun

25:18

for other people may not be fun

25:21

for you and vice versa. Create

25:23

your relationships and socialize in the ways

25:25

that are right for you. Number

25:29

seven, cut people slack. Except

25:31

in the face of overwhelming

25:33

evidence of bad intentions, assume

25:35

the best. And

25:38

number eight, show up. In a

25:40

world full of screens there's nothing like

25:42

being there in person. So

25:46

that's the list I wrote for my

25:48

undelivered commencement address. For the conclusion I

25:50

would have given the same conclusion as

25:52

the profound version. I enjoyed

25:54

writing both the profound version and the

25:56

practical version. But what did I miss?

26:00

And since it's the actual commencement address that I gave

26:02

at my daughter's high school graduation, I'll

26:04

include a link in the show notes. I

26:07

hope this episode is making you feel more

26:09

happier. Congratulations to all of

26:11

this year's graduates and their families. Remember,

26:15

the best time to start a happiness project is

26:17

20 years ago. The second

26:19

best time is now. Thank

26:43

you.