May 15, 2019

Ruth Whippman on the Complexity of Happiness

43 minutes

Ruth Whippman is a regular contributor to radio shows, television, and podcasts, having made appearances on shows including NPR’s Brian Lehrer Show, To the Point, CBS news and Morning Edition amongst many others. She is also a regular speaker and has given talks at Google, Princeton University and UC Berkeley as well as many other venues. Her book is, America the Anxious: How Our Pursuit of Happiness is Creating a Nation of Nervous Wrecks and it is this – along with the flaws of the self help that she and Eric talk about in this episode.

Need help with completing your goals in 2019? The One You Feed Transformation Program can help you accomplish your goals this year.

But wait – there’s more! The episode is not quite over!! We continue the conversation and you can access this exclusive content right in your podcast player feed. Head over to our Patreon page and pledge to donate just $10 a month. It’s that simple and we’ll give you good stuff as a thank you!

In This Interview, Ruth Whippman and I Discuss...

Her book, America the Anxious: How Our Pursuit of Happiness is Creating a Nation of Nervous Wrecks

How many people in the self-help industry are trying to sell easy answers and life is incredibly complex

Sitting with a certain amount of complexity in life

The flaws with studies

The one thing consistent across all research and people’s experience about happiness

The American tradition of self-reliance

The victim blaming myth that we’re completely responsible for how we feel

That circumstances absolutely play a role in our degree of happiness

What’s behind the positive psychology movement

How we need to think of well being as a shared responsibility

That it’s easy to lose compassion when you go too far down the road of “your happiness is completely within your control and completely your responsibility”

The flaws in The Law of Attraction theory

How to cope with the anxiety-producing stuff going on in the news

The importance of social support, community, and connection

The challenges of social media

Ruth Whippman Links:

ruthwhippman.com

twitter

facebook

instagram

The Great Courses Plus – learn more about virtually any topic – beyond the basics and even master a subject if you want to. Get a free trial with access to their entire library at www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/wolf

Netsuite by Oracle – the business software that handles every aspect of your business in an easy to use cloud platform. Get Netsuite’s free guide, 7 Key Strategies to Grow Your Profits, by going to www.netsuite.com/wolf

If you liked this episode, you might also enjoy these other episodes:

Jonathan Rauch

Paul Dolan

Michelle Gielan

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

...more

View all episodes

By Eric Zimmer

4.5

23622,362 ratings