Why your Epicurean approach will never make you truly happy | Arthur Brooks 38671c

09/05/2025

🌍 **Mother Nature doesn’t care if we’re happy.** Her only goal? Survival. She wired us to...

🌍 **Mother Nature doesn’t care if we’re happy.**
Her only goal? Survival. She wired us to seek food, safety, and reproduction — not happiness.


In fact, 😟 **negative emotions serve a purpose**. Fear, anger, and sadness are evolutionary tools to keep us alert and responsive to threats. Mother Nature *needs* us to be uncomfortable sometimes.


But here's the twist: **Happiness is our responsibility.**
It's a human — maybe even divine — pursuit.


🧘‍♂️ Enter Epicurus, the ancient Greek philosopher. Contrary to the common image of indulgence, his idea of happiness was simple:
👉 **Eliminate suffering**.


By reducing sources of pain — toxic relationships, stressful habits, unnecessary friction — we can create space for peace. It's not about chasing pleasure, but avoiding harm. And that idea has echoed through history.


Today, we’re living in what some call an **“epicurean age.”**
We overprotect kids from pain, shield students from uncomfortable ideas, and try to bubble-wrap life. But here's the problem...


⚠️ **Avoiding suffering doesn’t eliminate unhappiness.**
It just weakens us. We still experience negative emotions — without the growth that comes from hardship.


🌓 As Carl Jung put it:
> “We only know what good is because we’ve seen bad.”


By avoiding discomfort, we also rob ourselves of contrast — the very thing that gives joy its meaning.
So ironically, in shielding ourselves from pain,
we may be shutting the door on bliss.
-----------------------------------------------

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We control nothing, but we influence everything | Brian Klaas: Full Interview 24 días 01:36:25 America’s culture war thrives on anger. Here’s how to escape it. | The Dilemma Ep. 2 24 días 16:09 The overpopulation myth, debunked by a data scientist | Hannah Ritchie 24 días 07:23 This law of nature has been hidden from science – until now | Robert Hazen 24 días 07:36 How we can revive Planet Earth in less than 20 years | Sean B. Carroll 17 días 10:31 Ver más en APP Comentarios del episodio 321w5p