The Invisible Psychology Of Happiness & Meaning - Lionel Page

1. 0:00 – 5:35

   The Issue With How We View Happiness

   1. CWChris Williamson0:00

      Dude, I am in love with your Substack. I subscribe to a lot of different Substacks and yours is maybe my favorite one from this entire year.

   2. LPLionel Page0:08

      Oh, wow.

   3. CWChris Williamson0:09

      I think you're, you're absolutely-

   4. LPLionel Page0:11

      Thank you.

   5. CWChris Williamson0:11

      ... destroying it, dude. It's so great, it's evolutionary lens on things, big picture questions everybody's already asking. I think it's awesome. So when it comes to, I guess, what, what are the problems about how happiness is typically thought about or studied? What, what is missing from that?

   6. LPLionel Page0:31

      Look, excellent question. So, um, in one of my post, I have this, um, cheeky, uh, picture of, you know, the elephant and, and the blinds. It's a, I think it's comes from India, the story. Uh, and the story, I'm sure lots of your listeners have heard about it, but you've got a bunch of blind people and they, they are, they are put in front of an elephant and they are asked, okay, what, what an elephant looks like. And so, you know, one touch the trunk of the elephant and says, "Well, an elephant is kind of, you know, looks like a tube and it's wet at the end." Another one touch the, the tail says, "Well, you know, it's look as a string and it's very fluffy at the end." And another one touch the tusks and say, "Well, it's very hard, you know, it's very... and it's very smooth." Um, and so when you read the literature sometimes in behavioral sciences and social sciences and when they don't have an evolutionary perspective, you get the same kind of stuff. You, when, you know, I talk about the books on self-help, books on, on psychology, on, of happiness. And you will see, you get a book and this book will tell you to be happy, you need social connections. You know, the, the, the secret of happiness is to have friends, to have family. It's okay, oh, very interesting. You take another book and this other book will tell you the secret of happiness is to, uh, control your desires. You know, to learn not to want what you don't have. Um, that's stoicism, that's Buddhism. And another book will tell you the secret of happiness is to reach for the stars, you know, to have very high goals and to work very hard to reach it. And then you, you look at these different things like, okay, but what's, you know, what's the link between these different things? I mean, are we talking about the same things, are we're talking about happiness and there is one explanation? What's the deep connection between these different stories? And these books are like the blinds, uh, uh, you know, giving you a perspective of the elephant. And the elephant about happiness is that you have to consider that happiness is a system of valuation, design, uh, and I, I use the word design, you know, not designed by a designer, but evolution is an impersonal process which looks like it's designing stuff. Designed by evolution to help you make decisions. And so when you take this perspective, all these different kind of secrets of happiness makes sense, but in a big picture. Uh, so you, you're asking, you know, what kind of stuff it explains. Like, for instance, as I say, we are social species, so we will need connections. That's one fact. Uh, but on the other hand, um, sometimes you, you get all the books about happiness tells you, well, you need to know when to say no to other people. You know, you need to say, people make claims about to, um, to your ˣ can you help me? Please can you do this? Et cetera. At some point you need to be able to say no. Well, every system we have of, um, subjective feelings helping you to navigate the world has to handle that you are facing trade-offs. So if you're always saying no to people, you know, maybe you won't have too many friends and that's not good for your success. But if you're always saying yes, you know, maybe you'll be a pushover. People will take advantage of you. So a, a right system leads you to balance these things. If you take another, uh, uh, things like, uh, the goal you have in life. Uh, if you, if you have very low goals, like, you know, everything is fine, whatever you achieve, you, you're very happy with, you will be very successful. And so a system of happiness which is designed to make you successful has to push you, to nudge you, to try as hard as you can. So whenever you're going to be successful, you know, the, you, you are going to look forward to the next challenge. So now you may think, oh, what will make me very happy in the future is this big milestone. If I reach this milestone, that's it, you know, I won't need very much to do much better than that. And what happens is that, let's say you work very hard and you reach the milestone and, and then so you say, "Okay, that was good." Uh, but what next? You know, like, you're going to start looking further ahead, like, what's the next milestones? Like, if you think that being millionaire is what's ma- will make you happy, well, the sad story is that when you reach the million, the first million, two million, whatever, you'll feel good, but you'll start thinking about the next thing. So, so your system habits will keep pushing. And so when you have these books that tell you, you know, uh, either you need to have... you don't need to care about, um, uh, what you don't have or in the country, you need to aim very high, they kind of... they just look at one side of this balance. The book tells you don't care about what you don't have, it says yes, you shouldn't look too high. It does... it's not worth it for me to think in the morning, oh, I'm not as rich as Elon Musk. So this is very disappointing. There's no point for me to think that. So that's not going to help me being successful to have a goal which is so high that I'm, I'm nev- you know, there's no point, whatever I do in the day is not going to change it. So I shouldn't care about things which are unachievable. But at the same point, at the same time, you know, if I wake up in the morning and says, you know, "I'm great, I'm healthy, everything is fine." You know, "Why do I stress?" Et cetera. Well, I'm not maybe going to do the right things which is going to help me move forward. So our system of happiness is going to be this kind of stuff which kind of try to find the right level to push us to do our best. It's neither too high, neither too low.

   7. CWChris Williamson5:34

      Yeah,

2. 5:35 – 15:36

   We Always Compare Ourselves to Others

   1. CWChris Williamson5:35

      there's that idea of a homeless man isn't jealous of a billionaire, but he is jealous of a slightly richer homeless man.

   2. LPLionel Page5:41

      Exactly. You know, that's, that's something very important because we think that, um, we always compare, right? Uh, one aspect of happiness is that we, we may think that happiness is just objective and that we are this kind of, uh, we have this view about what we re- what we would really want and if we get it, we'd be happy, but in truth-... we always compare to other people. One reason we compare is that we learn from other people. Let's say, you know, you, you, if you ask yourself, "Am I successful in life?" Well, you can look at people like you, people maybe who were in your high school when you were young, your, your, your mates, etcetera. And if they were much more successful than you, then, and I'm not saying that you're spiteful

   3. CWChris Williamson6:24

      Mm.

   4. LPLionel Page6:25

      ... initially, it's not about that, but if you see that they were much more successful, you may think, "Wait a minute, like, you know, they didn't have anything more than me when we started."

   5. CWChris Williamson6:33

      Mm.

   6. LPLionel Page6:33

      "So why am I not doing like them?" You know, you, you, you extract information from that, from these people who are like you, who were like you. And so you would want to, you know, that's going to be a help to you maybe to, to change tack. So, okay, you know, I thought that it was fine doing what I'm doing, but when I'm seeing what they are doing, maybe I should do something else. So with these kind of comparisons, it's not useful when you compare to people who are very, very different. So if you're homeless, you know, and you wake up every morning thinking that you're not a millionaire, that's not going to help you move the next step a- ahead of where you are now, right? And so you will care not about people who are much poorer than you or people who are m- much less successful, uh, than you or much more successful than you. You typically care about people around you, and you, uh, and that's this interesting stuff, that you care a lot about the people who are just like us, being a step above us, or w- ahead of us, and the people who are very far ahead, we don't even care too much about them.

   7. CWChris Williamson7:29

      It's so fascinating. It's like a, like we're plants, uh, in an ecology, and we sort of are able to grow toward the light that's nearest to us. And, uh, yeah, it's, uh, an uncomfortable realization that our feelings of well-being, uh, depend less on, like, absolute achievements than they do on just the comparison to other people in the social circles that we belong with. And I guess, you know, that game of relative comparison and the way that social circles, the ones that we choose and the ones that we don't, impact us is, um, it's just, it's endlessly fascinating to me.

   8. LPLionel Page8:03

      Yeah. Well, uh, I'm, I'm with you. Like all these, I'm, I'm super fascinated in, in it. Uh, I think what's interesting is that what's fascinated me is how kind of key happiness and these questions we ask ourselves are central to our lives. And in a way, how we are, we, we are, we don't really know, you know. We don't have intuitions. So evolution is this kind of programming process which has designed us to work well in the real world. But evolution didn't care about telling us the rule book. Tells, you know, they gave us, evolution gave us the, the design and, and, but didn't explain why we're doing what we're doing. So we're like, uh, following the path that our feelings lead us to, but why we have these feelings and why they have the shape they have, and, and, you know, that we don't have the intuitions necessarily. So that's why when we start thinking about, "Oh, uh, what makes, what will make me happy? Um, why I'm not happy?" Et cetera, et cetera, it's actually not trivial, because evolution in a way doesn't care, you know. To make us successful, we don't need to know why we-

   9. CWChris Williamson9:08

      Mm.

   10. LPLionel Page9:08

       ... have these feelings. We just need to have these feelings.

   11. CWChris Williamson9:10

       Yeah, I think for, you know, the sorts of people that listen to this podcast, uh, introspective, reflective, you know, curious people, having a question, uh, having a why that does not have a very well-defined answer is kind of like some version of purgatory meeting hell. And you're just p- you know, you want to know. And you're right, that there isn't, there isn't this definitive sense. Just going back to that, uh, the social comparison thing, I've been thinking about this for ages, and I love that insight about how people with disadvantaged social origins might be more likely to be happy because they've got a lower reference point to judge life from. It's so paradoxical, but it makes complete sense.

   12. LPLionel Page9:54

       Yeah, look, that's, uh, and actually, that goes back to my PhD. My PhD was, uh, on, on that topic in education. Uh, it sounds, you know, when I, when- when you say that, it sounds like, uh, maybe some people, uh, who are on the left would say, "Well, uh, you're saying that people who are from a lower social background are privileged or that people from our social background-"

   13. CWChris Williamson10:13

       (laughs)

   14. LPLionel Page10:13

       "... are disadvantaged." So, you know what? It's true that-

   15. CWChris Williamson10:18

       The advantage of disadvantage, yeah, yeah, yeah.

   16. LPLionel Page10:20

       That's right. Well, there is, there is a kind of hedonic, a happiness advantage of being from a low social background and rising up. Because then what you have is that, you know, if you use your original social background as a comparison point, and it's natural to do so, because even as I said, you know, if you use your peers and you, you come from a low social background, and you look at people who are your friends and maybe are still your friends, now you think, "Well, you know, I did well." And so you have this comparison which helps you have this outlook on life, you know. "Am I unsatisfied with my life? Well, I did very well relative to where I started from."

   17. CWChris Williamson10:53

       Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

   18. LPLionel Page10:53

       And that makes you happy. On the contrary, if you're born from a very highly successful, uh, social background, well, the bar is super high. So, you know, if your father and, or mother, they are lawyers, well, you know, if you don't do a super high education achievement, uh, let's say a very high educational achievement, it's just the, the normal standard that you need to achieve. It's not-

   19. CWChris Williamson11:14

       Mm-hmm.

   20. LPLionel Page11:14

       You can't be super happy, it's just normal. And so that's a high pressure. And what you observe is that, uh, there is kind of a, you know, that's one thing is I don't say that 'cause there's lot of questions about privilege, et cetera, but people who are born in a privileged, uh, background, y- you observe sometimes more risk-taking. Uh, and also they want to do some different line of work 'cause they want to escape the comparison. So if your parents, maybe they are lawyers, et cetera, maybe you want to become an artist 'cause, you know, you want to, to be in a dimension of social comparisons where you can escape the comparison with your parents.

   21. CWChris Williamson11:47

       Ah, that's so interesting, 'cause if you went into law or you went into medicine, there would be a direct comparison between where your father was at that stage-

   22. LPLionel Page11:55

       Yeah.

   23. CWChris Williamson11:55

       ... in his life. I, I mean, look, the, the, the potential explanation for kids from highly affluent backgrounds having disparate outcomes in educational attainment because they are riven and driven by this terror that they can't keep up with what their parents expected is like...... it's n- n- I don't know of anyone that's factoring that into the base rate. And sure, uh, y- the material constraints, the resources, the access, the networking, the legacy admissions into these higher insti... Like, yes, there's lots of structural things, right, that go on. But what about the drive for the kids? Why are they, you know, working themselves so hard to do this?

   24. LPLionel Page12:38

       Yeah.

   25. CWChris Williamson12:39

       And, uh, you know, the fact that you have higher expectations placed on you and you are aware that anything short of Yale or Harvard or Oxford or Cambridge or King's or whatever, uh, is going to constitute failure, which is going to result in you being less happy, uh, that, I think, explains at least part of the disparate outcomes that we see.

   26. LPLionel Page13:01

       Yeah, I'm totally with you on that. And so, uh, when you... If you are... Let's say... Th- y- th- you can take two kind of case, uh, different... Let's say you are from... You... Your parents move from, uh, a, a poor country in the US. Uh, they didn't have a high, a high school diploma, you know. They work hard to pay for your education, and you end up in a community college in the US and you get a job. And, and for you, that's an achievement. You know, you, you, you made it. You're, uh, you're able to have a house, a mortgage, a car, you know, a standard US, uh, uh, way of life. Now, if you consider from there, do you want to try harder? Do you want, you know, to do a... To go to university, a higher, more prestigious university and get a master degree? Uh, the benefits, the psychological benefits for you is not that important, because the difference psychologically between where you are now and that additional stuff is not very large, because your reference point, as you said, was... is low. And so the biggest difference is between where you started in your mind, here, and what you have ach- you have achieved. Now, if your parents are lawyers and they did an Ivy League school, uh, you know... I mean, there's no way you would consider going to co- col- community college as something like an achievement. You'd be, like, maybe dreading it terribly.

   27. CWChris Williamson14:14

       Mm.

   28. LPLionel Page14:14

       And so for you, this step of, you know, the difference between, uh, going there or reaching a prestigious university is going to matter extremely. And so as you say, the drive is going to be there, and even, I would say, the risk-taking, something which is interesting when you look at the statistics that for the same grades in high school, kids from higher social backgrounds, um, who have averaged grades, they are more willing to take the risk to continue in, um, uh, standard university things, uh, than kids from lower social backgrounds. Kids from lower social backgrounds says, "You know, I'm not sure I will be successful at university. I want a practical, uh, training which is going to give me a g- a job." While the kids from higher social backgrounds are more likely to, even if it's uncertain they would be successful, to try harder and, and, and to go university.

   29. CWChris Williamson15:01

       And that's also correlated with, uh, more, r- sort of social risky behavior, drug-taking, alcohol, um, f- fast cars, et cetera, et cetera.

   30. LPLionel Page15:11

       Yeah, so that's... You're right, because w- we often associate, uh, drug-taking, es- es- et cetera, you know, to, um, low social background, like neighborhoods which are risky, et cetera. But what we observe is that, uh, there is a lot of this kind of behavior also in kids who come from higher social background. Um, and one possible... So you and I... I... One conjecture is that this kind of risk-taking is also, uh, uh, associated to the pressure that you have, you know, um, to

3. 15:36 – 25:23

   Why We Think We Are Worse Off Than Our Forebears

   1. LPLionel Page15:36

      be successful.

   2. CWChris Williamson15:36

      Mm. I've been fascinated with intergenerational competition theory. I learned about it about a year ago. This sort of comparison we have between where were our parents when they were our age and where are we now. And, um, you know, I think it, it really explains... Maybe this is total bro science, right? But I'm allowed to do this 'cause I don't... I'm not held to the same standards of an academic like you. Um-

   3. LPLionel Page15:56

      That's fine.

   4. CWChris Williamson15:56

      It... My, my, my theory, uh, at least in part, is that, um, even though objectively when you run the numbers, the current generation is better off adjusted for inflation than any generation before, there is this sense, this milieu that we are not. I think the comparison on social media contributes a massive amount here-

   5. LPLionel Page16:18

      Oh, yeah.

   6. CWChris Williamson16:19

      ... because we assume that everybody is doing better than they are. And also-

   7. LPLionel Page16:26

      Yeah.

   8. CWChris Williamson16:26

      ... we have expanded our social circle to now be so much wider. It's, it's-

   9. LPLionel Page16:32

      Yeah.

   10. CWChris Williamson16:32

       You're no longer selecting your social circle from who you grew up around, but you're expanding it to the entire world. And by design, the people that you see on social media pretend that their lives are better than they are. So not only are they a wider social network than you've ever seen before and selecting for people that are more popular, but also on top of all of that, everybody's lying. So the ability for you to do-

   11. LPLionel Page16:51

       Yes. Yes, yes.

   12. CWChris Williamson16:51

       ... accurate assessment. And then when we think about intergenerational competition theory, I think it... We almost use that model, where are other people now, as that's where mom and dad must have been. And that, I think, is where a lot of this uncertainty comes up around. Well, uh, you know, you look at, um, the reasons that people say about why they haven't had children yet. Uh.

   13. LPLionel Page17:14

       Mm-hmm.

   14. CWChris Williamson17:14

       I'm just, I'm just not ready. Uh, f- not... Financially, not in the position, which is odd because the poorest countries have the most children. And if you-

   15. LPLionel Page17:23

       Yeah.

   16. CWChris Williamson17:23

       ... scale it over time, we are by and large on average richer, more affluent, more comfortable than we've ever been. But the sense is that we're not. And given that our social circle's been expanded to the entire world and we have the perspective everyone is doing way better than they actually are, it's just... It's social anxiety all the way down.

   17. LPLionel Page17:43

       But look, it... I... There's several things in what you said, but I'll... I'll start with the social media. Uh, I totally agree with you that social media is a very strange, you know, environment. Like, we were not selected to be in this kind of thing where, as you say, it's expand our social circle. Uh, you have, as you say, people lie on social media a lot. I mean, in the sense that, you know, uh, we take selfies all the time. I'll take maybe 100 selfies and I'll pick the best angle, you know, the one where the light is good, I have a twinkle in the eye. Maybe I, I use a filter and, and even should I put that as my social media profile. And so... And you do that for everything. Like, my, my videos of my holidays will be brilliant, you know. I mean, when I have a, uh...... boring holiday, I won't necessarily talk about it. But when I have something, a nice cocktail on a, on a beach in Bali, I'll, I'll post about it. And so we're exposed to these beautiful lives, these beautiful pictures of all these people. And, uh, as we, as we were talking before, we can't help compare, right? And if this is our comparison points, then it move us, you know, it moves this comparison point much higher. And then we, we're thinking, "Well, I'm not doing that well in comparison." Uh, and we have to learn to discount, to, to learn, "Okay, wait a minute, there are filters on these pictures. Maybe these people are not that young as they look in the pictures. You know, I see all the nice thing they do in the holidays. I don't see all the troubles they went through on these holidays," et cetera, et cetera. Um, that's difficult. And there is, there is, uh, even another thing which is very interesting on social media. W- we have... Uh, I guess you have heard of it. It's like it's the friendship paradox. Do you know this, this thing, the friendship paradox?

   18. CWChris Williamson19:16

       No. Tell me more.

   19. LPLionel Page19:17

       Okay. The friendship paradox is a net- something which happen in networks. When you are in a, in a network, your friends, on average, have more friends than you. Okay? So if you're on Twitter, the people you follow have more followers than you have. Uh, if you're on YouTube, the, you know, the stuff you follow, on average, they have more subscribers than you have. So that sounds strange. How is it possible? Should- shouldn't it be on average? Like, you know, on average, we have the same... No, because the people you select to follow or to, uh, to be your friends, they are selected. And they are s- you know, you have s- you have not selected the people with the least friend. You have selected people, uh, who tend to have more friends. And you... The fact that you selected them is an indication that they are selected. And so when you look into your circle of friends on, on social media, you'll find, "Wow, why do I have... You know, I have so many followers and these guys are like, you know, super popular while I'm not as popular as them." So the funny thing is that whatever network you'll be, you will not be as popular as the average popularity of the people in your network. So that's another thing which is, is not intuitive, but it will make your, uh, reference point higher. And, and in comparison, you won't, you won't look as good.

   20. CWChris Williamson20:28

       Does this mean that people in high achieving groups kind of have a bit of a double-edged sword here? Because they've got satisfaction from recognition in, like, outside of the group, but they've also got social anxiety from within their group.

   21. LPLionel Page20:44

       Yeah. So, you know, that's the paradox of the fact that we always want to, to go higher. Like, we have... When we are in a peer group, uh, or in a club, we tend often to look for the next club, you know, the more prestigious club. Uh, if you... Aca- academics, for instance, they want to be in prestigious universities. Well, the cost of it is that, you know, whenever you move to university, to another one which is more prestigious, your colleagues, they are, they tend to be more successful than before, right? That's, that's because of it. And so you join clubs of people who are more prestigious, and what you have, you... Exactly what you say, you have this kind of... Let's say, you know, if you join Harvard as an academic. Well, for people outside, you're a Harvard member of staff, it's very prestigious. But for you, within Harvard, the comparison now are your colleagues more

   22. NANarrator21:28

       (laughs)

   23. LPLionel Page21:29

       ... super successful? You know, that's why it's stressful. And so in one of my Substack, I, I described... There was Thomas Schelling. You know, it's a g- It's, it's a story told by Glenn Loury, Glen Loury when he, he joined Harvard, uh, and he got very stressed, uh, by the pressure, uh, of success, uh, to of, being successful in publishing, et cetera, et cetera. And he, he goes to his, uh, colleague, Thomas Schelling, a very famous game theorist. And Thomas Schelling says, "Why do you think everybody here is extremely stressed?" They are like... And they all think that they're underachieving and that, you know, when people ask, "What are you doing?" They think, "Oh my God, I'm being judged for not being performing enough." And so, you know, you have this double-edged sword, as you say, that, uh, from outside, we think all these people are very successful. But because they're in clubs of very successful people, they feel the pressure of not, you know, being up to scratch with, um-

   24. CWChris Williamson22:15

       Mm-hmm.

   25. LPLionel Page22:15

       ... with their peers.

   26. CWChris Williamson22:16

       Yeah, I love the term insecure overachiever. I think it captures this energy very well.

   27. LPLionel Page22:24

       Yes. And you have this, uh, this term like the, um, uh, impostor syndrome, right? And I think the impostor syndrome is exactly that. So you work very hard to be successful, uh, in professional life, to, you know, to be maybe, um, uh, um, uh, promoted as a ha- manager, you know, vr- very important function. In academia, you want to be promoted professor in a prestigious university. And then you, you... (laughs) People once out there think, "Oh, may- maybe, maybe I shouldn't be here." You know, maybe people didn't see that actually I'm not good enough to be here. I'm here by accidents, right? And so people have anxieties like that.

   28. CWChris Williamson22:58

       Yeah. Uh, uh, you don't get, or at least as of yet, on Substack, I haven't seen you get super tactical around this. You're not coming out like the typical sort of personal development bro, and saying, "And here are my 10 steps for you to be able to overcome your impostor syndrome," or whatever. But when it comes to the sort of social circle comparison thing, given that you're spending a lot of time researching this, and you have a, a, a pet interest in it, you must relate this to your own life. And you must have tried to apply some strategy or s- or some tactics to try and negate this social comparison impact on your happiness. So what do you do, uh, as an attempt to try and mitigate this effect?

   29. LPLionel Page23:42

       Yeah. Look, that's a good point. Um, I'm not sure if I... I'm not sure if I have used it. Uh, I've used it, you know, uh, in practice to kind of, uh, not being stressed by, uh, you know, not joining higher circles. So when I was actually... I wa- I was in a... When I, I worked for some time in London. And, and I had the opportunities to choose between academia and to work in finance. And I thought, you know, obviously the wages are much higher in, you can imagine, in, in London in finance. And I thought, well, from what I know from behavioral science, I know that actually the wage much... looks much higher. But if I go there, you know, next thing you know, uh, I'll think that I'm not paid as much as Warren Buffett. And that's actually very true. You know, I was talking to a trader.... and the guy must have been on something like 150,000 pounds, so something like $200,000, $250,000 a year. So clearly in the top of the distribution. And the guy, you know what is, I was having lunch with him, and he says, you know, I, h- he told me, "I hope I was rich." And I was like, "Well, I mean, you know, you're not billionaire, but like, you, and you're a young guy and you're already on these kind of wages, like, super good." But from his point of view, you know, he's thinking of his, um, manager who is on, uh, two, uh, five million a year. And, uh, and then the next thing is a success story is Warren Buffett. So I- I- I'm aware of this kind of thing. And, and that I guess, uh, you know, I'm not looking back and thinking, "Oh, I wish I'd done that," et cetera. Because I know that, um, uh, I mean, I think I might have been very happy there as well, but, but I'm thinking that you need to be aware that, you know, if you were to move in such a c- circle, then your reference point would move with you. Uh, and so that's a reason not to stress too much, and to appreciate what you have now.

4. 25:23 – 38:22

   How Goal-Setting Impacts Happiness

   1. LPLionel Page25:23

   2. CWChris Williamson25:23

      Okay. Uh, another source of pain, probably, I think... I've been doing these live shows. I was in Australia recently, uh, uh, doing-

   3. LPLionel Page25:31

      Yeah.

   4. CWChris Williamson25:31

      ... these live shows, and there's buckets that, at the Q&A portion at the end of the talk, uh, people ask. And one of the most common is something along the lines of, "Why do I set ever higher goals for myself? Why do I seem unable to be able to be satisfied with what I've achieved? Why every time that I score a goal do I immediately move the goalposts even further away from me? Why do I overestimate the importance of my next success for my happiness?" So talk to me about sort of the role of, of goals and, uh, and how it impacts our happiness here.

   5. LPLionel Page26:09

      Look, I think that's a s- or is a, that's a key part of my research, I've, I've... and I have a paper, uh... with, so, so much, several of my posts on Substacks were on this topic recently. Um, you know, maybe I, I'll use a metaphor. I'll start far and we c- we can go back in more on the topic, but I'll use a metaphor. Let's say, you can think of evolution. Evolution is an impersonal process, right? So, but it's as if it was designing you. And you can f- you can use a metaphor, right, if it was kind of a designer trying to nudge you to be as successful as possible. So now, what kind of situation we can think of where, uh, somebody tries for you to be as successful as possible? Um, well, one such s- situation is when you have a parent and a child. And a truth that is going to be clear for every parent is that it's not necessarily always best to motivate a child to be truthful with the child, to be, to say all the truth. And so for the child to know exactly, uh, what are going to be the rewards is not necessarily optimal from the parent point of view. And here's what I mean. Let's say that you, you got, you, you got your son or daughter and you, you register your son or daughter in a competition. It could be athletic competition, it could be a chess competition, and you have no idea really how good they are. Okay? And you want to motivate them and say, "If you do well, you know, you'll have an ice cream," or what... You, you, so you give a schedule, kind of rewards. Say, "If you do well, I will bring you to cinema. I'll... If you do very well at school, I'll give you a, a video console," et cetera. Then now you have... The problem is that you don't know how good they c- they can be. Uh, suppose that you find out they're excellently talented. They're, um, clearly, uh, go well beyond your expectations. So you told them that if they were going to do well, they will have all these rewards. So what do you do now? Do you just keep them, giving them all these rewards all the time? They don't need to work very hard because they are ex- ex- they are very talented. So you keep giving them rewards. If you do that, it's not going to nudge them to do better because they don't need to work hard. They're super talented. If on the contrary you find out that your child has difficulties, is challenged, is struggling to be very good, you say, "Oh, sorry, you know, you're not very good, so no reward for you. Never." (laughs) So that's not going to help the child as well. So what you'll do is that you will adapt y- your, uh, schedule of rewards. If you find out that your, uh, your child is excessively good at, uh, chess, you say, "Okay, well, maybe I'm going to give you, uh, a tutor and I'm going to... and if you win tournaments, you know, uh, you'll have more rewards," whatever. Depends on... Uh, in Australia what we do is we have a lot of... It's very athletic as a country, very sporty. So, uh, you bring your kids to the swimming pool and you see whether they are good, and if they are good, you, you enter them in competition. You may have seen in, in the Olympic Games, Australia does very well in swimming 'cause pretty everybody swims in this country. So, you know, what you do as a parent here is that you won't tell your kid before, "Oh wait, I'm telling you that if you're successful, you get this reward. But if you're very successful, actually I'm going to move the carrot further ahead."

   6. CWChris Williamson29:05

      (laughs)

   7. LPLionel Page29:05

      You want to... You don't want to say that because if the kid knows that if they d- if they do very well, then you're going to move the carrot well ahead, they, they're, they'll be like, "What's the point?" And nature does exactly the same thing with us. That is, for us to work very hard, we think, "Oh, you know, if... I need to achieve this thing. It's very important." And, and, and all the information tells you if you, if you can achieve it, we have this kind of urge. Uh, the paper I've written on it, the title is called, um, If You Can, You Must. So if you feel that you can, you really get excited by the idea that you want to do it, right? If you can't, if it's way far ahead of, you know, your, the realm of what you can achieve, you, you don't want to try. You won't be interested. But if you think, "You know what? I think, I think I could run a marathon," you will try. You will want to try if you think it's prestigious enough. If you think, "Well, I think I can run a marathon, but in four hours," you know, then you'll start thinking about, "How can I achieve that? What, what kind of steps..." And that feels good to think that could, "I think I could achieve this." Then the problem is that let's say you start, you know, you start thinking, "Maybe I could run a marathon and running a marathon will be something which I think is an achievement." You start running and you think, "Actually, I'm pretty good." So now running a marathon is not enough. You'll have to do it maybe under fours or maybe more or may- maybe a better time. So the carrot will keep moving forward. And your hedonic system kind of s- lied to you initially because your hedonic system told you initially, "Oh, if you reach this goal, you'll be happy," you know? But as you realize that you are able to reach this goal-... maybe you can reach better. So if you can reach better, now the crowd has to move ahead. And now it's this initial goal is not enough anymore and you want this additional goal further ahead. And the primer, I totally understand people in your shoes who says, "Why do I do that?" Well, it's by design. We're designed to be like that. And we're designed to be like that, and we're designed not to anticipate, because if you were to anticipate that if you achieve the next goal, you'll get used to it, and you think about the another goal afterwards, well, you'd be like, "Well, what the point? You know, I, I work hard, I, I may, I may as well just, you know, enjoy life as it is now."

   8. CWChris Williamson31:07

      Oh. So that's why we overestimate the importance of our next success for our happiness, because if we didn't think, "Well, once I achieve X, I'll be fine," if we didn't have that thought, if we assumed accurately that each different destination is just base camp before the next destination gets-

   9. LPLionel Page31:28

      Yeah.

   10. CWChris Williamson31:28

       ... unlocked and gets appeared to us, we, we would be much less motivated to go and do it.

   11. LPLionel Page31:34

       It's exactly that. If you, you know, if you think that it's very important to have this next promotion, that this promotion will give you status and prestige and income that you think that's, that's what, you know, I want in life, then you work very hard for it. But actually, in reality, once you have it, you know, six months later you says, "Okay, what next?" You know, uh, next challenge, actually I could do better, et cetera. If you anticipate that initially, if you anticipate that the cart is always going to move forward, uh, beyond you, beyond your reach, then that's not motivating anymore to, to reach the next step, because you know that, you know, the same process will repeat.

   12. CWChris Williamson32:10

       What's the focusing illusion?

   13. LPLionel Page32:13

       But that's exactly that. So the focusing illusion is a term, uh, proposed by Daniel Kahneman and his co-authors, and say that you focus in life, you say, you tend to focus on some things and say, "This is really what I need." And people may have different, uh, view about why they need to be happy. Maybe some people will say, "You know, what I need is a romantic partner which is, uh, attractive and, and, and faithful and friendly," et cetera. "And if I get that, I'll be happy." Some other people say, "Well, what I, what I really want to be rich." Other people may say, "You know, what I want is just a group of friends, good social network." And so you really care, you say, "This is what I need." And usually you say that when you don't have it. And, and s- you think you would be really happy, you focus on that, this is the key for you to achieve h- happiness in your life. And then when you, when, if and when you get it, eventually you come to realize that was not so important for your happiness. So the key example given by Kahneman are people in the US who think that, "Oh, if I only had a job in California, you know, I would have fantastic weather, uh, brilliant lifestyle." And so, you know, maybe if you live in, let's say, Minnesota where winter are very, uh, cold, you imagine that you'd be very happy if you moved to California. Now, what Kahneman did is went to ask people who moved from Minnesota or something like that to California and says, "Are you more happy now?" And basically after six months, a year, people say, "Yeah, kind of. I'm, you know, I'm happy," but, you know, they didn't get the kind of change in life satisfaction that they were thinking they would when they were not there.

   14. CWChris Williamson33:48

       Mm. So how come we set goals to the highest level of what we think that we can achieve instead of finding happiness in lower aspirations? Surely that would allow us more direct access to happiness.

   15. LPLionel Page34:03

       Oh, yeah. You're totally right. Like, uh, you, the, a goal, you can think of it, we t- we used the, the word reference point before, you can think as a reference point, so you ch- you, you judge where you are, how well you are doing as a, with this goal as a reference. So, uh, if you have a very low goal, everything looks good. If my goal in life is just to have a, a nice job, uh, a house somewhere, not necessarily in a luxury suburb, you know, et cetera, well, it's much easier to achieve than if I say my goal is to be a top manager, to have a very high income level, et cetera. So, so having a high goal, uh, makes that, for a given level, if I have a low goal, this looks great. If I have a high goal, the same thing is not going to look great. So a very simple path to happiness is to have low aspirations. Uh, and if you look in history, you know, I talk about Stoicism or Buddhism, uh, or Epicurism as well. So lot of the kind of historical, um, path to happiness, uh, recommendations, like is very simple. It's like stop desiring what you do not have. Uh, uh, just be happy what you have, and that's the secret of happiness. And there is something very true in it, is that if you are able to stop, you know, try to get outside of this race where the goal keep moving for- forward, says, "You know what? I'm healthy. Um, I have a good meal every day. Uh, you know, got electricity, warm water. My ancestor didn't have that at world, at all." So that's a fairly good life, right? Um, I don't need to chase further success and further success. So if you are able to do that, you can extract yourself from this pressure, you'll feel better. But then what, what you have is that your hedonic system is not designed for you to feel good. As we said before, your hedonic system is designed for you to be as successful as possible, as successful as possible. And so your hedonic system, your brain should kind of pick all the information available to identify what you can do, and if you learn that you can do something better, well, your hedonic system should just, uh, go a notch above and says, "Well, you have to do it," right? Your hedon- you are not designed to be happy and enjoy life, you're designed really to, to try as hard as possible.

   16. CWChris Williamson36:15

       (laughs)

   17. LPLionel Page36:15

       And, and the reason for this is that, our ancestors-

   18. CWChris Williamson36:18

       You're not designed, you're not designed to be happy in life. You're designed to try as hard as possible. What an absolute-

   19. LPLionel Page36:24

       Exactly.

   20. CWChris Williamson36:25

       Yeah.

   21. LPLionel Page36:26

       Exactly, 'cause you, if you think about our ancestors, uh, some ancestors may be born with psychological traits where they enjoy being on the beach and, you know, it, there was enough, if there is enough food, have enough food, and fish, want fish, et cetera.... and some of us were maybe a bit more, um, uh, neurotic, wanted to always work harder and harder. Well, unfortunately for us, you know, the people who are the most neurotic and keep trying harder and harder are more likely to be our ancestors now-

   22. CWChris Williamson36:54

       (laughs)

   23. LPLionel Page36:54

       ... than the people who just enjoyed life.

   24. CWChris Williamson36:56

       (laughs) We are the progeny of the most anxious, insecure overachievers across time.

   25. LPLionel Page37:02

       So, I would say, you know, there is, there is a balance. But, uh, y- y- th- a hedonic system should be designed to keep finding the best thing you can achieve. So, as I said before, you know, it, it's not worth you being depressed every day because you're not Elon Musk. That's, there is no point into it. But you should identify what is the best thing you can achieve, really best thing, and then aim for it. And so our hedonic system does that. You know, we, we get a lot of information for what we have done before, what people like us have done, and, and then we integrate all this information and we think, "Okay, you know, what somebody like me can do? Uh, I have s- s- some psychological traits which makes me better at some things." Maybe if I'm very good at talking to people, I should aim to do a, to be a manager or maybe to be a public speaker. If I'm very good at math, I may be thinking, "You know, what I should do is to work in engineering or in finance." So you'll try to find, given who I am and the traits I have, what is the best thing you can do? And you don't need to think, you know, a lot, caref- uh, consciously about it. Uh, you'll pick it up. Uh, you'll pick up that, "Wait a minute, this person is like me and this person is, is very successful. Why am I not doing this?" Um, you know, and the, the counter will keep moving forward because it's designed f- just to push you not too far, but as far as possible.

5. 38:22 – 46:19

   The Difference Between Happiness & Relief

   1. LPLionel Page38:22

   2. CWChris Williamson38:22

      I've been thinking a lot about the difference between feeling happy when you succeed and just feeling relieved. I- it seems that there is a regular framing that success is the only acceptable outcome and anything short of that is a failure, so the achievement of success isn't... it, it turns the achievement of success not from a cause for joy into just the abatement of fear. You know what I mean? "Oh, I avoided disappointment. Congratulations."

   3. LPLionel Page38:52

      Yeah.

   4. CWChris Williamson38:52

      But that's such a, you know, for the, again, for this sort of high achieving, high expectation, low confidence people out there, that y- you, it's a lose-lose scenario. "I didn't achieve the goal. How miserable I feel about myself. I did achieve-"

   5. LPLionel Page39:06

      That's right.

   6. CWChris Williamson39:06

      ... "the goal. Well, that's the only acceptable outcome."

   7. LPLionel Page39:09

      Uh, yeah, look, that's fascinating. I don't... i- it's, it's another, uh, you can explain it for, uh, from how happiness works. Happiness is going to work in your brain always setting expectations and, and giving you feedback about h- whether you're doing better than expectations or lower than expectations. Now, when you, you aim for a goal, uh, usually the resolution towards this goal is going to, to take time, uh, to take place over time. So, if you're working to get a promotion in a company, you know, you have progressive information whether you're doing well enough to be promoted. It's, okay, so your impression about whether things are going well or not, you know, y- and as things get better, you, you feel more and more happy. Similarly, let's say you run a marathon, as you're running the marathon, you, you're getting information whether you're likely to finish or not, right? And so the thing is that you will consume the benefit of success all throughout as you get closer from the goal. So, you know, if you look at, uh, uh, games like, like, you know, in, in the US you have American football, for ins- th- the guys start being happy before they touch, they score the touchdown. They s- start being happy as they know-

   8. CWChris Williamson40:16

      Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

   9. LPLionel Page40:17

      ... that there is nobody, you know, in front of them and they are going to score the touchdown. And so they start consuming, in a way, the happiness of the success before the success happens exactly. And then when you reach it, uh, when you reach really, w- the success, the only thing could, which could happen is that you, you may be 99% ch- chance of being successful, but you could still mess up. So you're running toward the touchdown and you fumble within one meter. That would be a catastrophe. So you, you have a relief because you, you, you, you have already realized that you are going to be successful, you should be happy, but you... there's a risk that you could not, and that's this final stuff that you, you are happy not to be failing.

   10. CWChris Williamson40:56

       Yeah. Uh, I love this line from you about how, uh, the attainment of a goal seems, when the moment of triumph is over, almost like a letdown, because so few people, uh, th- sit back and enjoy it, uh, and most people just create an- another goal that they want to strive for. But the in- the sort of, the implication of that is presumably they prefer the process of striving toward a goal as opposed to the state of actually having achieved it, which seems completely backward, right? Because what... you're not saying why you, why are you pursuing that goal? For the pursuit of the goal? No, you're not pursuing the goal for the pursuit of the goal. You're pursuing the goal because you want to achieve the goal. But every single bit of evidence about the way that we behave suggests that we prefer the striving as opposed to the achieving.

   11. LPLionel Page41:43

       So I think, I think there's two things. You... first, you, you will enjoy the striving, uh, because the striving is really going toward the goal. It's like reduce... it's increasing the chance that you're going to be successful. Um, but obviously at the very end, th- the fact that you indeed are successful, there is still a- an important step. So if you, if you look, for instance, like sports matches and let's say your team is ahead in, in the game, right? You, you start being happy that you realize you are very likely to win before the end of the match. But nonetheless, when the, the, um, uh, the whistle, uh, blows and you win the match, you know, you, you are happy because that's the f- final outcome, uh, th- the success is realized. Now, what you have is that relative to expectations, relative to maybe the ƒ about how you would feel before if you were to be successful, then you have this focusing illusion. So you, um... I have this quote in one of my, uh, Substack about Andre Agassi. It's in his book, Open, and Andre Agassi-... uh, um, you know, I'm not sure if people, uh, remember because it's a few decades ago, but there was a lot of pressure. He was a very talented pla- tennis player, but there was a lot of pressure that he was a bit rowdy, you know, uh, and people say, "Maybe he's not this kind of guy who can actually win big titles." And, and then he won Wimbledon. Uh, and then he think, "Well, I felt let down because I was led to believe that winning a Grand Slam would be life-changing. I wouldn't be the same person, you know. Uh, I would acquire maybe a- a- another level of m- existence." It's a big word, but, you know, you, you would grow into something else having reached this very high level of achievement." And he said, "Well, I felt exactly the same person. And compare that to how, um, um, depressed and, and, and sad I was when I was losing in the final of the Grand Slam. I was not that happy having won." And so that's the thing, because you focus... you would focus on thinking that the Grand Slam is what he needs to be happy. But once he gets a Grand Slam, there... im- surely he's very happy on the day, right? That's, that's one thing. On the day he's ha- happy and he cry, whatever, but a few days later, his hedonic system is going to kick in and he says, "Wait a minute, if you won one, you can do more."

   12. CWChris Williamson43:57

       (laughs)

   13. LPLionel Page43:58

       You know, you can be number one. So, (laughs) so the next Grand Slam is in three months.

   14. CWChris Williamson44:02

       Yeah, what's it... uh, gold... Yeah, gold medalist syndrome, I think it's called.

   15. LPLionel Page44:06

       Oh, yes, you have the gold medalists... Y- y- you have, um... I'm not sure if you're... y- you... are you referring... because there's a g... you know, you have this study about the gold, silver, and bronze medal stuff?

   16. CWChris Williamson44:15

       Oh, no, I think gold medalists-

   17. LPLionel Page44:18

       Okay.

   18. CWChris Williamson44:18

       Uh, so, yes, that being bronze is happier than being silver because bronze is two steps away from winning, but silver was very close. I think, uh, at least my, again, bro science, of the, uh, gold medalist syndrome was that a lot of the time when people had finally achieved their championship that they want at the Olympics, uh, and they're left like Andre Agassi feeling, uh, significantly less fulfilled than they'd hoped or anticipated, that they then tell themself, "Well, ah, right, it, it, it's because I have to do it twice. It's because I have to prove-"

   19. LPLionel Page44:48

       Yes, yes.

   20. CWChris Williamson44:48

       "... that it wasn't fluke. That's, that's what the problem is."

   21. LPLionel Page44:51

       That's right. That's right. Yeah. So I didn't know the term. Uh, it's interesting, man. I didn't know this term, but yes, that's exactly that. And I think, you know... but that's what we're, in a way, doomed, uh, to, to, to experience. Because if you win one, well, that's a good, you know... it's a good correlation. People win one Slam, often they win more than one. And so eventually, you should be... you know, if people were like, "I win one Slam and I'm happy, now I'm going to enjoy cocktails at the hotel," well, that's not, you know, conducive to further success.

   22. CWChris Williamson45:17

       Yeah. It's, uh... it's so funny the, the sort of curse of continuing to succeed. If, if you are a, a competent person and you break new ground, each new achievement doesn't feel like a cause for celebration. It simply feels like the next minimum acceptable outcome that you can have the next time you do the thing.

   23. LPLionel Page45:39

       Exactly. Exactly. And, and... but the funny thing is that you have this, um... the, the fact that pe- all people be- behind or below these very highly successful people think that the people who are very successful are very happy. So, you know, uh, I can imagine that, let's say, if you're on social media and, you know, um, if you start thinking, "Oh, if only I had 10 followers," or not 10 fol- 10,000 followers, that's, that's a thing, you'll be very happy. People with 10,000 followers are thinking, "Wait a minute, you know, why don't I have 50,000?" People with 50,000 says, "Why don't I have like, you know, 200?" A- and we don't know that. So we think that these people are happy, but these people are just looking two steps ahead.

6. 46:19 – 52:52

   The Ideal Income for Happiness

   1. LPLionel Page46:19

   2. CWChris Williamson46:19

      Have you ever looked at the research around when you ask people what their ideal level of, uh, annual income would be? So, does it-

   3. LPLionel Page46:30

      Yes, I... Yeah, I, I... look, it's... I've... I remember... I don't remember the na- the, the, the, um, the numbers, but I, I saw a study and maybe do you a- do, do you remember?

   4. CWChris Williamson46:38

      So I remember what the outcome was, which is basically it's almost always about three times what you earn right now. So people will say, "Well, I would be... you know, I'm a... I, I earn 50,000 pounds a year. Uh, 150 would, you know, that would really be-"

   5. LPLionel Page46:54

      Yeah. Exactly.

   6. CWChris Williamson46:54

      But the people at 150 say, "Yeah, I mean, 450 would really be..." and then it just-

   7. LPLionel Page47:00

      Exactly.

   8. CWChris Williamson47:00

      ... keeps on going and keeps on going and it's very reliable.

   9. LPLionel Page47:02

      Exactly.

   10. CWChris Williamson47:03

       It's all the way up, you know, the millionaires-

   11. LPLionel Page47:05

       Yeah.

   12. CWChris Williamson47:05

       ... jealous of billionaires, the billionaires jealous of-

   13. LPLionel Page47:07

       Oh, yeah.

   14. CWChris Williamson47:07

       ... multibillionaires.

   15. LPLionel Page47:08

       Oh, yeah. So I can tell you a few things about this kind of thing. It's, uh... first, on a level, on a very basic level, you ask people, let's say when they are 20, "What would be a good life? You know, what, what would be something where when you're 40 you have achieved and you're happy?" And they say, "I don't know, I've got a house in the suburb, I've got a car, I've got a big TV," you know? It's like... and then you go ask them, they're 40, "Okay, you've got a car, you've got the, the house, you've got a big TV, uh, is it... do you think you have a good life?" They say, "Well, you know, not really because, you know, I don't have, uh, this thing and I don't have that," et cetera. So people m- move their goalpost. The kind of stuff that they said they would be happy with is not enough for them to be satisfied. So that's a, a first, uh, thing, interesting thing. And then in terms of, um, people always looking f- uh, ahead, there was... I remember I listened once to an interview of a psychologist who is specialist of the psychology of millionaires and he said, "You know, when I'm saying that a psychologist of maybe, maybe not millionaires, but like super rich, maybe multimillionaires or billionaires, when I say that I'm a psychologist for these guys, people says, 'Wait, wait a minute, they don't have any problem.'" And the problem is, is that... uh, he says, "No, on the contrary, they are often... they are very miserable." Because, you know, uh, if you earn, uh, 50 or $100,000, your next comparison point is maybe the person who e- who gets $150,000. But if you're a millionaire, your next comparison point is a guy who has like twice the size of your house, he has this multimillion yacht with all these VIPs coming in, and so they are super frustrated that they are not competing well enough with the next guys, uh, ahead.

   16. CWChris Williamson48:49

       Will Smith, in the memoir that Mark Manson wrote, said, "When I was poor and miserable, I had hope. When I was rich and miserable, I was despondent."

   17. LPLionel Page49:00

       (laughs) That's a good one.

   18. CWChris Williamson49:01

       Yeah.

   19. LPLionel Page49:01

       That's a good one, I like it.

   20. CWChris Williamson49:02

       Yeah, I just, you know, the, i- i- it very much is the case that happiness is not achieving a thing, it's not being rich, it's being a, a little bit richer than yesterday, consistently, over and over again.

   21. LPLionel Page49:19

       You're right, yeah. So, so, but here again, it's, here's a trick that, uh, is that we are, we, we experience positive feelings from doing better than expected. So when you go up, usually, you know, there is an, uh, a part of, um, uncertainty which, we, uncertainty which is resolved. There's, there's, usually, you know, if you're promoted there was not a 100% chance initially. So as you, you, you, you win and you are successful, um, there's an element of surprise, of positive surprise, and so you enjoy that. But if you were on a schedule where your t- your, the, the, the growth of your income, for instance, or the promotion is totally scheduled, it's, it's, it's, uh, there is no certainty, maybe because, like, you know, your, your income is indexed on inflation and it's going to increase, whatever, or maybe not i- on, on a, um, seniority, so as you get older and older, your income automatic increase. Then if you expect these increases, even if you are doing better, you will not feel better, because all these inc- i- increments are going to be factored in. You expect them, and if you expect them, you are not going to be more satisfied. That's the trick.

   22. CWChris Williamson50:29

       Yeah. The relationship between happiness and expectation of, uh, surprise is, uh, it feels so ruthless, because by design, you can't design surprise.

   23. LPLionel Page50:42

       Exactly.

   24. CWChris Williamson50:42

       Like, if you knew that it was going to happen-

   25. LPLionel Page50:44

       Yeah, yeah.

   26. CWChris Williamson50:44

       ... it wouldn't be a fucking surprise.

   27. LPLionel Page50:46

       Yeah, yeah. And, and, you know, you may wonder why? Why, why are we designed like that? Why can't we have something like happiness, which is something like a mountain, and you start from the bottom and as you more and more successful in life, you get more and more happiness, you know? Why, why are we not designed like that? And the, the quick answer is that designing a system, uh, which instead of, uh, measuring big difference like that, only focus on measuring variations related to expectations, it's a more efficient, uh, system to treat information and to, uh, use whatever, um, cognitive capacity you have in your brain to produce a signal which is going to help you. So it's a bit abstract, but I can say that, um, something which we have learned in the last thir- 30 years is having a very interesting convergence between AI research and reinforcement learning and cognitive neuroscience. And what some cognitive neuroscience found out is that the brain looks like, when it, the brain rewards you as a difference, you know, relative to your expectations, it's, pretty much looks like it's implementing optimal algorithms used in machine learning. So you would have people working in, in artificial intelligence, trying to program how a, a program is going to learn the right thing to do, and, and the best, one simple thing to, for this program to learn is to say, well, form expectations about what different actions are going to lead to, and then try out, and when you try the, the action, you just, you just compare. Uh, is this action, is, is the outcome better than expected or worse than expected? And then you adjust your expectation. And if you're, if you try a lot, eventually you are going to learn to do the right thing. It's pretty much exactly what we do, and it's an efficient way of processing information. Uh, it would be much more difficult for your brain to have a very, a complete map about, you know, happiness from zero to, uh, the top. It's-

   28. CWChris Williamson52:43

       Hmm.

   29. LPLionel Page52:43

       ... it's better to have a kind of a local stuff guiding you locally-

   30. CWChris Williamson52:47

       Incremental.
7. 52:52 – 1:03:55

   The Role of Habituation in Happiness

   1. CWChris Williamson52:52

      So, uh, talk to me, uh, let's expand this out a little bit more into habituation, uh, and sort of the adaptive explanation for habituation m- more broadly. Like why, why didn't evolution just design us with the ability to feel greater and greater happiness whenever we do better?

   2. LPLionel Page53:09

      Yeah. Well, it's exactly what I was saying before, is that it's more efficient. I, I think a very good, m- uh, comparison is our visual system does exactly the same thing. So, you know, your visual system doesn't kind of recall the objective luminosity in a room, um, uh, th- the objective luminosity. Actually, it, it's not measuring it. The, from the time where the light hits your retina, the, what's recorded is actually a, a divergence related to expectations. And what you see is that, you know, if you were to turn off the light somewhere, so now you see things, you turn off the light, everything is bleak, so you can't see anymore. But if you wait a bit, your eye is going to adapt, you are going to start seeing shades, et cetera. And so you're going to be able to perceive difference in contrasts that you were not perceiving before. What has happened is that your eye, wha- is, does exactly the same thing, that you have a kind of an expectation and you observe y- differences within this range. You suddenly, uh, change the range of luminosity, your eye doesn't see anything anymore, and so you have to adapt to eventually perceive again the differences. And having this, why is it useful? 'Cause if you have a kind of range where you can perceive differences, you want to maximally use this range in the area you are. If I was to, uh, look at this range and say I have to stretch it to observe any kind of differences, then the problem is that, uh, a lot of things would look the same, because you have a limited, uh, ability to perceive differences. So you, I want to use this ability to perceive differences the most in the area where there are variations that I need to observe. So my eyes are optimally adapting my ability to perceive difference in contrast in the range of contrast that I'm facing now. And if you turn off, turn the light off or put a bright light, I'm going to adapt to this new range.And your happiness is the same thing. So, your, your perception of subjective values, uh, they adapt to the range you are facing. So you know, if you a- are not very rich, selling sandwiches on a, on a, on a cart, you know, you need to be careful about not losing $10. So you'll be mindful about making, not making mistakes such that, you know, when you count the, uh, the money you are handing in and, and getting back, you know that you're not losing money, because this money is important. But let's say that you scratch a lotto card and you become a millionaire. Well, $10 doesn't matter anymore. So you know, why would you care? Why would you allocate some of your perception of value to difference in $10 when this doesn't matter anymore?

   3. CWChris Williamson55:37

      Is there an implication then if, if sort of incrementalism, this step-by-step nature of us slowly getting toward our goals, is there an implication that sudden huge leaps in improvement of life circumstances are actually very bad for us, in that if you win the lottery, how are you gonna ever have a better day than the day that you won the lottery? Like it came out of nowhere. Um, uh, it sets this new unreasonable standard for you, as opposed to, you know, the person who's maybe tormented by their daily grind to move toward their goals. But presumably, if you're already on that sort of path and momentum, you were only half a step behind yesterday and you can be half a step ahead tomorrow. Uh, the difference between that and somebody that just, uh, has a windfall aunt that dies with $50 million and gives it to them or something, uh, w- where do you go from there? You don't even have any systems to be able to locate yourself.

   4. LPLionel Page56:30

      So I think you're right, that if you're very successful very quickly, one challenge you face is to reset, you know, because we're designed for that. We're designed to have goals and to move forward, et cetera. So one is, one challenge you face is to reset your goals in life. Uh, if you're not able to do that, uh, if you're not challenged anymore, first you may become bored. Uh, you can, uh, you know, if you don't think that you have anything to, to, to, to achieve. Um, but also you may, you may make mistakes. So, uh, I think I've heard that, you know, people win the lottery and were not, um, especially rich before, often they get counseling. And you can imagine so, because, um, if you used to have a lot of money, you want to have a professional investment strategy, right, to gain even more money. But if you move from not much to a lot of money, maybe you think, "Well, I'm going to buy a luxury car, a luxury boat. I'm going to..." And you're going to spend things which maybe their value deteriorates, maybe organize luxury parties, et cetera. It doesn't last. And, uh, you may remember, I think there was a very famous footballer where, um, uh, I think it was Best, I think George Best who said, uh-

   5. CWChris Williamson57:40

      Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

   6. LPLionel Page57:40

      ... "Most of my money, I use it on women and drugs, and the rest I squandered it."

   7. CWChris Williamson57:44

      (laughs)

   8. LPLionel Page57:47

      So, you know, if you have a lot of money very quickly, you may not do, make the best use of it. So I think the challenge when you're very successful is to find y- uh, uh, t- to get your set back on the ground, says, "Where do I want to go from there?"

   9. CWChris Williamson58:00

      Do we habituate less to certain things? Are there any categories of, uh, accumulation that we have in our life that we seem to be a little bit more resilient to this adaptation?

   10. LPLionel Page58:14

       So, so look, it's, it's very good question. So habituation, once you reach a certain level of, of a comfortable life, which should be, you know, uh, uh, lower middle class in the US, uh, anything better, what you observe is that people think they will get better, they will be much more happy or much happier if they get more. And, and actually you don't. So happiness doesn't increase much. It does increase, uh, within the country. And one likely reason is because within the country you're able to compare yourself to others. So, um, what we observe is that this doesn't increase bit-, um, uh, between countries. So you take Americans now o- overall, for instance, and you ask, y- you look at the number of people who say they are happy or moderately happy. It's the same number as 1949. Now, think about, you know, all, all the things that happened since 1949. People have fridges, they have like t- color TV, et cetera. They have internet, uh, things that whenever it happens people says, "It's amazing. It's fantastic." Um, but when you ask now, they don't feel happier. And that's the thing you see in most countries, that when you look at countries, apart from the very poor countries which, you know, they get sanitation, they get water, et cetera, i- if you move from a lower middle income country to a, a rich country, it's very flat. Happiness is very flat. Um, so that is true. Nonetheless, at the bottom end, there are things which can, you know, improve life satisfaction. So if you move from being homeless to having a house, uh, that improves c- i- i- in the long term, your life satisfaction. And-

   11. CWChris Williamson59:44

       That kind of locks it, locks it in, in a more, uh, permanent way.

   12. LPLionel Page59:48

       Yeah. So one thing which is possible is that, you know, your hedonic signals, uh, if you think about the modern life that we are living, when we have food on the table, when we have like, you know, sanitations, water, et cetera, that's a, that's a good, that's a good life.

   13. CWChris Williamson1:00:03

       Mm-hmm.

   14. LPLionel Page1:00:03

       I mean, our ancestors didn't have that. So we are in the range of the good life, which in a way, uh, the basic signal that we can get m- We can still learn that we can do better, but, uh, we're already doing very well relative to the kind of things that our ancestor were doing. But if you are in, in a life where, you know, your, your life is threatened because you don't have a home, your health is threatened because you don't have access to, uh, good food or access, or protection, et cetera, um, that may still give you signals that, you know, that's not good from an evolution point of view. So I think there's something where, uh, you know, every

   15. CWChris Williamson1:00:36

       Oh, that's, that's so interesting. So m- much of what we're doing with habituation in lower to like, um, uh, developed nations is chasing down better standards of living, but not removing ourselves from things that could be mortal threats to us. And maybe our brain is able to detect, okay, there is... You don't always have food on the table. You don't always have a safe place to sleep. You don't always have reliable water or whatever.

   16. LPLionel Page1:01:04

       Yeah.

   17. CWChris Williamson1:01:04

       And if you, if you get out from that, you lock in a particular... So the bottom levels of Ma- Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I've always thought this about (laughs) the, um, you know-... issues that many of us face, am I actualizing my logos forward? Is this really me reaching my eudaimonia and making the most of my brief time?

   18. LPLionel Page1:01:23

       Yeah.

   19. CWChris Williamson1:01:23

       It's like, hey, dude, an existential crisis is a pretty fucking luxurious position to be in.

   20. LPLionel Page1:01:30

       Exactly. Yeah. Yep.

   21. CWChris Williamson1:01:30

       For all of human history until, like, 200 years ago, people were terrified of whether they'd make it to the next day. They thought that they were gonna get smited from above by a lightning bolt because they'd masturbated last night or whatever it might be. You know, like, they're- they're just on this permanent, uh, uh, fearful world. And it- it's odd that, uh, yeah, if you're asking yourself these deep questions about meaning, uh, about fulfillment, about flourishing, about eudaimonia, about reaching your goals, you know, it suggests to me that much of the stuff that really matters ?you would absolutely miss if it wasn't there has been sorted. And that's why you're up here.

   22. LPLionel Page1:02:10

       Yep. Yep.

   23. CWChris Williamson1:02:10

       It is no comfort. I'm aware it's no comfort because we habituate, but-

   24. LPLionel Page1:02:14

       Yes.

   25. CWChris Williamson1:02:15

       ... uh, I- I do think it's a- an- an important frame.

   26. LPLionel Page1:02:18

       Yeah. No, no, exactly, I think- I think you're right. And I- I have nonetheless... So- so these, all this vision is a bit depressing 'cause, uh, uh-

   27. CWChris Williamson1:02:26

       (laughs)

   28. LPLionel Page1:02:26

       ... ?what do you think? 　 It can be depressing. I don't know. I'm- I'm... You know, Kahneman described himself, Daniel Kahneman, the psychologist, described himself as a cheerful optimist. A pessimist. A cheerful pessimist.

   29. CWChris Williamson1:02:36

       Cheerful pessimist, yeah.

   30. LPLionel Page1:02:38

       I like that because, you know, you- you don't tell yourself stories about how the world is, you know, you- you take it as it is, so it's a bit pessimistic. But actually, you can still be cheerful in your life. So if, you know, um, as a person, so I'm a bit cheerful and- and Daniel Kahneman was as well. So, um, anyway, uh, the- the- the- the thing I wanted to- to- to say about, um, the habituation is that there's a positive aspect to it 'cause as I said, it's a bit, can be a bit depressing, but there's a positive aspect to it, is that, uh, the- the rest point of happiness, where we come back to, is not neutral, and there's good reasons for it, uh, which we can come to it if you want. But, um, you know, if you take a scale from one to ten and you ask people how happy you are, people don't say, "I'm kind of neutral on average." They won't say five. They would say seven. So people on average tend to be fairly cheerful, fairly fine with it. Uh, and- and, you know, it's true, you go to people who don't have a high income and they say, "Well, yes, life is relatively fine, you know, it could be better," but... And they are f- they will give you an answer around seven. And you go higher levels and people will tell you an answer. So we habituate, but we don't habituate to misery, we habituate to a fairly fine level of happiness. So that's the- the positive news.
8. 1:03:55 – 1:07:28

   Why Status is Less Subject to Habituation

   1. CWChris Williamson1:03:55

      seen somewhere that status is a little less subject to habituation than some of the other elements in our life. You got any idea if that's true?

   2. LPLionel Page1:04:04

      Look, I think it's- I think it's likely to be true. Um, for... And maybe this explains why your happiness increa- still increases when you get richer within your country because your status increase within your country. So when you... the whole country gets richer, you know, you move with the cohort of your country. So y- you get the fridge, but everybody gets the fridge.

   3. CWChris Williamson1:04:22

      (laughs)

   4. LPLionel Page1:04:22

      So- so (laughs) so you have each other's fridge, but when you get the fridge and people don't have the fridge, you know, you're happy that you have the fridge and relative to others who don't have it. So I think status makes sense because status, uh, is... We are very social species, uh, and status, you know, how well you are regarded by others in your community is a key indication of success. So if you go to our ancestors, uh, in particular for males, like, uh, status would have m- much- much more conducive to find mates and to have heirs, et cetera. So even if it's something li- not like food or, um, sex or whatever, status, uh, it's likely that it is one thing where we- we feel what will primarily rewards, that you- you feel good from experiencing status. Uh, and that's something that, you know, cognitive neuroscientists, uh, also, um... And maybe not necessarily all of them, but it's something which is accepted by some cognitive neuroscientists, that status as such experiences an increase in status is going to feel good. And- and that is going to be... Status is super flexible, like, uh... And you can always keep increasing status, uh, all across your life. So when we were talking about food, et cetera, in a way, uh, once you can eat well, it's... From an evolution point of view, there is no such... A big difference between the food you get in a five-star Michelin restaurant and the food you can buy from getting it in the supermarket. And may- you know, may- that may seem shocking to a lot of people, but the fact is that the food in the supermarket is super safe, uh, relative to where our ancestors were freaking out, et cetera. You don't have to fight for the food, uh, there is no bacteria or parasites in your food, uh, you know, it's warm, et cetera. So the food in the five-star Michelin restaurant, the biggest difference is not the number of calories, uh, whether it's safe, et cetera, you know, in terms of fitness effect, uh, it's not going to be very different. The difference is the status, is that it gives you status or to be able to... Or you- because you have status, you can do that, it's a signal of status to be able to eat in such a restaurant, et cetera. And so while you can't, you know, increase all this stuff about the comfort of your life, you have a roof over- over your head, you have food, you have water, et cetera, status can keep increasing. You can keep relative to other being- doing better and better. The- the sad thing about it though is that status is a- a zero-sum game, that if- if you rise in status-

   5. CWChris Williamson1:06:51

      Correct. There can only be one.

   6. LPLionel Page1:06:53

      Exactly. So as you rise in status, all those who are competing with you are relatively to you going down in status. And so it's... Well, I'm just going to say, it's not something that you can... You know, you have utilitarianism is this philosophy that you want to maximize the happiness in the country, and thirdly if status is one of the key thing where you can increase happiness of individuals, well, you can't increase the happiness of the country because status is those who have it and those who d- don't have it is a zero-sum game. So you can't increase the status of everybody.

   7. CWChris Williamson1:07:26

      Okay. Another huge

9. 1:07:28 – 1:20:32

   Relationship Between Happiness & Meaning

   1. CWChris Williamson1:07:28

      tension that a lot of people seem to have to deal with is this relationship between happiness and a meaningful life. Uh, is, is it a tension? Is this a, a, a fake thing? Wh- what is there to know when it comes to useful definitions and differences between happiness and meaning?

   2. LPLionel Page1:07:49

      Look, I find it fascinating, and, and once again, I think it's fascinating because we have these big questions. What is the meaning of life? What am I, what am I meant to do? I mean, some people don't care, but, you know, some people care and some people think, “What should I do? What would make... give sense to my life?” Et cetera. Um, some people make big life decisions, you know, they go to, uh, foreign countries and work and et cetera, to do, uh, in poor countries, to dedicate their lives to some causes, et cetera. So, why do we have these feelings and why, why don't we understand? Why, why are these kind of mysterious? And here again, we're in the thing where evolution gives us the feelings that guides an... or decisions for us to navigate the world. But evolution didn't need to tell us why we have them. And so part of the mystery is that because now we kind of, uh, try to think about why we have this, but we have not been given the tools, uh, because these tools... u- understanding why we have these feelings is not in itself helpful. And actually, you know, I was saying before that you have a, a convergence between cognitive neuroscience and artificial intelligence, and it's exactly the same thing in artificial intelligence. If you program a... if you design a pro- uh, computer program to do a task, you don't need the computer program to know why it's doing the task. So if you design a computer program to win at chess or to win at, uh, Go, you know, the game of Go, you don't need to tell the program, "You know, everything which is happening now is for you to win." You just give this, uh, program the system of values it- it- it experiences values, uh, to choose the next decision, and it revises values depending on whether the outcome is above or below the expectations. And the problem can be completely myopic. Uh, it ends up winning at chess. It has learned to win at chess, but it doesn't have a conscience saying, "Oh, my goal in life is to win at chess." But now imagine this program become self-aware and start thinking, "What, what am I doing? What is my goal in life?" Well, you know, it would have to find this stuff by itself because the programmer didn't need to put in the program the answer, "Oh, everything which is happening is because you have been designed to win at chess." And this is the same problem we have. We've been designed by evolution to be successful, and we experience all these feelings for us to be successful, but we have not been given the awareness about why we experience these feelings. And so we are grasping these big questions, uh, because we don't have the tools, uh, to naturally think about, you know, why we- we're doing that. So the thing about the meaning of life, we have these big questions, um, and I think there's, uh, a fairly simple answer, is that the hedonic feelings we have, uh, they have to answer several types of questions. One question is, uh, right now, you know, uh, is my meal now good or is it not good? Should I stop it? You know, is it, "Oh, it's too greasy. It make me sick," et cetera. Um, you know, is this person I'm talking to a friendly person I want to continue the interaction with? Or is it a boring person and I'm wasting my time? Or somebody, somebody who doesn't like me and I shouldn't say anything private because this person's going to gossip about it or whatever? So you are asking all these questions and your hedonic feelings right now, whether you feel that you are happy because the food you- you're eating is good or th- you feel sympathy with somebody, all these feelings are helping you to guide you in the right now moment. Now this is good, but a lot of success is going to be determined by a, a larger span of time. Uh, you know, are you in a... in the right setting, in- in the stuff you're doing in your life overall, is it good? So if I ask you, "How satisfied are you with your life?" You are going to think about what you're doing with your life in a bigger window, bigger time window, and you're not going just to think about, "Oh, uh, is my meal good? Is this friend good?" You're thinking of th- the bigger scheme, you know, "Am I going somewhere in life which is in line with what would be successful?" Which is like a building, uh, maybe you're standing in the community, uh, finding a romantic partner, maybe raising your kids and seeing your kids grow, et cetera. So if you can see that this kind of stuff happening, you are more likely to s- to experience this kind of life satisfaction. And what you can have, you can have a disconnect between pleasure and achieving these goals, because you can have a lot of pleasure in the short term, uh, but they don't lead you to achieving these goals. Often achieving these long term goals need to- for you to do some things which are costly now. So, you know, if you spend your time playing video games from, uh, 6:00 PM to 5:00 AM, it may be very nice, but if I ask you six months later, "Are you happy with your life?" You might say-

   3. CWChris Williamson1:12:27

      Mm-hmm.

   4. LPLionel Page1:12:27

      ... "You know what? I'm not sure I'm going anywhere, right? I, I enjoy what I do every day, that's why I'm doing it, but I don't feel I'm going anywhere. Something is missing." And this missing is that you're not doing what's right for you to feel that you are progressing toward a successful life. And so then when we expe- when we experience it, when you think about the meaning of life, I think what's kicking in in your head is, uh, this kind of intuition about, "Am I doing the... am I in the right setting? Am I in the right progress, this right dynamic toward being successful in life?" Something which is meaningful is, um, doing things where people are happy what I'm doing. So am I... my standing in the community is increasing. I- I'm perceived as somebody nice and contributing to my community. I have friends, I have my family, uh, my partner loves me, et cetera. This gives meaning because we think, "I'm doing things right. I'm moving forward in a right direction." And so this gives us kind of feelings.

   5. CWChris Williamson1:13:20

      It seems like, uh, time is a really important contributor here, that sort of a good life versus a pleasurable life is a conflict.... across time, short-term versus long-term. And you've got this great, this gorgeous quote where you say, "Much of life's dissatisfaction results from evolutionary mismatches where short-term hedonic signals conflict with long-term ones." And it's just this tension, it's this tension between the two. I want to eat the cookie or smoke the cigarette or drink the beer today, but I don't want to deal with the fatness or the hangover tomorrow. And, you know, you scale this up over time. The, the thing that's super interesting, uh, I have, I've had this intuition for ages that certain people are predisposed to take more pleasure from meaning, and other people are more predisposed to take more pleasure from enjoyment. I think people find their way, they, they do in life the thing that gives them the best hedonic signals. So for me, I, I, I actually suck quite a bit at pleasure. Uh, really fucking good at meaning. Like, I will, you know, bury myself for three months in the hopes that something will come out of that on the other side. Um, suck at pleasure, good at meaning. I have a lot of friends who are the opposite, and this was that famous... Uh, uh, you, you may know this story better than me, but this famous conversation debate, friendly debate between Dan Gilbert and Daniel Kahneman, where Gilbert was saying that a good life could be one where you spend every hour for the remainder of your days laid on a lilo, uh, floaty, in a pool with a cocktail. He said in retrospect, when you look back, would that have, would you have considered a life well lived? Well, it doesn't matter because day-to-day, your experience was just pleasure, I'm in a pool, this is nice, the cocktail tastes good. Kahneman said that, no, what you want is a true happiness or true meaning in life comes from a life which, in retrospect, you're glad that you lived. Right? And I think that, at least to me, this is my, again, another pet bro science theory, which feel free to tear apart, that (clears throat) um, uh, I think that the more ruminative of a thinker that you are, the more you need to optimize to be Kahneman, not to be Gilbert. Whereas I have friends who are able to just fucking be, they don't care about where they're going with this, they, they're not asking about whether it's this deeper contribution in the same way. And maybe they're gonna have midlife crisis at 55, and they're gonna come back to me and go, "Dude, should have buried myself for three months. You were..." Or whatever, but not that I tell them to-

Episode duration: 1:27:49