0:01

Ted Audio Collective. You're

0:08

listening to How to Be a Better Human. I'm

0:11

your host, Chris Duffy. On today's episode,

0:13

we're going to be talking about ways to recognize and

0:15

change the voice inside your head. And

0:18

to let you in on the voice that lives inside my head, mine

0:20

is a guy who sometimes is very fun

0:22

and notices hilarious things that other people have

0:24

overlooked. And other times, my guy

0:27

gets extremely focused on a tiny

0:29

thing that is not going perfectly

0:31

and then spirals that into a

0:33

giant catastrophe that is completely overwhelming.

0:36

For example, a coworker didn't use an

0:38

exclamation point in a reply to my text. That probably means

0:40

that he's furious at me and that

0:43

definitely means that I'm about to get fired. I

0:45

can't find my wallet? Well, that probably means that

0:47

it's gotten stolen, my credit cards

0:49

are already maxed out, and my identity is

0:51

currently being sold for Bitcoin on the dark web.

0:54

You know, saying these things out loud, it's

0:56

obvious to me how ridiculous they are. But at the

0:58

same time, when I am in the moment and I'm

1:00

feeling those things and I'm thinking them, it

1:02

can be really hard to see that they are ridiculous or to

1:05

have any perspective at all. Today's

1:08

guest, Dan Harris, thinks a lot about ways to

1:10

get some perspective and how

1:12

to disrupt those thought cycles that can really torment

1:14

us. Dan is also one of

1:16

the funniest and most refreshingly skeptical people that I have

1:19

ever met. I am so excited for you to hear

1:21

from him today. Here's

1:23

a clip from his TED Talk. I should give

1:25

you a little background on me. I used to be an

1:27

anchorman. I worked at ABC News for 21 years.

1:31

It was a very stressful job. In fact,

1:34

I had a panic attack live on the air in 2004

1:38

while delivering some otherwise mundane headlines. The

1:41

good news is that my nationally televised

1:43

freakout ultimately led me to meditation, which

1:46

I had actually long rejected as

1:48

ridiculous. I was raised by

1:50

a pair of atheist scientists. I'm a

1:52

fidgety, skeptical guy, and that

1:55

kind of led me to unfairly lump

1:57

meditation in with... ...or

1:59

a reason. vision boards and dolphin healing.

2:03

But the practice really helped me with

2:05

my anxiety and depression and so my

2:07

goal became to make meditation attractive to

2:09

my fellow skeptics by ditching the new

2:12

age cliches and liberally using the F

2:14

word. We're

2:17

gonna hear more from Dan, including if you're lucky at

2:19

least one F word right after this week. How

2:29

to be a Better Human is brought to

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3:40

Camila Jamil here. You may know me from my

3:42

role in The Good Place or from She-Hulk or

3:44

from social media and my activism. I

3:46

Weigh basically started as a social movement

3:48

and my podcast is one of my

3:51

truly greatest achievements. It's a podcast against

3:53

shame and a place for us to

3:55

have really honest and truly inclusive conversations.

3:57

I love connecting with people. I love learning.

4:00

I have a lot to learn and I'm

4:02

inviting you along with me on I weigh

4:04

with Jamila Jamil I have friends activists specialists

4:06

and absolute heroes join me to teach me

4:08

from their experience and expertise People

4:10

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4:13

Roxanne Gay, Reese Witherspoon, Nicole

4:15

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4:17

more I weigh with

4:19

Jamila Jamil has new episodes out every Tuesday and

4:21

you can find the show on earwolf.com or wherever

4:23

you listen to your podcast Today

4:26

we're talking about meditation and mindfulness with

4:28

Dan Harris Hi, I'm Dan Harris

4:30

host of the 10% happier podcast

4:33

person who freaks out in public dad

4:36

husband plenty of other things one

4:39

of the things that I I find so compelling

4:41

about your book and your podcast and

4:44

your work in general is that you

4:46

really get people who are skeptical of

4:48

meditation and a lot of these ideas

4:50

like having compassion for yourself

4:52

or Feeling loving kindness towards

4:54

other people to take them seriously I

4:57

guess two parts of a question about that one

4:59

is why do you think that people are so

5:02

skeptical inherently of those kinds of ideas? I Think

5:05

there's a lot going on in terms of why

5:08

people are skeptical of Meditation

5:10

or in particular self

5:12

compassion or compassion for other people

5:15

one is that it's been presented

5:18

traditionally in ways that are kind

5:20

of perfectly designed to annoy skeptics

5:23

with a lot of over-promising

5:25

and some

5:27

cliched language So

5:30

that that's all problematic I

5:32

think another thing is that we

5:35

live in a very achievement oriented

5:37

individualistic capitalistic society and I'm not

5:39

saying those things are all bad, but they

5:41

can definitely have some downsides and a lot

5:44

of people worry that concepts

5:47

like mindfulness and compassion will erode

5:49

their capacity to achieve and Then

5:51

the final thing is I think and I don't

5:54

hate to kind of like virtue signal here, but here

5:56

I go I do think there's some

5:58

latent sexism at play play here. I

6:00

speak, I'm speaking to my own mind

6:03

really, like these ideas are coded as

6:06

feminine, stereotypically female,

6:09

and many of us

6:12

are raised to associate that with

6:14

like weakness. So

6:16

how do you get people to take

6:18

these ideas seriously and try them out in their own life?

6:21

The greatest evangelical tool

6:23

is the science. There's just

6:25

so much research to suggest

6:27

that this stuff

6:29

works. It's incredibly helpful. I was

6:32

just interviewing for my podcast a comedian

6:34

named Bill Hader, who I think a

6:36

lot of people will know from SNL

6:38

and the amazing HBO show Barry. And

6:40

he was joking about how, you know,

6:42

he's embraced all this stuff in his

6:44

own life, meditation, therapy, nature.

6:46

And he was like, man, the hippies

6:48

were right. The hippies were right. It

6:51

sucked. And so that's

6:53

all very helpful to have the science.

6:56

The second thing, I

6:58

find it very helpful to re-language

7:00

a lot of this. You know, there's a

7:02

reason why I came up, I called my

7:04

book and subsequent podcast 10% happier because it,

7:08

I take the ideas seriously, but I

7:10

don't take myself seriously. I'm not over

7:13

promising. I tell really embarrassing stories about

7:15

myself. And I think that

7:17

kind of, you know, aerates the whole

7:19

thing because it can, it can feel

7:21

a little stuffy and self serious. And

7:23

I try to be a

7:26

little bit lighter and funnier and really

7:29

emphasize what a fuck up I am. And

7:31

not in a, hopefully not in the spirit of

7:33

false modesty, but more in the sense of, I

7:36

heard this term, I didn't make it up, but

7:38

I like this term cathartic normalization.

7:41

That if I can, as somebody who's

7:43

got a public platform, talk about all of my

7:45

stuff in a way that is

7:48

open and honest and feels real, then

7:50

it gives everybody else permission to be a mess. And

7:53

also then a sense

7:55

that you can work on this stuff. This is one of

7:57

the ways that you for sure won me over is, you

7:59

know, I'm a comedian, I really resonate with

8:01

things when they're funny. I know you don't necessarily

8:03

identify as a comedian, but you have a great

8:05

sense of humor. There are hilarious jokes in your

8:08

book. There are really funny jokes in your TED

8:10

talk. And I think that

8:12

is not necessarily a thing

8:14

that I actually associated at all with

8:16

mindfulness or meditation is funny and laughing,

8:18

right? Like, I think about them as

8:20

like Zen and kind of like, everything

8:23

passes me by. But, you know, reading

8:25

your book and hear you talk, I was able to see them

8:27

in a different way of like, oh, blaster

8:30

isn't the opposite

8:32

of that. It can be part of it as well.

8:34

Absolutely. Because it's my job now, I'm like kind of

8:36

like the beat reporter for Buddhism. I get

8:39

I know all of these, a

8:41

huge percentage of the

8:43

living teachers today, because they come

8:45

through my show, and I write about them in my

8:48

books. And so I know a lot of these people

8:50

like I really know this, you know, I have did

8:52

meals with them, I do business with them, they sleep

8:54

over at the house, I really know these people. And

8:57

they're really funny. They

9:00

don't tend to emphasize the

9:02

humor in their public facing work, which

9:05

I'm not quite sure why that is.

9:07

I'm a little bit glad because it's

9:09

created a market opening for me. But

9:11

I do think that if you spend

9:15

any amount of time

9:17

taking a look at your mind,

9:21

you will have to laugh eventually, because

9:23

it's ridiculous. I mean, the teacher, the

9:25

meditation teacher that I work with, personally,

9:27

his name is Joseph Goldstein. He's, you

9:29

know, a great friend of

9:31

mine, and just a huge figure in my life. He

9:34

uses that word, it comes up a lot. And because

9:37

if you were looking at your mind, I

9:39

mean, it's it's chaos, and it's embarrassing, it's

9:41

humiliating. And, but after a while, you can

9:44

learn to laugh at it. And I find

9:46

that that spirit is shot through many

9:48

of the the teachers that

9:51

I know the greats don't take

9:53

themselves seriously, because how could you after

9:56

looking at your mind for an extended period of time?

9:58

There's also this thing that I've about

10:00

a lot with humor, how

10:03

you have to be really present to

10:05

notice the unusual, weird, ridiculous things in

10:07

the world. Like, a lot

10:09

of our day-to-day, we're

10:11

programmed both by society and just by, you

10:13

know, the sheer fact that so many pieces

10:16

of stimulus come at us. If

10:18

we've seen something a million times, we just

10:20

ignore it. And yet, when you start to really look

10:22

at things, that's when you can see the funny. And

10:24

I notice that comedians that I know, one of the

10:26

few things that they all have in common, even

10:29

if they have wildly different styles, is that they're...

10:31

any time they notice something funny or strange, they take a note

10:34

of it. That is actually

10:36

quite a similar practice to some forms of

10:38

Buddhist meditation, to just be noticing and paying

10:40

attention to the things that go through our

10:42

heads and through our perception. Gold

10:44

star, that's a great observation. Observation

10:47

is a huge part of comedy, and

10:49

you can't observe if you're asleep. So

10:53

for sure, there is an

10:55

overlap right there between comedy

10:58

and contemplation. There's contemplation

11:00

or meditation is all about waking up. We

11:03

live our lives in this kind

11:05

of automatic pilot. And not

11:08

much can get done when you're in that

11:10

mode, and sadly, we're in that mode a lot.

11:12

You know, it's bringing to mind a story about how... And

11:15

I wrote about this in my first book, where I

11:17

was on the beach with a friend of mine who's

11:19

a very successful comedy writer. This

11:21

was many years ago, but he's gone on

11:23

to be way more successful. And he spotted

11:26

me reading a book about Buddhism. And he

11:28

said, I don't think I could go down

11:30

that path because I need to stay judgmental,

11:33

because my comedy comes from being judgmental. But

11:35

I wish that the technology worked that well,

11:37

that you could start meditating and you're not

11:39

going to be judgmental or cranky or crazy

11:41

or whatever, all the stuff. What

11:44

happens is you just get to be

11:46

more familiar with the way the mind

11:48

works. And so I think it can

11:50

put your comedy on steroids, because you

11:52

can notice the judgment that's going to

11:54

come inevitably, and that instead of

11:57

being owned by it, you can make a joke

11:59

out of it. And that's really helpful. You

12:01

know, it actually actually think about this is

12:03

the subtitle of 10% happier, right?

12:05

How I came to the voice in my head, reduced

12:07

stress without losing my edge and found self-help that actually

12:10

works a true story. It's actually

12:12

very similar to ideas that

12:14

I sometimes hear people say when

12:16

they are considering sobriety, right? Like,

12:18

oh, well, if I got sober, I wouldn't

12:21

be as creative. Oh, I need to drink

12:23

to come up with the unusual ideas or

12:25

I just wouldn't be the same person. People

12:27

wouldn't like me as much. And

12:29

that, you never talk to a person who

12:31

has gotten sober who then says like, oh, that was

12:33

true. It's never the case. It's a

12:36

fear that happens beforehand. But then afterwards, like, oh, I'm

12:38

so much better at the work that I do. These

12:40

actions that we think are going to

12:43

like dull our edge, whether it's sobriety

12:45

or meditation, actually they don't get rid of those

12:47

things. In fact, they enhance our ability to do all these

12:49

things, to be creative, to be caring, to be kind to

12:51

all of them. What does meditation

12:53

do for you? What does the science show? It

12:56

improves the part of the brain associated with

12:59

attention regulation. In other words, it makes you

13:01

more focused. It makes you overall more calm.

13:03

It creates a kind of self-awareness that's

13:06

known as mindfulness, which is just the ability to

13:08

see what's happening in your head without being owned

13:11

by it. So you might see a

13:13

judgment. You might see a desire to commit a

13:15

homicide or whatever it is, but you don't have

13:17

to act on it. That

13:20

mindfulness, that ability to respond

13:22

wisely instead of reacting blindly

13:24

to all of your internal

13:26

and external stimuli, it's an

13:28

incredibly valuable skill. Taken

13:30

together, increased focus, less

13:33

emotional reactivity, higher degree

13:36

of calm in the face of

13:38

whatever's happening, those will

13:40

make you much sharper. They

13:43

will enhance your edge rather than eroding it.

13:47

So I think this fear is based

13:49

in a misunderstanding of what happiness is. I

13:52

think that somehow you can see the

13:54

misunderstandings about happiness baked right into the

13:56

etymological roots of the word. AP

14:00

is the same root of the

14:02

word hapless or haphazard, so it denotes

14:04

luck. But actually,

14:07

happiness is a

14:09

skill that you can practice through

14:11

meditation and other forms of

14:14

mental exercise. I

14:16

would put therapy in that reading, beholding,

14:18

or making art. There are lots of

14:21

practices you can do that will boost

14:23

your happiness. But

14:25

further, just to say that happiness is not to

14:28

be conflated with excitement or

14:31

complacency. Happiness I

14:33

think of as a kind of a balance or

14:35

equanimity in the face of whatever happens

14:37

in your life. And so that's

14:39

not the same as winning

14:41

the lottery or

14:44

not giving a shit about anything. No,

14:46

I think happiness is really is inherently

14:49

engaged. Yeah, and sometimes I've

14:52

heard the idea that like happiness is actually a

14:54

byproduct of trying to find meaning or connection. Like

14:56

if you aim for happiness, you fall short. But if you

14:58

aim for these other things, you find that you're happier along

15:01

the way. That's probably true. I don't know if I got

15:03

into meditation or all the other things that I do to

15:05

maintain my equilibrium specifically to be

15:08

happier. It's more like I got

15:10

into it to specifically

15:12

to be less miserable. I think that's

15:14

really the doorway that people go through

15:17

with suffering. I'm anxious and it feels

15:19

like shit or I'm depressed or my

15:21

relationships are all going haywire. And

15:24

so if you work on that, yes, I

15:26

think happiness can be the

15:28

byproduct. But it also can just

15:30

be the byproduct of being less

15:32

miserable. Maybe that in and

15:35

of itself equals happiness. I wrestled

15:37

with whether to use it in the title of the book

15:39

because it is such a squishy term. But

15:41

it is also something that everybody recognizes and

15:43

knows they want if they can't define

15:45

it. So I'm choosing

15:47

to lean into the ambiguity. It

15:49

also makes me think about how you

15:52

talked about how happiness is a skill that can be

15:54

built. But I've also heard you say that

15:56

love is a skill that can be built that you can practice

15:58

and learn. We may think we... want

16:00

things out of life, achievement,

16:03

a kid, a relationship, whatever.

16:07

But what we actually want are

16:09

the mind states associated with

16:11

those real world developments. All

16:15

of those mind states, calm, connection,

16:17

happiness, compassion, generosity,

16:19

ease, those are

16:23

not factory settings that are unalterable.

16:25

They are skills that can be

16:27

developed through meditation, through therapy, through

16:30

many other modalities that we can talk

16:32

about. That's really, really good news. That's

16:35

when I sometimes joke about being an evangelical. I

16:37

mean, I covered evangelicals as a

16:39

news reporter for a long time and they

16:41

often talk about the gospel and what the

16:43

gospel translates into good news. And

16:45

so my good news is you're not

16:48

stuck with all of the aspects

16:50

of your personality and your

16:52

mind states that you can actually

16:54

take responsibility for them and it

16:57

can have really meaningful benefits. There

17:00

are no miracle cures,

17:02

but there are definitely workable tools.

17:08

We're going to take a quick break right now, but we

17:10

will be back with a look at those tools that Dan

17:12

just mentioned and some tips on how to use them. Don't

17:15

go anywhere. The

17:25

show is sponsored by BetterHelp. The

17:28

older I get, the more time becomes precious

17:30

and more meaningful to me. And

17:32

I ask myself, if time was unlimited, how

17:34

would I use it? The best way to

17:36

squeeze that special thing into your schedule, whether

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to make it a priority. Therapy

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and that has been so meaningful to me

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off your first month. That's betterhelp.com slash

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human. And

18:36

we are back. So Dan, for

18:38

someone who is listening and they're new to

18:40

meditation or mindfulness, so maybe they've heard a

18:42

little bit about it before but they've never

18:44

actually tried to implement it in their own

18:46

life, what are some of the tools

18:48

that you would recommend they start using this week? If you're

18:51

not doing any of these, I would just pick one at

18:53

a time. Don't try to rush out and fix everything.

18:56

Human behavior change is a slow process and just

18:59

pick one of these and work on them

19:01

systematically. But number one is sleep. I sometimes

19:04

refer to this as the apex predator of healthy

19:06

habits and just nothing works if you're not getting

19:08

enough sleep. And most of us need

19:10

seven to eight hours of sleep. It

19:12

is very rare that somebody can truly function

19:14

on less than that even though you can

19:17

go on fumes for a long time, it's

19:19

you're just degrading your health in the process. So

19:21

seven to eight hours a night. The second is

19:24

movement. Depending on what your

19:26

body is able to do, there's just a ton

19:28

of research to show that this is really

19:30

important and has lots and lots

19:32

of benefits. The third is

19:35

healthy eating but with a big asterisk which

19:37

is don't get too crazy

19:40

or fixated on this. I think

19:42

we want to eat healthy but

19:44

without you know getting into body

19:46

dysmorphism or eating

19:48

disorders. The fourth is

19:50

meditation. There's a lot of data

19:53

to show that it can boost your immune

19:55

system, improve your cardiovascular health, it's really helpful

19:57

for anxiety and depression and it's

19:59

been shown to rewire key parts of the

20:01

brain, including the areas associated with

20:03

stress and self-awareness and compassion. So

20:06

it's quite compelling, the data. The fifth

20:08

would be access to nature and

20:11

any sort of art or

20:14

beauty, so nature and aesthetics

20:16

generally. And then the final is

20:18

the, and this for me is the most

20:21

important and most overlooked one which is the

20:23

quality of your relationships. We are, as

20:26

everybody in every TED Talk ever has

20:28

said, we are social animals.

20:31

We evolved for collaboration,

20:33

cooperation, connection. We're

20:36

not the strongest animal. We just have this ability to

20:38

work together. And if you

20:40

overlook that, which is very easy to do

20:43

in a society where everything militates

20:45

against connection, where we're in an

20:47

individualistic, capitalistic society, tech pushes us

20:50

further and

20:52

further into our own little bubbles

20:54

of entertainment and information. We

20:56

have social media, which the

20:59

social should be in quotes. My

21:01

friend Maria Popova has said, it's

21:04

selfing masquerading as connection. And

21:07

so everything about modern society or so much

21:09

about modern society pushes us away from

21:12

our relationships. But again, the

21:14

data are quite clear. This is probably the

21:16

most important variable when it comes to human

21:18

happiness. One evidentiary point here, great

21:20

study done out of Harvard for the last

21:23

80 or so years, which

21:25

has tracked people over several generations

21:27

to see what leads to a long and healthy

21:30

life. And what

21:32

comes screaming out of the data set there is

21:34

that the people who live the longest and healthiest

21:37

lives had high quality

21:39

relationships of all sorts,

21:41

friendships, marriages, family relationships.

21:44

What's the mechanism there? Stress is generally

21:46

what kills us. And stress

21:48

is mitigated by being able to process it

21:50

with somebody else. And if I were

21:52

to give you one piece of advice to walk out of this

21:54

with, it would be that. And then all

21:56

the other little hacks, all the

21:58

other little practices like exercise and sleep

22:00

and meditation and getting access to nature.

22:02

I would just pick one at a

22:05

time, start real small, and see

22:07

if you can integrate it into your

22:09

life. How does that play out for you? Who

22:11

do you worry with? Oh, well, my first line

22:13

of defense is my wife. I sometimes joke

22:16

that I don't know what I think until Bianca tells

22:18

me what I think. So,

22:20

yeah, she's the first person I talk to. But

22:23

I have been very deliberate. After

22:25

many years of screwing this up, where I

22:27

was so focused on my work and

22:30

wasn't really focused on maintaining

22:32

my relationships, I have

22:34

been very deliberate to develop a

22:36

large net of friends. Some

22:39

of them through work, some of them just

22:41

pure friendships. And so

22:44

I have people I will call, including

22:46

meditation teacher Joseph Goldstein, who I'm really

22:48

close with, my brother, lots

22:51

and lots of social friends, depending on

22:53

what the problem is. I

22:55

guess that's a word I know we're too married,

22:57

people talking to each other, and not everybody listening

22:59

will be married, but a lot of you guys

23:02

are married or in a committed relationship. There's

23:04

a lot of research to suggest that a healthy

23:07

marriage is supported by having many other

23:09

relationships surrounding it, because you can't count

23:11

on one person for everything. And so

23:14

for me, the quality

23:16

of my life has gone up as

23:18

I've paid more attention to what is

23:20

sometimes called social fitness. That's

23:22

a Dr. Robert Waldinger term that I've been very

23:24

influenced by his work. And social

23:27

fitness just means just getting good

23:29

at maintaining your social

23:32

connections. And it's just a huge part

23:34

of my life now. I have often

23:36

found that the most effective and powerful

23:38

things in my own life are also

23:41

kind of embarrassing. I'm like, it's

23:44

so embarrassing that self-help works. Oh

23:46

my God, it's so embarrassing to

23:48

call up my friend and be like, I just wanted

23:50

to talk to you because I'm feeling sad. Like,

23:52

oh, it's so embarrassing that that works. It's so embarrassing that

23:55

like having a check-in with my wife

23:57

where we talk about like what's going well and what doesn't.

23:59

These things that I'm... I'm like, oh, it's so

24:01

humiliating on paper. And then in practice is

24:03

like incredibly helpful for my life and my

24:05

relationships. How do you reconcile those things like

24:07

that? The things that work a lot often

24:10

tend to be like so profoundly

24:12

uncool. Just draw on the training

24:14

you already have, Chris, which is laugh at it.

24:17

It's hilarious. You know, it's

24:19

absolutely hilarious, but it's

24:21

non-negotiable. The shit works. So what's

24:23

your option? Suffer or

24:27

swallow hard and deal with the fact that it

24:29

actually, the data suggests that if you're stressed, if

24:32

you put your hand on your heart and talk

24:34

to yourself in a nice way, you will feel

24:36

better. So for me, I just, you know, I

24:38

fight it and fight it and fight it until

24:40

I realize I'm being a moron and then I

24:43

just cave. And then I turn around and

24:45

write a book about it and, you know, pay

24:47

my mortgage. Hey,

24:49

listen, that's a great, if that's the solution, that's a good

24:51

one. Something that I wonder is

24:53

like, as a person who is

24:55

a real like face of meditation these

24:57

days, and also, you know, you have

25:00

the podcast, you have a meditation app, how

25:02

do you think about the fact that

25:04

as meditation has become more mainstream? There

25:07

are almost to the point of like

25:09

parody, a company will be like,

25:11

Hey, we're doing all these things that are really

25:13

fucked up for our employees and we're making your

25:15

life miserable, but good news. Everyone gets

25:18

a free subscription to the meditation app. How

25:20

do you reconcile or how do you

25:22

think about this tool that is really

25:25

helpful, but is also sometimes used

25:27

in this like corporate capitalistic way

25:29

to, to mask bad behavior

25:31

or to not fix structural issues?

25:35

Well, I don't like that. Well,

25:37

I'll tell you what the one thing I do like is

25:40

that I do think that

25:42

more mindfulness is better than less

25:44

mindfulness. And there are folks who

25:46

are deeply, and I think actually

25:49

correctly critical of what has, what

25:51

they call, Mick mindfulness, the, the

25:54

rampant commercialization and popularization of these

25:56

ancient techniques because there are many

25:58

forms of meditation. And I

26:00

think that some of those criticisms are correct. And

26:05

I'd rather have there be more meditation

26:08

and more mindfulness available than less, even

26:11

if I don't fully agree with the way it's

26:13

being promulgated, if that's

26:15

even the right word, even if I don't

26:17

agree with the way people are doing it.

26:19

I'd rather have folks

26:21

being exposed to this stuff. You

26:24

know, another concern people have is that

26:26

we have these burning structural issues in

26:28

the society, just to name a few,

26:31

war, bigotry, inequality, the

26:33

climate, AI, loose

26:35

nukes, lots of big problems. And

26:37

so some people were worried that

26:40

we're promoting meditation as

26:42

a way to self soothe

26:45

and anesthetize and

26:48

reduce the stress that is

26:50

being caused by these structural issues,

26:53

but not to actually deal with the

26:55

structural issues. And I actually just don't

26:57

think that's the way meditation works. I

26:59

think properly understood meditation, especially in the

27:02

Buddhist tradition, which is what I come

27:04

out of, really is about waking

27:06

you up. And it starts

27:08

with dealing with your own suffering

27:10

and pain and stress

27:13

and hang ups and ancient neurotic

27:15

storylines. It starts there because it's hard to

27:17

be effective if you don't deal with that.

27:20

I've been thinking about making t-shirts, you know, like

27:23

the six figures, you know, it starts with like

27:25

a chimp and it turns into like a homo

27:27

sapien or whatever. But the first figure in mind

27:29

would have its head up its ass and it

27:31

would slowly be taking its head up and out

27:34

of its ass and then looking around and being

27:36

helpful. And like, I think that is what the

27:38

point of this practice is. It is to get

27:40

your shit together so that

27:43

you are helpful. You know, you start

27:45

by just dealing with your stuff and

27:47

then you increase the amount of bandwidth you

27:49

have to be helpful to other people. Then

27:51

you very quickly see that being helpful makes

27:54

you happy. And then you have more bandwidth

27:56

and you can help more people. It's

27:58

not going to be like a. everything. It's like

28:00

it not like an unbroken hockey stick trend where

28:03

you're on this virtuous spiral which I call the

28:05

cheesy upward spiral. You're not on that in an

28:07

unbroken way. I retain the capacity to be a

28:09

schmuck. I mean I make all

28:11

sorts of mistakes but if

28:14

I can make that my default

28:16

pattern rather than a rarely

28:19

accessed one then I'm in

28:21

good shape. So I think if

28:23

meditation is being taught correctly it will put

28:25

you on a glide path toward more of

28:27

that and less of being stuck in your

28:29

own stuff. I love that.

28:31

You know sometimes when you start this work

28:34

it's actually there's a

28:36

dip at first right? Like it's not

28:39

and I actually think that's why pulling your

28:41

head out of your own ass is a

28:43

great example because when your head's fully in

28:45

it's not nearly as bad as when your

28:47

head is out but right next to your

28:49

ass and you're seeing it all. Yeah that's

28:51

probably worse. That's the worst of the phases.

28:53

So when you first start you're

28:55

like I'm clueless. I don't even know how bad

28:57

things are and then when you start seeing all

28:59

the ways you're self-sabotaging you're like oh no I

29:02

really am full of it. I'm a horrible person

29:04

and it takes a couple more steps before

29:06

you start to actually see the benefits of pulling

29:08

your head out. This is a common report. People

29:10

say when they start meditating it's like wait a

29:12

minute I'm more anxious but actually that that means

29:14

you're doing it right. The whole goal here is

29:17

not to like become super zen.

29:20

I hate when people use that word actually because

29:23

zen Buddhism is actually not at all what

29:25

we think of as zen. It's pretty like

29:28

hardcore. So but you said the goal is

29:30

not to become blissed out but I don't

29:32

even think that's doable without you know like

29:34

an ivy drip of Klonopin. Like it doesn't

29:36

work like that. So what the goal is

29:39

is to get familiar with the chaos and

29:41

cacophony of your own mind so that it

29:43

doesn't own you as much. But definitionally

29:46

that requires seeing the chaos

29:48

and cacophony and that

29:50

is going to be uncomfortable. It's like

29:53

it's humiliating but what's the

29:55

alternative? The alternative is

29:58

all that shit's happening anyway. and you're

30:00

just owned by it a thousand percent of the

30:02

time. So what do you want? You wanna sort

30:04

of wake up to this stuff, take the red

30:06

pill in the positive sense of that term and

30:09

start to get out of the matrix to see what

30:12

your life is actually about, which is mostly

30:14

random thoughts and inappropriate impulses

30:17

and all that. To

30:20

see your ancient storylines, all of that

30:22

stuff. Do you wanna see your anxiety,

30:25

your depression, whatever, rather than

30:27

have it own you and rule you

30:29

like a malevolent puppeteer? I

30:32

think it's pretty obvious what the right answer is

30:34

and it's not gonna be all

30:36

barfing unicorns. You know,

30:39

we were recording this at a time when things

30:41

are really bad in the world. But when

30:43

it comes out, you know what? Pretty good guess that things

30:45

will still be bad in many parts of the world. And

30:49

I think that one solution

30:51

that I've found for social media that I think

30:53

actually applies more broadly and it certainly applies to

30:56

news as well is to

30:58

try and make

31:00

myself aware of the ratio between how much

31:02

I take in and how much I put

31:05

out. So like if I'm going

31:07

to read news about a

31:09

tragedy in the world, don't spend

31:11

10 hours reading and

31:13

one second acting to try and make

31:15

it so that I'm doing more and

31:18

absorbing less because that is the way to not

31:20

feel hopeless, right? It's to like do something about

31:22

it, whether it's a small thing or a large

31:24

thing and not just to constantly feed

31:26

it in. And I feel the same way about social

31:28

media is like, if I'm on it

31:30

and I'm just absorbing, absorbing, absorbing, it feels really

31:32

bad. And if I put something out there, it

31:34

feels slightly less bad. So I'm not trying to

31:36

make a direct parallel between these two, but I

31:38

think there's a broader principle. I think you're on

31:40

something and specifically as it pertains to the consumption

31:44

of news, it's very

31:46

easy, especially when things are really hot

31:49

to get into despair and rage.

31:52

And that's totally natural. I

31:54

go there too. But the antidote,

31:56

as you just said, Chris,

31:59

is action. It

32:01

doesn't even have to be action on

32:04

the problem itself. There's not much I can do

32:06

right now. I mean, I used to, when there

32:08

was a war, I would go and cover it.

32:11

In fact, that felt like a positive thing

32:13

to do. I was informing people about

32:15

it, but I don't have that option anymore because I quit

32:18

my job. I

32:21

can't do much about a war in the

32:23

Middle East or a war in Europe.

32:26

I can't do much about it,

32:28

but I can do things in

32:30

my sphere of influence, whatever it happens to

32:32

be. I'm lucky that I have a reasonably big

32:34

sphere of influence so I can create

32:36

helpful content. But if I'm just a

32:39

regular person and without a podcast or

32:41

books to write, I can volunteer locally on

32:44

something that has nothing to do with the

32:46

acute problem that everybody's obsessed with in the

32:48

news. I can hold the

32:50

door open for strangers. I can give money

32:52

away on the street. I can call a

32:54

friend who's struggling. There are limitless

32:57

ways to be useful. All

33:00

of them will help

33:02

you feel less swamped, will give

33:04

you a sense of agency, will

33:06

remind you of your—and

33:09

I hear I'm going to be a little highfalutin

33:12

here—but they will remind you of your

33:14

innate nobility. I

33:16

highly recommend that people try

33:19

to operationalize the ratio that

33:21

you, Chris, talked about, which is if you're going

33:23

to take in a bunch, try

33:25

to counteract that with something

33:27

proactive. As a host of a show called

33:30

How to Be a Better Human, of course, so many

33:32

friends give me so much shit about being like, oh,

33:34

look at the little better human. Are you a better

33:36

human right now? Especially whenever I'm doing something that's clearly

33:38

not a good human. So I wonder, do you get

33:40

that a lot when you are in a terrible mood

33:42

and people are like, oh, 10% happier. Can't be 10%

33:44

happier right now, Dan? Yes.

33:47

My agent, Jay Surris, is a

33:49

great agent at UTA. He's kind of

33:51

a legendary agent. But every time he

33:54

and I are talking and I'm complaining

33:56

about something or we're talking about money,

33:58

he's like, oh, oh. Mr.

34:00

Meditation, look at you.

34:02

So absolutely. And so

34:05

many of the great meditation teachers I know have bad

34:08

hair days and get divorced

34:10

or have, you know, business conflict.

34:12

It doesn't, you can learn how to be a better

34:14

human, but I don't think you're going to learn

34:17

how to be a perfect human. And

34:19

I'm learning how to be 10% happier.

34:22

And I do believe that the 10% compounds

34:25

annually, so you can be way

34:27

more than 10% happier, but it's

34:29

not 100% happy. In Buddhism, they

34:31

talk a lot about enlightenment. And maybe

34:33

that's true, but I haven't met somebody who's

34:36

perfect. Well, Dan Harris, thank

34:38

you so much for being on the show. It has

34:40

really been an absolute pleasure talking to you. Likewise. You

34:42

asked great questions. Thank you. Thank

34:44

you so much. That

34:49

is it for today's episode of How to be a

34:52

Better Human. Thank you so much to today's guest, Dan

34:54

Harris. His book and his podcast are both called 10%

34:57

Happier and they're both excellent. I

34:59

am your host, Chris Duffy, and you can

35:01

find more from me, including my weekly newsletter

35:03

and other projects at chrisduffycomedy.com. How to be

35:05

a Better Human is brought to you on

35:07

the Ted side by Daniela Balarrizzo, Van Van

35:10

Chang, Chloe Shasha Brooks, and Joseph De Bruyne,

35:12

who I can say with certainty, all have

35:14

their heads nowhere near their own houses. This

35:16

episode was fact checked by Julia Dickerson and

35:18

Mateus Salas, who appreciate a skeptic and

35:20

they achieve enlightenment through rigorous peer

35:23

reviewed research. On the PRX side,

35:25

our show is put together by a team who

35:27

adds far more than 10% extra happiness to my

35:29

life, Morgan Flannery, Norah Gill, Patrick Grant, and Jocelyn

35:31

Gonzalez. And of course, thanks to you for listening

35:34

to our show and making this all possible. If

35:36

you are listening on Apple, please leave us a

35:38

five-star rating and review. If you're listening on the

35:40

Spotify app, please answer the discussion question that we've

35:42

put up on mobile. We would love to hear

35:45

your thoughts. We will be back next week with

35:47

even more How to be a Better Human. Thanks

35:49

again for listening and take care. BRX