Until You Learn These 3 Life Lessons, Finding Joy & Meaning Is Impossible... | Alain de Botton

1. 0:00 – 5:05

   Love and Attuned Care in Childhood

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee0:00

      Look, the, the state of people's mental wellbeing is not fantastic these days.

   2. ABAlain de Botton0:03

      Mm.

   3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee0:03

      And I'm interested by this idea that a lack of love may be at the root cause of us feeling lost, us feeling unhappy, us having addictions. And when you talk about love and you talk about these, uh, this, this variety of different emotions and I guess actions you could say, you know, being curious is an action, being empathetic is an action. Are we going the wrong way in society?

   4. ABAlain de Botton0:32

      Um, look, I think it's extremely difficult because it's implausible that so much should depend on this idea of love. It's in a way an insult to some of our higher faculties, our more rational faculties. We think, "Why do we bother with this?" Um, you see, particularly in the upbringing of children. I mean, let's remember that, you know, when we're talking about love and its importance-

   5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee0:52

      Mm

   6. ABAlain de Botton0:52

      ... really the, the key area where this operates and is, is at its sort of maximal, um, uh, you know, critical value is in relation to the upbringing of children. And I think we can say that anyone who broadly feels well in themselves, who is able to trust, who is able to, um, have faith in the future, who is able to tolerate themselves, not just their successes, but that's difficult too sometimes, but also their failures. We can say that this person will somewhere in the background have been the recipient of love, that somewhere in their upbringing they will have loved. Just as we can be absolutely sure that if someone is ruthless, if someone is intolerant, if someone is unable to forgive, if someone is determined to feel that it's always somebody else's fault, all of these are symptoms similarly of a shortfall of love somewhere along the way. That doesn't elide the issue of responsibility. I mean, one can be responsible and have been the victim of a shortfall of love.

   7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:57

      Mm.

   8. ABAlain de Botton1:57

      So, you know, some people get hung up on this. So I'm not excusing behavior. But we can say, I think, that, um, an early experience of love is not merely pleasant, it is life-giving. Um, John Bowlby, the inventor of, of the discoverer, uh, together with Mary Ainsworth of attachment theory, famously said in one of his books that, um, love was to be considered along with vitamins, um, one of the great discoveries of the 20th century in terms of, you know, what is essential for good human development.

   9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:29

      Mm.

   10. ABAlain de Botton2:29

       And it is as essential as vitamins. In other words, that we will suffer from rickets and other things if... You know, mental rickets, as it were, if we don't, um, uh, uh, get enough of it. Now, we might say, "Well, what do, what do we mean by love-"

   11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:40

       Mm

   12. ABAlain de Botton2:40

       ... you know, in childhood? And, um, to, to, to, to just, you know, zero in on a phrase, attuned care. Um, in other words, to love a child is to allow them for periods to be the center of their own world and to get down to their level and see the world through their eyes. Um, many parents think they're loving but can't really do this. They can't enter imaginatively into somebody else's experience 'cause no one did it for them. So they'll constantly talk over a child, minimize a child's feelings.

   13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee3:13

       Mm.

   14. ABAlain de Botton3:13

       You know, the child will come back from school going, "I hate the teacher. I want to burn down the school." And the parent will say, "Don't be so silly." Um, really what they should do is be thinking, "Okay, something's going on for the child. Let me try and listen." They obviously... They're not gonna burn down the school, so let's not panic, but they're trying to express some anger, some rage, some disappointment, some humiliation. Something's happened, and the role is to try and listen. So, you know, we're very bad at listening because no one listens to us, so we repeat. You know, we do to others what unfortunately, uh, we suffered from at the hands of others. Um, and, uh, so there is a shortfall of love in the area of upbringing.

   15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee3:49

       Mm.

   16. ABAlain de Botton3:49

       And as I say, all mental illness, you know, if you study mental illness, even, uh, you know, severe mental illness, um, always you come back to the same thing. Someone did not deliver attuned care or love to this person.

   17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee4:03

       Yeah. I, I really love that, that viewpoint. I've been thinking over the last couple years that I think everything in life ultimately comes down to the energy of love or the energy of fear.

   18. ABAlain de Botton4:19

       Mm.

   19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee4:20

       And I'm yet to find a situation where that doesn't hold true. Like, if you go all the way up to the root, it's either love or fear. And, you know, as a doctor, one of the things I've had to deal with, uh, with... or, or try and help patients manage for a number of years is how do you help them change their behaviors? If we accept that much of what afflicts us these days is in some way related to our collective modern lifestyles, not implying blame in any way, but the, the way we are collectively living, I figure out, well, a huge part of my role then is to see if I can connect with that patient and help them understand how they can start to change those behaviors.

2. 5:05 – 12:11

   Why Knowledge Isn't Enough: Habits, Religion and Beauty

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee5:05

      And I used to think, Alain, that knowledge was enough, but it isn't.

   2. ABAlain de Botton5:11

      That's right. I think this is one of the besetting sins-

   3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee5:14

      Yeah

   4. ABAlain de Botton5:14

      ... of our age, that we operate with a model essentially that knowledge will solve the main problems. It's not. I, I believe that it's habit. The... We have to construct habits because essentially we're creatures of emotion-

   5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee5:28

      Mm

   6. ABAlain de Botton5:28

      ... and emotions are governed by habits, not by information. So-

   7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee5:32

      What, what do you mean emotions are governed by habits?

   8. ABAlain de Botton5:34

      Well, okay, so, so the, the standard view is, um, you know, let's say somebody, um, drinks too much or gets angry too much. So the modern view, I mean, I'm caricaturing it deliberately, the modern view is let's try and show this person why this doesn't make sense, why it's counterproductive.

   9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee5:49

      Mm.

   10. ABAlain de Botton5:49

       And then, um, once they know, once the information, uh, has been divulged to them, they will stop. Of course, it's not true. What they need is a structure, a setting which will assist them, um- In honoring their insights. 'Cause most of the time we- we're, we're stuck in what the ancient Greeks called a, a situation of akrasia. Akrasia is, uh, translated as weakness of will from the ancient Greece- Greek. And the Greeks were fascinated by how, how often we know but we don't do what we know.

   11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee6:17

       Mm-hmm.

   12. ABAlain de Botton6:18

       And the reason, they thought, is we suffer from a weakness of will. Now, that's slightly an old-fashioned idea, but, but it's, it's onto something. Now, the institutions that used to know all about our weakness of will, bear with me, sound slightly strange, are religions. Religions are giant machines designed to help to people to cope with the, the weakness of their impulses to do what they think is right but lose sight of at critical moments. Now, you don't need to believe in religion or have any interest in religion to, to take something from this. You see, if, if you look at how religions operate, they're machines for repeating things. You look at Islam, you're praying, you know, multiple times a day. Um, if you look at Judaism, you are rereading the Torah many times a year. You're, you're just going back and back across a text. If you look at Christianity, um, you, you are using things like architecture, music, uh, art-

   13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee7:16

       Mm-hmm

   14. ABAlain de Botton7:16

       ... um, uh, fashion, design, the, the visual realm to instill a message which might drain away if you merely put it, uh, you know, in an intellectual way. So, so religions are, are alive to the kind of sensory nature of human beings.

   15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee7:33

       Mm-hmm.

   16. ABAlain de Botton7:33

       We, we take in information not just in a cold, rational way, but through our senses. Now, the people who understand this best nowadays are advertisers. The power of a message is hugely influenced by how beguiling it is, how, how seductive it's been made to be. And if you look at society, the most, you know, the, the merchants of seduction are working for chocolate manufacturers and, you know, trainer manufacturers, et cetera. There's space for chocolate and trainers, maybe. But, um, uh, the philosophers, the psychotherapists, et cetera, they're operating in the Stone Age.

   17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee8:07

       Yeah.

   18. ABAlain de Botton8:07

       Their, their capacity for messaging is, you know, pathetic, lamentable compared to... You know, think of, I don't know, the philosophy department at London University. Uh, you know, you, you, you got some people there who reach an audience of hundreds, um, whereas their message might be, you know, worthy of millions, billions even.

   19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee8:24

       Mm-hmm.

   20. ABAlain de Botton8:24

       So, so we've got this disjuncture because the modern world has forgotten the debt that the senses and, more broadly, our emotional functioning, um, uh, th- th- th- this, this ne- this needs to be integrated within any-

   21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee8:40

       Mm-hmm

   22. ABAlain de Botton8:41

       ... um, intellectual messaging.

   23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee8:42

       Yeah. Um, as you were, as you were talking there, I was thinking of, you know, Nike's big logo, Just Do It. And, you know, they're not even selling you how technically good their shoe may or may not be. They're, they're selling an emotion. Who am I going to be when I put on my Nikes?

   24. ABAlain de Botton9:04

       Right.

   25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee9:04

       You know, Apple do the same thing, right?

   26. ABAlain de Botton9:06

       Yeah.

   27. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee9:06

       It's, they're not telling you necessarily what it is.

   28. ABAlain de Botton9:09

       Yeah.

   29. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee9:09

       Its technical spec and it's, it's not necessarily giving you the knowledge. It's telling you how you're going to feel or how-

   30. ABAlain de Botton9:16

       Yeah
3. 12:11 – 18:02

   Collective Rituals, Institutions and Secular Lessons from Religion

   1. ABAlain de Botton12:11

      Well, I think one of the things we learn is it can't just be an in- uh, an individual choice. We need to have collective systems. We need to have rituals. We need to have, um, institutions that embed certain disciplines. We were talking just before we began about smartphones-

   2. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee12:27

      Mm-hmm

   3. ABAlain de Botton12:27

      ... um, and their role. If you leave an individual to make all their choices, it's placing an enormous burden on them to be the sole, you know, actor who controls themselves. You know, self-control is extremely hard, so we need a bit of help at a societal level. We need disincentives and incentives. Um, we're terribly worried, uh, collectively about what gets called the nanny state or, you know, a, a dictatorial state. The idea has been, for at least 300 years, that it's always better to improve, uh, to, to increase individual freedom. The more freedom everybody has, the better their choices will be. And it's o- this is one of those tricky ideas-

   4. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee13:08

      Mm

   5. ABAlain de Botton13:08

      ... because at a certain point, an increase in freedom does not necessarily lead to an increase in good choices.

   6. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee13:14

      It's paralyzing.

   7. ABAlain de Botton13:15

      Well, it's paralyzing and, and also it's simply too much for us. Um, I mean, you see this in, in, in children, but of course we are all far closer to the state of children than we like to think. So we know that to allow a six-year-old to control its diet is not really kind to the six-year-old. That if you, if you give... if you say to the child, "What do you want to eat?" The child will not necessarily come up with the best answers. Now we think, "Oh, that's because that's a child," and once you're post 18, that no longer applies. Mm, I'm not so sure. I think we all know from our own experience that, uh, look, the world wouldn't be as complicated as it was if we were the rational actors we keep assuming we are. And it's in the interests of chocolate manufacturers and others to, um, exaggerate our level of rational control because it's then also in their interest that we lose control.

   8. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee14:07

      You brought up religion. Is it a coincidence, do you think, that as many societies have become less religious and more secular, that mental and physical wellbeing, frankly, have started to decline?

   9. ABAlain de Botton14:25

      Um-

   10. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee14:25

       Is there a relationship there?

   11. ABAlain de Botton14:26

       Uh, I think we, we need to be careful. I'm, I'm a secular person, so I don't believe that the answer is to, as it were, go back to religion, but I do think there are a huge number of lessons to be learned from how religions function.

   12. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee14:39

       Yeah.

   13. ABAlain de Botton14:39

       Um, and that these lessons need to be absorbed by modern society, and the, the, the great tragedy has been that, you know, in the 19th century when en masse people stopped believing in religion, it was a really shortfall in, in Europe and in other... You know, whenever a country develops economically, tends to be a decline in religiosity, uh, apart from in America. Um, but that tends to be the pattern. And, um, what, what tended to happen was that as people became secular, they decided, "Because I no longer believe in God, everything associated with the religious way of life is now nonsense."

   14. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee15:12

       Yeah.

   15. ABAlain de Botton15:12

       So, um, gathering once a week to have a meal with strangers, which used to be a feature of many religions, um, then goes out the window. Why would you need to do that? Because God is dead. Well, there might be very strong reasons. Um, uh, or why might we need to rehearse certain lessons continually? Um, it might be the wrong lessons if you, if you're no longer religious, but, but the idea of rehearsal might be very important. The idea of festivals, the idea of, um, special days that are marked out in the calendar to mark certain psychological evolutions. Um, the idea, as I say, of using buildings, uh, and making very special buildings that ennoble and lend importance to particular emotions.

   16. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee15:54

       Yeah.

   17. ABAlain de Botton15:54

       Um, you know, pe-people often, secular people often go to cathedrals, mosques, temples, et cetera, and they're moved, right? They go, "God, it's so beautiful. Why don't we do stuff like this?"

   18. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee16:04

       Yeah.

   19. ABAlain de Botton16:04

       And the reason why we do- we don't do stuff like this is because we're very confused about what a building should be. We've got a material view of a building. So, you know, we, we, we understand that there's a gym, and we understand that there's a, um, uh, you know, a shop, and we understand there's a school, but what we don't understand is a building. You know, what is, let's say, a mosque or a temple or a church, a cathedral, other than, in some cases, a building designed to make, um, the person in it feel small within a wider context, which is awe-inspiring, transcendental, and reminds the person of their small scale in the wider scheme of the universe. Not in order to humiliate or crush them, but in order to bring peace to them-

   20. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee16:43

       Mm

   21. ABAlain de Botton16:43

       ... because they see themselves as existing within a broader context. Now, if you said to an architect, uh, "Please go and do that for me," uh, well, nowadays, most architects will be extremely puzzled. They just go, "I, I don't know what this is." But, um, with a s- with sufficient imagination, we can go, "That would be a fascinating mission for a building." Um, a building to inspire feelings of transcendence. Let's go for it. You know? We've got buildings for everything else. Why not that? In other words, buildings whose specific purpose... Or, you know, other buildings. Um, if you take, again, certain monastic buildings, what are they other than machines to try and foster a feeling of community? Here is the main dining room. It's got a long table. You will eat here.

   22. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee17:19

       Mm.

   23. ABAlain de Botton17:19

       You will look at the ceiling. It will look noble and interesting, et cetera. Your fellow human beings will seem like people you want to interact with. Um, these are missions that architecture could fulfill, but they're really psychological missions.

   24. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee17:31

       Yeah. This whole relationship between, uh, I guess religious societies and wellbeing is, is fascinating. It... I, I agree it's not necessarily that we need to go back.

   25. ABAlain de Botton17:43

       Mm.

   26. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee17:43

       And I think the research or, or some of the research suggests that it's not religious people who necessarily do better-

   27. ABAlain de Botton17:51

       Mm

   28. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee17:51

       ... it's people who adopt religious practices.

   29. ABAlain de Botton17:54

       Mm.

   30. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee17:54

       Which kind of makes sense. You know, you, you, you gather together, you do things. You know, the Jewish faith, they have a, a Sabbath once a week, you know?
4. 18:02 – 21:08

   Nature, Dogs and Children: Being Decentered

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee18:02

      We're struggling with stress, overload, burnout. Well, inbuilt into their religion is one day where you stop, and obviously it depends on how strictly you follow. But- There, there's a lot of these practices that are incredibly beneficial that we have lost. I, I, I think either in this book or one of your videos I was watching yesterday, you said that actually many societies now are living in a world where there is nothing at its center that is non-human.

   2. ABAlain de Botton18:30

      Mm.

   3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee18:30

      That really speaks to what you just said, right?

   4. ABAlain de Botton18:32

      I, I think that is a, a, a major source of, of, um, stress and difficulty that, um... And that's why, you know, very anecdotally, people will say, "The things I love are nature, my dog, and my child." Now let's look at nature, dogs, and children. They've got one thing in common. They de-center the adult human. They recalibrate the importance of adult purposeful life as we define it in, you know, the modern world.

   5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee19:03

      Mm.

   6. ABAlain de Botton19:03

      Um, your dog doesn't care if you were promoted. Your child's not interested in, you know, if you've just made it to the C-suite. Um, they care about other things. Can you throw a ball? Um, are you inter- have you got any jokes? Um, are you fun to be around? Um-

   7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee19:17

      Are, are you around? [laughs]

   8. ABAlain de Botton19:18

      Are you around? Are you around? Are you around? Are you nice? Ni- are you nice?

   9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee19:23

      Mm.

   10. ABAlain de Botton19:23

       Um, similarly, when you go out into nature, um, you know, the forest isn't interested in your recent reversal. Um, the cliff face doesn't care that, you know, you didn't, um, you know, get what you wanted in the, the office promotional race. There is a kind of impassivity to human destiny in the natural world, which it could look like it's gonna humiliate us.

   11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee19:45

       Mm.

   12. ABAlain de Botton19:45

       Like, you know, look, there are many ways of feeling small. If you go to a grand hotel and you say, "You know, I'd like a cup of tea," um, you may be made to, in inverted commas, "feel small" by the people at the desk, and no one likes that. And we think, you know, "My ego is not being respected." So constantly the human ego is looking to be respected by other human egos, and this is a, a terrible sort of, um, you know, zero-sum game in which everybody is competing-

   13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee20:09

       Mm

   14. ABAlain de Botton20:09

       ... for a limited amount of attention for their, for the recognition of their own self. Um, the wonderful thing about, um, nature is that it takes us out of that and introduces us to an older, grander, slower, different dimension, which rather than crushing us, actually helps us. We are longing to be made to feel small and insignificant. It's delightful to be made to feel insignificant because what we suffer from is our foiled desire for significance in a world which will never be able to accord everyone-

   15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee20:44

       Yeah

   16. ABAlain de Botton20:44

       ... the significance that they crave. It will only be called a very narrow elite. And even them, uh, it, it will not satisfy them.

   17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee20:51

       You know, Alain, when I first started to really think about where religious teachings may have been profoundly useful is, I don't know, maybe a decade ago.

   18. ABAlain de Botton21:08

       Mm.

5. 21:08 – 27:40

   Necessity, Death and Dark Truths

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee21:08

      I was in my GP surgery at the time, and there was a young couple who came in. I don't think I'd seen them before, but essentially their baby had died very, very young.

   2. ABAlain de Botton21:20

      Mm.

   3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee21:20

      I can't remember even a month.

   4. ABAlain de Botton21:21

      Mm.

   5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee21:21

      It was, uh, one of those things that, you know, is incredibly tragic, upsetting and, and I didn't have as much life experience as I have today and, you know, being able to sit with people who've gone through that and not bring your own baggage in is not that easy. You know, you mentioned about the skill of listening. Being able to just sit there and be present-

   6. ABAlain de Botton21:42

      Mm

   7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee21:42

      ... it is, it's something that I think we can all learn to get better at.

   8. ABAlain de Botton21:46

      Mm.

   9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee21:46

      But one thing I remember them saying to me, they were of the Islamic faith, and they said something to the effect of, "This is Allah's will."

   10. ABAlain de Botton21:56

       Mm.

   11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee21:57

       And I remember hearing it, and I couldn't stop thinking about that for the next few weeks, thinking, "Wow, they seemed to be able to cope better with some of the tragic circumstances that happen in life because of this strong belief that there was a, a greater reason." Now, I know some people may think that's just ridiculous. There's no greater reason. That's a tragedy. I, I get all that. I, I'm not here to say how someone should or shouldn't think. I'm saying that for tho- for, for that couple, I am convinced that having that, that belief in something much bigger than them helped them cope with something that frankly would break so many of us.

   12. ABAlain de Botton22:40

       Mm. And I think, you know, for, for people who are not religious, um, we have a, you know, an associated concept, which is the idea of necessity, that there are things that human beings cannot alter. You see, the modern world was based on, um, the idea that the human mind can manipulate nature and can turn necessity into opportunity. Um, and this has worked brilliantly in so many areas. We can now do so much that we couldn't do before. The problem is there are still many areas w-that we don't control, and so it's very hard to live in a society where we're constantly introduced to amazing things we can control and then also butting up against many things that we can't control.

   13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee23:25

       Mm.

   14. ABAlain de Botton23:25

       Uh, and, and calibrating that. You know, this is the problem of medicine. The problem of medicine is that, um, every day doctors, um, do miraculous interventions, or not miraculous, but, you know, amazing interventions that save lives. Um, but also every day they have to tell people that, um, they can't help them. And the collective view of medicine, as you well know, is that, um, medicine can do everything. That's, that's what we've bought into collectively, which is why, um, the death sentence, and let's remember, we are all under a death sentence. We're all dying just slightly faster or slightly more slowly, but we are all dying right now. Um, and this is not something that we like to keep in view. Um, when people say, you know, death has become a bit of a taboo, well, of course it has, but it's not just death that's become a taboo. It's the inability to change our destiny that's become a taboo. We are convinced that we are, must be able to change our destiny, um, uh, because we are, have been so able to do so in some areas. And so the trick is to rem- to have sufficient number of reminders of Some things that we cannot change. Um, and this is why death traditionally has been so important. I mean, you know, a traditional, um, um, uh, piece of interior decoration in the Middle Ages, if you were a well-to-do person, on your desk, you would put a skull. And the idea of a skull is not that it teaches you that, you know, nothing has any purpose and everything's hopeless. Rather, it teaches you that, um, you are operating within a world of necessity, and the chief one of which is time. You do not control the amount of time you have, um, and your time will almost certainly, uh, outstrip, uh, I mean, under- understrip, um, the, um, you know, the fantasies and the power of your own imagination to imagine what you would like to do. You will run out of time. We will all run out of time. Um, again, the modern world is not so happy to, to tell us this, but this could all sound very grim, but, you know, I notice you're smiling a little bit, um, and I think that's not coincidental. Very dark truths are not only funny, uh, they are also really relaxing.

   15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee25:33

       Mm.

   16. ABAlain de Botton25:33

       The reason why we laugh is we think, "Thank goodness. Yes, I am gonna die." Also, you know, if you tell people, for example, um, you know, they say, "I'm not so happy," and you go, "Well, welcome to misery." I mean, one of my favorite quotes is by the stoic philosopher Seneca. He says, "What need is there to weep over parts of life?" He says, "The whole of it calls for tears." You know, dark idea. But it's cheering. It's cheering because a lot of what makes us miserable is not the darkness, it's the hope. It's the hope that kills us. Um, whereas if somebody says, you know, "You're gonna get married." I mean, think of the average marriage ceremony. At The School of Life, this organization that I run, we, we, we wrote a marriage service. It was a-- We rewrote the marriage service.

   17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee26:14

       Okay [chuckles] .

   18. ABAlain de Botton26:14

       And, and we did it, we did it in order to help marrying couples. Many people have now been married with our, with our re-retooled marriage service, and basically, it's a very, um, depressing document that is at the same time funny and really helpful. 'Cause it basically says, you know, "You won't... No one will marry someone who they won't, at some point in the marriage, feel is the cause of the ruin of their life." That at some point, this person that you're marrying, you will look at them, and you will think, "You have destroyed my life." Um, and at that moment, you'll sort of be right because no one comes into close proximity with another person without causing them serious difficulty. You can be the most well-intentioned person, but to live in close proximity to another human being is to introduce them, you know, to, to real... a lot of complexities. If you really love somebody, you probably shouldn't marry them. Let, let them be free because if you really want the best for them, you know, d-d-don't go, don't go too near them because you'll, you'll bring trouble into their life. Let, let somebody else do that. So, so these are some of the dark truths that our society, you know, be it in love, in work. You know, this notion of work-life balance, we torture ourselves. No life is going to be able to achieve balance. Everything worth doing will unbalance your life. Speak to a parent who's a devoted parent. Can you have work-life balance? Of course you can't. Speak to somebody who really cares about their career. You got work-life balance? Of course you... Everything worth doing unbalances your life. It's not a truth that we want to take on board. So sentimentality is, you know, the great error of our times.

6. 27:40 – 32:50

   What Does a Healthy Mind Look Like?

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee27:40

      One of the things I wanted to explore with you today, um, was pessimism versus optimism. And before we get there, though, can we-- You know, you write a lot about mental well-being.

   2. ABAlain de Botton27:50

      Mm.

   3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee27:50

      You've helped so many people, uh, with their mental well-being. I, I'd love you to sort of try and explain what mental well-being is-

   4. ABAlain de Botton27:59

      Mm.

   5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee28:00

      Or how do you see it? And there's this just beautiful section at the start of A Therapeutic Journey where you kind of defined... you, you define what is a mind in a healthy state-

   6. ABAlain de Botton28:10

      Mm.

   7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee28:10

      Which I found really interesting 'cause a lot of the time, we don't really talk about-

   8. ABAlain de Botton28:13

      Yes.

   9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee28:14

      A healthy mind.

   10. ABAlain de Botton28:14

       Yeah.

   11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee28:14

       We just talk about these are the things that go wrong.

   12. ABAlain de Botton28:17

       Yeah.

   13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee28:17

       But what, what is it we might be searching for or aspiring for when it comes to our minds?

   14. ABAlain de Botton28:22

       Mm. It's a, it's a very good point. It-- Yeah, we talk so much about mental illness, um, and without quite knowing what it is, and we talk about... uh, and we're alluding by definition to mental health without quite focusing on it. So, um, let's start with one thing, compartmentalization. Uh, to compartmentalize actually belongs to health. Um, if you know... if you look at people who are in severe mental distress, um, certain issues have run riot through their mind. They are unable to put a stop to certain concerns. So they'll go, "I've done something wrong at work," and you go, "Fine. It... May- maybe, but maybe we can put it right," or, "It's Saturday evening, so we don't need to think about it till Monday," et cetera. That person will be unable to. The worry will cascade through every area of their life like a set of dominoes. They won't be able to put a pause between their thoughts. So, so the, the ability to make compartments of worries, to go, "That belongs in one area. I'm not going to let it infect every area," that's a feature of health. It's a gift of health if you, if you like. Um, and there are others. I mean, the, the capacity to resist catastrophic thinking, uh, the ability to go, you know, there are many steps between where I am now and the catastrophe that I can imagine. For a mind under pressure, there is no, there's no gap. You know, you are immediately the, the, the, you know, an ambiguous s- an ambiguous look from someone is automatically a sign that, you know, they've become your sworn enemy. Um, a, a missing email, an ambiguous, uncertain situation is automatically proof of, you know, the worst scenario. So that, that inability to, um, tolerate ambiguity and to give ambiguity, you know, its, its due. Um, so these are, these are all ways in which minds under str-- You know, I, I sometimes think also of, of it as, uh, um, an idea of speed, that a mind under pressure doesn't know how to slow down. Um, everything is happening extremely fast. Um, and thoughts that we all have when we're mentally well... You know, if you look at the, the, the thoughts of a person under mental strain and the thoughts of a so-called normal person, the thoughts are often quite similar. It's, it's the speed at which they're reverberating. It's the inability-

   15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee30:38

       Mm.

   16. ABAlain de Botton30:38

       To control them, um, that is... that marks out the mind that's under, under stress. They're not, um... You know, for example-

   17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee30:46

       You know, a person, a person under mental stress will say, "I'm the worst person in the world." Um, now many of us have moments where we think that, "I'm not great. I'm, I'm not so happy with what I did." The question is, at what velocity is that thought reverberating through the mind?

   18. ABAlain de Botton31:00

       Yeah.

   19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee31:00

       And a mind under pressure, there is no limit. It, it is going to take you all the way, you know, to the most tragic ends. To make sure you're taking action after watching this video, I've created a free Breathing Guide that's gonna help you reduce stress, calm your mind, and boost your energy. In this guide, I share with you six really simple breathing practices that work immediately. Even just one minute a day will start to make a big difference. To receive your free guide, all you have to do is click on the link in the description box below. That, that idea of compartmentalization is fascinating. I've never really thought about mental wellbeing through that lens before, and I guess we all hear these things that go to our, our, our own life [chuckles] and our own relationships.

   20. ABAlain de Botton31:48

       Mm-hmm.

   21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee31:50

       And I guess I would say that I am pretty good at compartmentalizing.

   22. ABAlain de Botton31:56

       Mm-hmm.

   23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee31:56

       In fact, I would, I would, I would submit that maybe my, my wife would say, "How can you just compartmentalize-

   24. ABAlain de Botton32:04

       Mm-hmm

   25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee32:04

       ... and like, you know, that, that issue not affect you here?" Or for example-

   26. ABAlain de Botton32:08

       Yeah

   27. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee32:08

       ... again, we're not saying good or bad, just different, and I think it really also speaks to this idea you brought up right at the start when we talked about love, about the importance of empathy a- and compassion. Th- this, this idea that just because we might find compartmentalizing easy and straightforward, not everyone does.

   28. ABAlain de Botton32:33

       Mm-hmm.

   29. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee32:34

       And so I guess the, the follow-on question is, if you don't have that ability, yet that is one of the, um, characteristics of a healthy mind-

   30. ABAlain de Botton32:45

       Mm-hmm
7. 32:50 – 39:28

   Learning Emotional Change and Stoic Premeditation

   1. ABAlain de Botton32:50

      I, I mean, there are so many things that we can learn and get better at. And of course, the, you know, the physic- physical health is the model here. Um, but we don't pay enough attention to it. Um, look, all of us reach adulthood through a long process of education, uh, not just formal education-

   2. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee33:08

      Mm-hmm

   3. ABAlain de Botton33:08

      ... schools, government buildings, et cetera, but education at home. We, we develop certain attitudes. We haven't noticed that we've developed them. You know, the, the acquisition of an emotional temperament follows the same model as language. Do you remember when you learnt English? No. You know, we, we don't remember. We, we were just ... We were sitting in the kitchen. We were doing, you know, we were doing our drawings or doing handstands, et cetera, and we were hearing words, and we were learning them. None of us can remember when we learnt language, and yet we learnt it because we now speak it. Now, um, the same is true for our emotional functioning. We learn certain things about, you know, how much panic is in order, how much we should trust, what the world is, what men and women are, et cetera. We learnt, as it were, an emotional language, and we did it in the same way as we learnt-

   4. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee33:53

      Yeah

   5. ABAlain de Botton33:53

      ... the more grammatical language without knowing it. It, it just happened all around us. You'll also learn, this is a chilling thing, how long does it take to learn a new language? You know, a normal ... You know, if you, if you set out to learn Korean as an English speaker, how, how long-

   6. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee34:07

      Mm

   7. ABAlain de Botton34:07

      ... how long are you gonna need to do it to speak it well? Probably need to practice six hours a week, something like that.

   8. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee34:13

      Mm-hmm.

   9. ABAlain de Botton34:13

      You know, more f- over four or five years, something like that. You know, and then you'll be-

   10. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee34:16

       Mm

   11. ABAlain de Botton34:16

       ... you won't be fluent, but, you know, you'll be just about getting there, right? Very, very difficult. But that gives us actually ... Though it's, you know, rather challenging as a piece of information, it gives us a measure of what we might need to do to change some of our impulses. So if we're prone to lose our tempers, well, how long might it take to learn greater equanimity-

   12. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee34:39

       Mm-hmm

   13. ABAlain de Botton34:39

       ... in the face of challenges? Well, it might take four years. Um, sometimes people say things like ... You know, 'cause psychotherapy has huge ... This book is partly about psychotherapy. Psychotherapy has huge prestige in the modern world. When people are unwell, they go, you know ... Often people suggest therapy, therapists. Um, but very often, you know, it's, it's on a fairly hasty scale. People go, "Oh, okay. So I'll go and have six sessions of therapy, and then I'll solve my anger problem, or I'll get my relationship better." You wanna go ... Okay, you know those muscles you're trying to build up?

   14. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee35:10

       [laughs]

   15. ABAlain de Botton35:10

       How much time are you giving that? Like, oh, well, I'm doing it three times a week. Okay. And how long are you doing? Um, four or five years. Okay. All right. Good starting point. 'Cause that, that gives us a sense of how long we might need to work at it.

   16. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee35:21

       Mm.

   17. ABAlain de Botton35:22

       So can we change our emotional habits? Yes. Is it gonna be any easier than building up our muscles or our, you know, fluency in Korean? No.

   18. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee35:31

       You, you, you mentioned a phrase there, change our impulses.

   19. ABAlain de Botton35:33

       Mm-hmm.

   20. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee35:34

       Uh, and it, it really stood out to me because I believe that a lot of people will go, "What do you mean change our impulses? Our impulses are, are just things that are, are, are our automatic responses to things," but you've just said, change our impulses. Now, I completely agree, right?

   21. ABAlain de Botton35:50

       Yeah.

   22. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee35:50

       That you can change what you consider your default response to be, but it does take time, and it takes effort, and it takes practice, and it takes a reminder. Oh, yeah, I wanted to respond like this, but I fell back into my old patterns. Why was that? Oh, you know, next time perhaps-

   23. ABAlain de Botton36:09

       Yeah

   24. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee36:10

       ... I can choose a different response.

   25. ABAlain de Botton36:12

       Yeah.

   26. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee36:13

       Um, so can you just sort of unpick that term, change your impulse?

   27. ABAlain de Botton36:17

       I mean, you know, philosophers have been interested in this since, you know, since the start. If you look at Ancient Rome, um, ancient Roman philosophers were really interested in anger and the toll that anger takes 'cause they could see that, you know, anger leads to beheadings-

   28. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee36:32

       Mm

   29. ABAlain de Botton36:32

       ... furies, emperors like Nero and Caligula, uh, et cetera. So this was a very ... This wasn't just a sort of, you know, cosmetic, uh, problem. It- Getting people to calm down was a key priority of philosophy. Uh, if you look at the stoic philosophers, they do a fascinating analysis of anger. Their argument is that behind every angry outburst lies, rather surprisingly, optimism. We, we may think of angry people as rather pessimistic, dark, uh, people who, you know, losing their temper, everything. But no. Their view was, the stoic philosophy, uh, is that scratch the surface of any angry person and you will find a demented optimist. Um, t-t-take, take rain. You know, imagine w-w-we're recording in the UK. It's raining again today. I don't think anybody's angry about the rain. Uh, and the reason is that it rains almost every day in this country.

   30. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee37:20

       [laughs]
8. 39:28 – 47:51

   Optimism, Imperfection and Cheerful Pessimism

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee39:28

      is it pessimism v optimism or is it more the difference between reality and expectation? And the rain is, is really interesting 'cause I, I, you know, like everyone here, like, if you, if you're gonna get disappointed and angry, [laughs] not dis- you can be disappointed. If you're gonna get angry every time it rains, you're gonna struggle living in the UK. [laughs]

   2. ABAlain de Botton39:51

      Right.

   3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee39:52

      But if you expect every day to be sunny, and you wake up and it's raining, that's where the disappointment is, isn't it? Because you thought it was gonna be sunny. I believe I'm an optimist, but I don't think optimism means that I'm optimistic that tomorrow it's gonna be really, really sunny.

   4. ABAlain de Botton40:12

      Mm.

   5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee40:13

      When I, when I think of what being an optimist means for me, it's really this belief that most, if not all, situations in life are neutral. And really the optimist in me is that, um, I get to put the story on that situation, and the story I choose to put on it will ultimately determine its outcome on me. I didn't use to have that mindset. It's something that has intentionally been cultivated. And yeah, I, I... So for me, that's an optimistic mindset.

   6. ABAlain de Botton40:49

      Mm.

   7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee40:50

      But it's based on a realistic expectation.

   8. ABAlain de Botton40:53

      Mm.

   9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee40:53

      Does that make sense?

   10. ABAlain de Botton40:54

       Yes. I mean, absolutely. You know, one can be... I mean, the thing we're not mentioning here, but it's coming up in your face, is humor.

   11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee41:02

       Yeah.

   12. ABAlain de Botton41:02

       I think that the collision between hope and reality is always the moment when there is possibility of a smile. There's also a possibility of a tear.

   13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee41:10

       Mm.

   14. ABAlain de Botton41:10

       But, um, but if we can make it, angle it towards smiling. I mean, look, the area where people experience, inverted commas, "rain" most regularly is their relationships. I mean, if we're talking about an area of hope, we live in a romantic age that promises people that they will all find a soulmate who will understand them perfectly, who will completely combine, um, you know, a sexual existence and a, a psychologically rich existence. Uh, this will go on throughout a lifetime, um, and that you'll know from the first moment, et cetera. Now, these expectations are responsible for more unhappiness than almost any other feature of the modern world-

   15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee41:44

       Yeah

   16. ABAlain de Botton41:44

       ... um, because, um, people constantly feel that they have done personally something wrong rather than they're existing within an ideology which is incredibly complicated.

   17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee41:55

       Mm.

   18. ABAlain de Botton41:55

       And so the moment you say to people, um, "No one's perfect," um, that means your partner and you will not be perfect. Immediately the temperature goes down. "Ah, okay." Um, you know, at The School of Life, we, we have this, we, we give people a- advice on relationships at various points, and we say right at the beginning of, um, relationships, a really useful thing for two people who are meeting for the first time to do is to go... I don't mean this pejoratively, "How are you crazy?" Two people to go, "How are you crazy?" Now, you ask somebody on a date, "How are you crazy?" Well, they go, "That's a bit rude. You know, what does that mean, how are you crazy?" Well, the assumption is we're all crazy, so there's a... If you're not answering that question, um, you're really crazy because you're in denial of your possibility of your crazy nature. So, so already it's a real win if you're able to go, "Hmm- The ways in which I'm crazy are this, that, and the other. Um, so the, the acknowledgement of one's imperfection is, uh, plays a, a vital role in, um, accommodating oneself to, to reality. We don't need people to be perfect. We need people to have a sense of their varied imperfections and to be able, on a good day, to either warn us of them or at least apologize for them once they've had a runaround. Um, but, you know, that's already asking a lot, and most of us are not ready for that.

   19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee43:17

       One of the things you write about in this book is perfectionism.

   20. ABAlain de Botton43:21

       Mm.

   21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee43:22

       And perfectionism, we know, has been going up dramatically since the 1980s. Um, I, I don't know what it was doing up until then, but I've certainly seen research showing that since the 1980s it has been going up. It's tempting to say it's down to social media, but I believe it was already going up dramatically even before social media came about. In relation to what you just said about, um, relationships and this idea that we're all imperfect, where... Why do you think so many of us are struggling with perfectionism?

   22. ABAlain de Botton43:58

       Okay, I'll tell you the reason: because we put humans on the moon. If you put humans on the moon and then tell people, "Oh, humans are a bit silly, and they're not really that impressive," you wanna go, "Have you seen the Apollo space program?" Of course it's impressive, right? Once we've done keyhole heart surgery, you really gonna tell people that human beings are a bit pathetic? Once we've, uh, you know, m-managed to send data across the Atlantic in one second, millisecond, are you really gonna expect that everything goes wrong in a human life? No wonder we've got runaway perfectionism. Let's be generous towards perfectionism. It's really hard to think about our imperfections in a world where we are daily reminded of extraordinary, beautiful, amazing things that human beings do. How can we reconcile human greatness with human folly? It, it's something that exists... It, it's a problem that we have, as it were, at a collective level and an individual level.

   23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee44:56

       How, how do we?

   24. ABAlain de Botton44:57

       Um, by reminding ourselves that we really are, you know, both angels and beasts, that we are both wonderful and appalling, and the two are true. The two go together. And we have too much pride. We, we can't quite acknowledge this. It's, it's very hard, as I say, individually and collectively. I mean, let's go back to religions, right? What's, what's the number one dictum of, uh, Buddhism? Uh, life is suffering. Okay, these guys start with the dictum, "Life is suffering," right? Life is not, you know, a, a, a penthouse in Monaco and a, and a jet, et cetera. It is suffering, okay? And it's not just for you or for me, it's for everybody. Everybody, life is suffering. What's the central dictum of Catholicism? Central dictum is we are all sinners. So, so life is suffering. We're all sinners. Now, you might go, "That's a bit mean. What, we're all sinners? Oh, I'm not. I'm, I, I'm nice." You know, uh, life is suffering maybe for you, but I'm intended to have a nice life. Well, imagine if we started somewhere more in that zone. Not necessarily exactly in that zone, but more in that zone. Think how much... I mean, again, let's go back to dating, right? Imagine you've got two people. Um, let's caricature Californians. Bless Californians. But they are some of the most optimistic people in the world, right? So you're meeting a Californian for the f- You've got, you're on a date with a Californian. "So how are you?" You know, "Great. Terrific." You know, um, "What, what, what's your character like?" "Well, I really believe in myself, my potential, and I'm advancing ever further towards, you know, achieving my goals." "Wow. Wow. It's amazing." Um, you know, uh, "Do you have any flaws?" "Well, I'm ironing them all out and, you know, both physically and mentally, I'm, you know, on top of things." This is, you know, this could sound like an amazing person, but might one also detect a certain brittleness? Uh, might one detect a, um, a perfectionism that might have a curdle side? Um, maybe. How much more relaxing to meet someone who goes, "I'm a bit broken, actually. I'm, I'm, you know, I'm not a perfect human. I, I mess up. Uh, my life's been suffering in lots of areas." You think, "Oh, this person might be a little bit more livable." I'm advocating a philosophy of cheerful pessimism. Um, another word for it, and it's a word I really like, is melancholy. If we look at what's the UK contributed to world civilization, not much. The food's lousy, et cetera. But one area that the UK really excels at is melancholy. Now, melancholy is an interesting thing because melancholy is not depression. It's not despair. Um, but nor is it cheerfulness. It somehow hovers between the two. It's like a kind of wry acceptance that life's kind of difficult at many points, but it's always quite beautiful too. You, you know, you could, you could be a very cheerful person and quite melancholic. Um, so melancholy is tragedy well handled. It might be an emblematic word for what it means to be mature. You know, that's really what maturity is. Um, it's hard to imagine good maturity without an element of melancholy. How can you look at the facts of life without an element of melancholy?

9. 47:51 – 53:59

   Happiness, Fulfillment and the Difficulty of Worthwhile Work

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee47:51

      What do you think of happiness?

   2. ABAlain de Botton47:54

      Um, it's a coercive concept. Of course, we all want it. Of course, it's lovely. But it's a, it's a dangerous thing to wield, uh, a-a-around. I think it's... We, we need to whisper that word rather than shout it from the rooftops.

   3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee48:09

      Really?

   4. ABAlain de Botton48:09

      Because, because it, um... You know, whenever someone sets out to be happy, you know, the gods laugh, the, the spirits laugh at, at the, the hubris. I mean, let's go back to our friends, the ancient Greeks, right? They were really fascinated by overreach, by human overreach. All their stories, in one way or another, all their legends, all their myths are about people who have forgotten that human beings come below the gods. And in different ways, you know. Think of famous story of Daedalus and Icarus, right? Icarus rides too close to the sun, falls in sea. That, that's the emblematic Ancient Greek story. Um, and, you know, we think of it, oh, it's an old story. There's not much to teach us. Oh, boy, oh, boy, does it have a lot to teach us. You know? [laughs] We're all Icarus in different ways. In different ways, we're all Icarus. And so it doesn't mean an end to ambition. It doesn't mean an end to hope. After all, the ancient Greeks, I mean, they contributed hugely to civilization and progress in all sorts of areas, but they never forgot the, the dangers of overreach and the moment when the human mind forgets its limitations.

   5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee49:16

      Yeah. It's fascinating. So I, I do like the term happiness.

   6. ABAlain de Botton49:19

      Mm.

   7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee49:20

      Um, but I, but I also believe that it can be... I believe it can be misinterpreted. I think also we have to be careful what do we mean by happiness, 'cause-

   8. ABAlain de Botton49:29

      Yeah

   9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee49:29

      ... I think you could say the word happiness to 10 different people-

   10. ABAlain de Botton49:32

       Mm

   11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee49:33

       ... and they may understand it in 10 different ways. So some people may believe that happiness is that state where you wake up every day with a smile on your face-

   12. ABAlain de Botton49:44

       Yeah

   13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee49:44

       ... and everything is fantastic-

   14. ABAlain de Botton49:45

       Yeah

   15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee49:45

       ... all the time.

   16. ABAlain de Botton49:46

       Yeah.

   17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee49:47

       I don't believe that's happiness.

   18. ABAlain de Botton49:48

       Can I tell you another word?

   19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee49:49

       Please, please.

   20. ABAlain de Botton49:50

       Fulfillment. 'Cause I like the word fulfillment because it's very possible to imagine a fulfilled life that actually has a lot of pain in it.

   21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee49:57

       Mm.

   22. ABAlain de Botton49:58

       You know, you, you, you could stop someone who's, let's say, a busy doctor, and you go, "Are you happy today?" "Oh, no, not really." "Are you fulfilled today?" "Yes. Yes."

   23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee50:06

       Mm.

   24. ABAlain de Botton50:06

       So do you see what I mean? It, it allows one to encompass pain, which th- I mean, there are lots of ways of defining the word happiness, but for me, it's, it's, it's hard to imagine too much pain in a happy state, whereas in a fulfilled state you could be quite grumpy. You could be having-

   25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee50:20

       Yeah

   26. ABAlain de Botton50:20

       ... quite a sort of difficult, tetchy day, but basically still feeling you're leading the right life.

   27. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee50:24

       Yeah. No, no, it's, it's, it's an interesting concept, one that I think about a lot. I mean, my last book was on happiness, and I think many people mistake, um, certain short-term pleasures-

   28. ABAlain de Botton50:38

       Mm

   29. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee50:38

       ... for deep, uh, happiness, what I call core happiness.

   30. ABAlain de Botton50:41

       Right.
10. 53:59 – 58:17

    Status Anxiety, Meritocracy and Fortune

    1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee53:59

       Last night, I came across one of your TED Talks.

    2. ABAlain de Botton54:02

       Mm.

    3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee54:02

       This one was from, I think, 15 years ago.

    4. ABAlain de Botton54:05

       Mm.

    5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee54:06

       Um, and in it you said, "It's easier now to make a good living, but harder than ever before to stay calm and be free from career anxiety."

    6. ABAlain de Botton54:17

       Mm.

    7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee54:19

       I, I, I found that really an interesting phrase. You said that 15 years ago on the TED stage.

    8. ABAlain de Botton54:24

       Mm.

    9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee54:26

       Do you still stand by that today?

    10. ABAlain de Botton54:28

        I mean, perhaps even more so. You know, it's, it's... I mean, I, I was calling it in those days, I mean, I wrote a book on this called Status Anxiety, which is really an, an in... It's, it's a feature of what we call the modern world, which the modern world's existed for 200 years in the West. You know, what we call the modern world, which is, you know, a world where people are defined primarily by their activities, uh, by their jobs. You know, nowadays if you meet somebody for the first time, y- you, you say to them, "What do you do?"

    11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee54:52

        Mm-hmm.

    12. ABAlain de Botton54:52

        And according to how you answer that question, um, people will either be really pleased to see you or they'll kind of leave your side and think of you as- You know, that quintessential punitive modern word, a loser. And the thing about the modern world is that, um, it, it accords status according to a, a race, a professional race, which by definition, not everybody can win.

    13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee55:16

        Mm.

    14. ABAlain de Botton55:16

        I mean, that's the whole point. You know, it's, it's, it's a race, and there can only be a selective number of, of winners. This is an incredibly punitive system. Furthermore, we insist, uh, particularly find this in America, but really all over the world, um, on the idea that everybody has an equal chance-

    15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee55:33

        Mm.

    16. ABAlain de Botton55:33

        -to get to the top.

    17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee55:34

        Yeah.

    18. ABAlain de Botton55:34

        And you know, if you listen to politicians, right, left, all sides of political spectrum, they're always trying to build a world which is meritocratic. In other words, where those who get to the top deserve their success. But there's a nasty sting in the tail of that argument because if you really believe that those who are at the top g- deserve their success, you have to believe that those who are at the bottom deserve their failure. So in other words, the modern world adds to poverty and low status, uh, a condemnation, an implicit condemnation that you have failed, uh, because of your own deficiencies rather than, you know, because of the system. I mean, you know, in, in the Middle Ages, let's say, in Britain, um, a, a poor person, the poorest were known as unfortunates, right?

    19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee56:20

        Mm-hmm.

    20. ABAlain de Botton56:20

        Now, that's a really fascinating word, unfortunate. You unpack that word unfortunate, it literally, there's the word fortune in there. In other words, these people have not been blessed by fortune. And, and Fortune was originally a Roman goddess.

    21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee56:31

        Mm.

    22. ABAlain de Botton56:31

        Um, and she was de- she was believed to determine people's careers. So if you ended up with a really high-flying position in the Roman world, at least you acknowledged that at least half of your success was down to fortune.

    23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee56:44

        Mm.

    24. ABAlain de Botton56:44

        Nowadays, it's a very odd concept. You know, if, if I said to you, "Oh, I've been doing really well lately, you know, great business," et cetera, but I said, "Oh, it's not, it's not me, it's just I've been blessed by fortune." You'd go, "That's odd, odd guy. Is it oddly modest? Is he, is he arrogantly modest?" It'd be odd. Similarly, if I said to you, "Well, things are really actually not going so well for me. I've been sacked and my, you know, my, my, my income's dropped," et cetera. "But it's not my fault, it's fortune turned against me." You'd think, "No, you're not. You're making an excuse here."

    25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee57:09

        Mm.

    26. ABAlain de Botton57:09

        We hold people incredibly tightly to their own biographies, which is why at its most tragic, and this is, you know, this is a feature of the modern world which we have a hard time with. Rates of suicide increase as a society gets more modern. Um, as, as communal structures dissipate and as religious explanations for people's destinies fade, what you find is that people are held so responsible for what happens to them-

    27. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee57:36

        Yeah

    28. ABAlain de Botton57:36

        ... that it becomes unbearable. You know, it... You know, we were talking about one of your patients a while ago. It is not Allah's will that I lost my job. It's my fault.

    29. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee57:44

        Mm.

    30. ABAlain de Botton57:44

        And if it's only your fault, at some point, you know, people will, will break. And that's why we've moved from that term unfortunate now to that much more punitive term loser. You know, if, if, if you think somebody's failed or, you know, lost in their job, you might call them, especially in America, a loser.
11. 58:17 – 1:11:14

    How Childhood Patterns Shape Adult Behavior and Therapy

    1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee58:17

       You talk a lot, uh, about how our childhoods influence our adult lives.

    2. ABAlain de Botton58:23

       Mm.

    3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee58:23

       How we show up in relationships, how we feel-

    4. ABAlain de Botton58:24

       Yeah

    5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee58:25

       ... about ourselves. And I think whether it's in terms of our mental wellbeing or our physical health, it's undeniable that childhoods are crucially important. And if you think about it on a, on a sort of more public health scale, I really feel culture more and more, and society more and more really should be prioritizing those early years. Whether it be in terms of taking stress off parents, they can be, and you know, and actually pay attention to their children. Um, the nutrition we give at that age, all these things, you know, what happens in those early years are so influential.

    6. ABAlain de Botton58:59

       And, and I mean, it's deeply insulting. I, I don't want to believe this. You know, we all have heavy incentives not to believe this story because who wants to show up age thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, and be told that their first ten years are determining their life? I mean, this is one of those awful stories-

    7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee59:13

       Yeah

    8. ABAlain de Botton59:14

       ... that we've discovered. That doesn't mean to say it's not true.

    9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee59:16

       Yeah.

    10. ABAlain de Botton59:16

        Unfortunately. You know, in the same way that, you know, you could hold a glass of water. For ages, people didn't understand that there could be enough bacteria in one glass of water to kill a city. You know, and, and microbiologists were saying, "No, no, it's possible. It happens." You know, there, there are, there are minute life forms that can destroy millions of people's lives, and it sounds implausible.

    11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee59:34

        Yeah.

    12. ABAlain de Botton59:35

        Doesn't mean to say it's not true.

    13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee59:36

        Yeah.

    14. ABAlain de Botton59:36

        And you know, look, if you look at anybody, if you look at any adult who is doing strange stuff, um... By strange stuff, let's imagine someone who's sabotaging their life. Every time that they get near to success, oddly, they blow themselves up.

    15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee59:51

        Mm.

    16. ABAlain de Botton59:51

        Or every time a relationship is working well, they sabotage it in some way, you know, and they go relationship, relationship after relationship. Um, what's going on? Why are we doing this? Almost certainly, you've got to look backwards. You have to look backwards, and this is what psychotherapy teaches us. So, so let's take this slowly 'cause it's a little bit odd. Most things that adults are doing that is counterproductive, that is not in their interests and the interests of those around them. Most of those things have a logic, a certain logic, a twisted logic you might say, that dates back to their early childhood where that behavior made a certain sort of sense.

    17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:00:28

        Yeah.

    18. ABAlain de Botton1:00:29

        And they keep doing it because they're unaware that it once made sense, and they're also unaware that it now absolutely doesn't make sense. Let me give you an example. So let's imagine that you're a child growing up in a familial war zone. Mom and Dad don't get on. They're throwing things at each other, there's violence, et cetera. One of the things that you might do as a child is disassociate. You cut yourself off from your emotions. So you're in a, you're in a high intensity emotional arena, and you just cut yourself off. You just go off and you, you fantasize, you, you disappear. This is brilliant. If you are five years old, you can't, you can't disappear. You can't get rid of your parents. You will You come up with this fantastic way of dealing with it. You disassociate. Fantastic. Scroll forward twenty years and that person's in a relationship.

    19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:01:14

        Mm.

    20. ABAlain de Botton1:01:15

        And suddenly things are quite intense. And what, what's that person doing? Disassociating. This is maddening for everyone around. They don't know they're doing it. Their partner might not be able to explain it to them, but they quite under- they feel it, but they don't have the words, the vocabulary, et cetera. And, you know, you can go through four divorces before you work out-

    21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:01:31

        Mm

    22. ABAlain de Botton1:01:31

        ... I'm doing this thing that made sense. And so the lesson of psychotherapy is to say, "Thank you very much to that very clever five-year-old that worked out that in order to survive they had to disassociate. Thank you for this, but now it's enough. Now we're gonna move on because this is no longer helpful." And you know, there are many versions of this. Take the person who can't stop making jokes. You know, we all know people who are a bit too lighthearted for their own good. They-- It seems like they can't approach pain. They, they're all the time cracking jokes, and there's a life of the party, but there's something plastic about their mood, we feel. If you scroll back, they're often, uh, people who've had to deal with depressed parents, where there couldn't, there couldn't be an acknowledgement of pain because the parent was sinking, so the child had to cheer up their parents.

    23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:02:20

        Mm.

    24. ABAlain de Botton1:02:20

        No child should have to cheer up their parents, but it happens a lot.

    25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:02:22

        Mm.

    26. ABAlain de Botton1:02:23

        Um, and that person then ends up being manically cheerful. Quite contrary to their own interest, they can't touch their own pain, because that would've been too hard when they were six, seven, and eight.

    27. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:02:33

        Mm-hmm.

    28. ABAlain de Botton1:02:34

        But they may now be forty-two. So super important to understand the pattern and correct it. And that's what, that's what we mean by psychotherapy.

    29. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:02:42

        Mm.

    30. ABAlain de Botton1:02:42

        Psychotherapy is a chance to observe your patterns. You know, people go, go through life projecting. You know that word projecting?
12. 1:11:14 – 1:20:49

    Therapy as Art, Quality of Therapists and Free Association

    1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:11:14

       Do you think everyone needs therapy?

    2. ABAlain de Botton1:11:17

       Um, let me say one caveat, which could sound rather unpopular, maybe unpopular among some people. Um, there are many bad therapists out there. You know, therapy is, uh, an incredibly complicated calling. Um, medical training, as you know, produces doctors who, on the whole, are fairly... should be interchangeable. You know? That, like, m- most doctors should tell you roughly the same thing if you go and see them. But you'll know, sort of dark thought, um, that some doctors are better than others.

    3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:11:47

       Yeah.

    4. ABAlain de Botton1:11:47

       It's a horrible thought.

    5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:11:48

       No, it's, it, it's true.

    6. ABAlain de Botton1:11:50

       But it's very painful. Very painful. People are often less willing to... You know, if, if they go and see a therapist and the therapist is not good, um, they'll go, "I hate therapy." And so I, I guess I'm trying to give hope to people who maybe have had an experience with a therapist-

    7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:12:03

       Mm

    8. ABAlain de Botton1:12:04

       ... didn't go well, um, and maybe it's to do with the therapist, not them. And so it just prepares you for thinking, "Okay, you might need to shop around." It's... Look, it's like books. You know that you can love books, but you go into the average bookshop and you pick up a book, you're probably not gonna like it. Most books are quite lousy. But some books are great.

    9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:12:19

       Mm-hmm.

    10. ABAlain de Botton1:12:19

        And it might take you quite a while to find the great book, the, the, the book that's working for you. And I think the same, you know, therapy is much closer to an art than a science, and a good therapist is a balance of all sorts of forces. You can't mass manufacture this character, and that's why most people have quite a bad time in therapy. Many people. Many people. Many people.

    11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:12:39

        I, I have so many thoughts.

    12. ABAlain de Botton1:12:40

        Mm.

    13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:12:40

        Uh, therapy is more of an art than a science. It's interesting. I was at... I was speaking at a trauma conference in Oxford a couple of weeks ago, uh, the Master's conference. I think you were there last year actually-

    14. ABAlain de Botton1:12:51

        Yeah

    15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:12:51

        ... from recollection. And I was on this panel discussion, and I can't remember what the question was, but at one point I ended up saying something I don't think I'd said before, which was, "I believe that my ability to help a patient, for most of the conditions I've seen throughout my career- ... is more art than science.

    16. ABAlain de Botton1:13:14

        Mm.

    17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:13:15

        I really do believe that because-

    18. ABAlain de Botton1:13:17

        What did you mean by that?

    19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:13:17

        What I mean by that is, um, I'm not talking about acute illness which often presents to the hospital.

    20. ABAlain de Botton1:13:25

        Mm.

    21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:13:25

        You know, a heart attack, a, a broken bone, a... Something that... You know, acute problems, uh, generally respond very well to modern medicine.

    22. ABAlain de Botton1:13:35

        Mm.

    23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:13:35

        Where I think we struggle in medicine today is that most of our training is given to us through the acute problem-

    24. ABAlain de Botton1:13:44

        Mm

    25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:13:44

        ... model. So we try and apply that kind of thinking to complex multifactorial issues that are driven by our collective modern lifestyles, mental wellbeing being one of them. You know-

    26. ABAlain de Botton1:13:55

        Yeah

    27. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:13:55

        ... where people are struggling, y- y- you, you can't just come and see the doctor for 10 minutes, have a quick chat. We run a series of tests. Yes, so you have depression.

    28. ABAlain de Botton1:14:02

        Mm.

    29. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:14:02

        Uh, let me give you this. It will be gone in two weeks.

    30. ABAlain de Botton1:14:05

        Mm.
13. 1:20:49 – 1:29:29

    Solitude, Listening and Paraphrase

    1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:20:49

       This idea that we need time to allow the inner workings of our mind to emerge, I think is fascinating. I'm immediately drawn to something that I, uh, I, I say quite a lot, which is I believe the most important practice for our health and happiness is solitude. Mm. Like, I really, really believe it's very hard to live that contented, fulfilled, even healthy life without solitude. And one of the things I believe that solitude gives us, whether it be journaling or meditation or yoga, whatever it might be- Mm-hmm ... or a walk, um, is time for things to emerge. Yeah. And I feel one of the things that... I- is really possibly one of the most worrying and toxic things out there is to constantly be consuming. So you wake up, you pick up that phone, and you're consuming. Doesn't matter what it is, but let's, let's say it's news or, or social media stuff and, uh, whatever it might be, emails, right? Because it, it's external information from the outside- Gotcha ... constantly coming in. But if you don't have any space in your life, this is my view, um, where you stop that and allow the inner stuff to come out- Mm ... you're gonna find yourself living a life that you don't know who you are or what you're doing. Yeah. I mean, how do you look at that? Yes, I, I, I would agree. We're really talking about communion with yourself, allowing you to talk to you. Yeah. Allow you to know you. You say that solitude is important, and I agree that it, it can be and very often is a vital feature, though I also want to allow for the fact that sometimes that communion with yourself is... It is possible for that to happen with another person- For sure. Yes ... quite deeply. But you might say, "Well, how?" Well, that's if a person is gonna be... The other person is quite disciplined. And this is what, you know, in Therapy 101- Mm ... early training, the therapist... I mean, therapist, you know, one of the blessed things they do is they don't talk too much about themselves. They don't talk about themselves at all. Um, not because they're trying to withhold information, is they're trying to allow you to speak to you. And so they're another person who is both extremely interested in you, and yet they're not gonna rush in and go, "Well, that's funny because it reminds me of something that I said," you know? And they, they are putting their own ego aside in the name of listening to you. And that can be even more helpful to the journey of self-discovery than being on your own. Because when you're on your own, it's quite hard to sustain your curiosity about you. Mm. Whereas somebody else's curiosity, somebody who goes... Just listens very peacefully, very quietly and says something very encouraging like, "Just go on there," or, or- Yeah ... "I'm interested in what you were just saying about that. Say a bit more." That can give us the encouragement to keep up the exploration of ourselves that we sometimes lose faith in when we are simply alone. So one question I was gonna ask you before really, really fits nicely here, which is this idea that if we assume that therapy can be helpful for everyone, most people [laughs] Therapy that... Therapy that goes well. Yeah. Therapy in the hands of a good therapist. Okay. And then we acknowledge the reality, which is that many people, for a variety of reasons, maybe cost or- Yep ... access, you know, that they, they, they don't have access to a therapist- Sure ... basically. Sure. Um, I was gonna ask you, uh, could, could some... Spending, uh, prolonged periods of time with a close friend who has exquisite listening skills- Yep ... provide some of the benefits- Yeah ... that a good therapist can? Um, in theory, yes. Let's think about exquisite listening skills. I think I define them in the book. You do. Um, um, so, so one of the... You know, what, what is a listening skill? Um, it's gonna have something to do with allowing the other person space, and we're really not good at this. I mean, we're really terrible- Mm ... at allowing other people to actually speak. We think that an interaction with somebody always means that we have to say something about ourselves. You know, so, you know, the typical encounter is I tell you an anecdote, you tell me an anecdote, you know? And it's t- it's a sort of dialogue of the deaf. You know, n- neither side is really listening to the other one. They're just meeting in order to, uh, continue a monologue, an interrupted monologue. It's two monologues threaded together, and that's obviously no good. Um, true listening involves, um-

    2. ABAlain de Botton1:25:24

       Allowing-- I mean, so one of the things that Therapy 101 teaches you is, um, paraphrase. True listening involves paraphrase. So somebody says, you know, um, "I went to work. I'm really annoyed with my boss. Uh, you know, so, you know, they're not listening to me," et cetera. Um, normally someone else would come in and go, "Oh, funny, 'cause I don't get on with my boss either." And, and then, you know, go like this. If you're really listening, you might say something like, "Okay, I'm, I'm hearing that today didn't go well, and that it's got something to do with your boss, and that it's something to do with the fact that he doesn't seem to respect you," or whatever it may be. That g- that summary-

    3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:26:01

       Yeah

    4. ABAlain de Botton1:26:01

       ... that, that concise summary of what the person's just said is a fantastic way of showing that you have listened.

    5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:26:07

       Yeah.

    6. ABAlain de Botton1:26:08

       It's, it's the biggest proof. Um, and, you know, you should do this with your children. I started doing this with my kids. Um, so they're teenagers, and I remember, I remember 'cause I did a therapy training, and, um, I thought, "I'm gonna just give this a go at home." So my youngest son came back, and he said, um, "Oh, I really hate school. I just... You know, they're just... The teachers, this, that, and the other." And it, it went on and on like this. And normally I would have come back with something optimistic. I'd have said, "Oh, it's not so bad, and it will soon be over, and, and you can do it," and all the rest of it, and he would've thought, "Ugh," and gone upstairs and, you know, it would've been total impasse. Thought, "Right. Let me try something else." So he went, "Blah," and I say, "Okay. I'm hearing that today's not been good, and I'm hearing that you're kind of sad and upset." So that gave him the encouragement to think, "Okay, for the first time, Dad's actually listening," right? So it's a good step. And then the more I just paraphrase. He would speak, I'd paraphrase. He would speak, I'd p-paraphrase. Um, that starts to deepen the conversation and give someone the confidence to think, "I'm in the hand." Look, one of the great mysteries of social interaction is, um, we don't feel that we have, um, equal amounts to say to all people. There are some people around whom we feel incredibly chatty, incredibly curious about our own minds. We, we go here. We go there. It's all right. And other people who may be perfectly polite, perfectly civil, uh, we just, we kind of forget. We, we feel boring.

    7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:27:41

       Mm.

    8. ABAlain de Botton1:27:41

       We may call them boring, but we probably don't call them boring. We just think, "Oh, I had a bit of a, bit of dry old lunch. I didn't, I, I didn't, I didn't have much to say for myself." Right? When you feel that you don't have much to say for yourself, it's almost always because your interlocutor is essentially sending unconscious signals that they don't have space for you, and because they don't have space for you, you don't have space for yourself.

    9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:28:04

       Mm.

    10. ABAlain de Botton1:28:04

        You, you lose the sense of what you want to say because you don't feel understood. The more someone understands, the more you understand yourself and what you have to say. And so, you know, I think the, the goal of social existence should not be to be thought of as a marvelously witty person, et cetera, but, but to be thought of as someone who makes you feel interesting.

    11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:28:27

        Yeah.

    12. ABAlain de Botton1:28:27

        Because that's a sign that you've allowed somebody to enter into the, their own experience.

    13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:28:32

        Yeah, I love that. It's interesting what you said about, um, what you might say to your children at the end of one of their school days when they-

    14. ABAlain de Botton1:28:41

        Mm

    15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:28:41

        ... when they express a certain, let's say, discontentment.

    16. ABAlain de Botton1:28:44

        Yeah.

    17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:28:44

        It made me also think about some of the kind of common phrases we often use when our children go off to school in the morning, such as, "Have a good day."

    18. ABAlain de Botton1:28:53

        Mm.

    19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:28:54

        And I-- As you were saying that, I thought, is that a good thing to say? Is that a helpful thing to say? Or, you know, it's an optimistic thing to say, but if we say that every day to our child, "Have a good day-

    20. ABAlain de Botton1:29:05

        Yeah

    21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:29:05

        ... have a good day, ha-have a good day," are we in some sort of danger of perhaps kind of pre-judging that day and making them feel-

    22. ABAlain de Botton1:29:14

        Okay

    23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:29:14

        ... if they don't have a good day, that this is a problem?

    24. ABAlain de Botton1:29:16

        Absolutely. So let's, let's try and improve on that.

    25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:29:19

        Okay.

    26. ABAlain de Botton1:29:19

        Because after all, if somebody said to you, "Have a good day," you wouldn't be that... I mean-

    27. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:29:24

        On the face of it, it's fine. It's just-

    28. ABAlain de Botton1:29:25

        It's fine

    29. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:29:25

        ... once you start questioning everything-

    30. ABAlain de Botton1:29:27

        Sure, sure
14. 1:29:29 – 1:37:54

    Relationships as Classrooms: Rupture, Repair and Good Teaching

    1. ABAlain de Botton1:29:29

       Okay. So every day is gonna bring challenges. So one of the things we might want to hear is, um, that the other person understands that today is gonna have its difficulties, but also that you hope that it's gonna be okay. I mean, so you wouldn't necessarily say, but something along the lines of, you know, "I hope you meet the challenges of the day in a, you know, reasonable way. I hope it's okay for you. I hope the challenges are okay." I mean, let's remember that when you've got a very angry person on your hands, w-when someone's very angry, the n-- what's the number one thing that they want to know? They want to know that you understand that they are angry.

    2. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:30:04

       Mm.

    3. ABAlain de Botton1:30:04

       Which is why, you know, it's a cliché, but it's a very good cliché to s- to say, "I hear you," is enormously important. If somebody's raging, right, and they go, "The fridge has been left open again, and the milk is..."

    4. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:30:15

       Yeah.

    5. ABAlain de Botton1:30:16

       Right? If you come back with, "Well, that's the way it is because I've been so busy all day," you're just gonna escalate the argument.

    6. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:30:22

       [laughs]

    7. ABAlain de Botton1:30:22

       Right? Whereas if you go, "I hear you. You're upset, aren't you? You, you've been upset, haven't you?" Immediately they'll calm down.

    8. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:30:30

       Or they might say, "Yes, of course I'm upset. You can see that I'm upset." [laughs]

    9. ABAlain de Botton1:30:34

       Yeah. Here I'm gonna be the optimist.

    10. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:30:36

        Yeah.

    11. ABAlain de Botton1:30:36

        Here I'm gonna be the optimist. I think they'll... I think their mood will-

    12. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:30:38

        Yeah. I, I agree with you there

    13. ABAlain de Botton1:30:38

        ... I think their mood will hugely improve 'cause they'll think, you know, we don't need life to be perfect, but we n- we, it helps hugely if we're understood for our pain at the deep imperfections of life, ranging from, you know, ranging from our death to the milk being off.

    14. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:30:52

        Yeah. It's connecting, isn't it? It's going, "Hey, listen. I, I'm, I'm hearing what you're saying here. You're annoyed."

    15. ABAlain de Botton1:30:57

        Mm.

    16. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:30:57

        "You're frustrated." But of course that, that sort of response requires you not to be in a reactive state, right? So if you're feeling stressed out, burnt out, you're knackered and come home from work-

    17. ABAlain de Botton1:31:10

        Mm

    18. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:31:10

        ... and then your partner says that to you-

    19. ABAlain de Botton1:31:12

        Mm

    20. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:31:13

        ... you might be less inclined to go, "I hear you."

    21. ABAlain de Botton1:31:16

        Yeah.

    22. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:31:16

        You might be much more reactive.

    23. ABAlain de Botton1:31:18

        Right. Which is why, you know, we need humor. Uh, and we also-

    24. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:31:21

        Yeah

    25. ABAlain de Botton1:31:21

        ... uh, you know, we're capable of repair. You know, the, the therapists talk about the i-idea of rupture and repair, that ruptures are okay, but what we need to flex is our ability to repair properly.

    26. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:31:31

        Yeah.

    27. ABAlain de Botton1:31:31

        And, and to know that a, a relationship will alway- will always be playing catch up in many ways. Um, but that the more we can build in moments, you know, uh- Parents of young children will know the idea of the date night, but what are you supposed to do on a date night when you, you go out with your partner and you've been maybe stressed with them all the time? Um, you know, a very useful, uh, thing to always, uh, advocate is, is that, you know, if you say to the person, "What are you angry with me about?" Because there's a lot of anger that builds up. You know, most-

    28. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:32:00

        Mm

    29. ABAlain de Botton1:32:00

        ... most couples get very frustrated w- with one another. Um, and to, so to say to your partner, "How have I frustrated you?" Because you will have frustrated them, course you will, because everyone frustrates everyone. But to be- give someone a chance to say, "Just tell me. I'm not gonna respond in a defensive way. Just tell me how I've managed to upset you, because I have." You know? I mean, people end up not having sex, broadly speaking, because people are furious with one another, but they've forgotten what they were furious about. But after a certain amount of fury and frustration, you don't want anyone touching you because you're furious with them.

    30. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:32:30

        Mm.
15. 1:37:54 – 1:45:26

    Practical Exercises: Empty Chair, Meditation and Final Words

    1. ABAlain de Botton1:37:54

       well, there are so many, you know-

    2. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:37:55

       And I know there's loads in the book, right? So-

    3. ABAlain de Botton1:37:57

       Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, there are so many, so many. I mean, one that comes to mind, um, it's one drawn from Gestalt therapy known as the chair, the two chair exercise, where you sit in a chair and you put an empty chair, um, in front of you and in the presence of a therapist. But, you know, you could also do it at home. You could do it with a friend. I don't know, you know, different views on this, but you talk to someone that you have been meaning to say something to, but you haven't. Maybe because they're dead, maybe because they're unavailable, but you've not allowed yourself to fully have a conversation with them. Um, and the chance to say, "Right, if my ex were here, what would I tell them?" And to actually say, "Right, this is what I want to say to you," and to actually speak it in the room-

    4. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:38:46

       Mm

    5. ABAlain de Botton1:38:46

       ... out loud, oddly focuses our thoughts and very often brings enormous calm to us. We, we start to see, "Okay, that's really what I want to say," and you didn't know before you started speaking.

    6. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:39:00

       Yeah.

    7. ABAlain de Botton1:39:00

       But as you speak, you start to assemble your thoughts. And as I say, it could be to your dead father, it, it, it could be to an ex, it could be to a colleague you haven't seen in 10 years. Whatever it is, um, unspoken conversations weigh heavy on us. I think we all have them. In our hearts, we have conversations that we've not been able to have because social life prevents us often from speaking. You know, there are things I need to say to my mother, but my mother died five years ago, or whenever I try and speak to her, she gets very upset, or whatever it is. So there's a conversation that you've not had, and maybe you can't have it in front of them, but it helps to try and have, as it were, your side of it, because you often, you know... Sometimes you, people advocate writing a letter, um, and then not sending it.

    8. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:39:43

       Yeah.

    9. ABAlain de Botton1:39:43

       Um, it, it's, you know, being heard for saying something is one part of the equation, but it's not all of the equation. It's only one part.

    10. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:39:51

        Yeah.

    11. ABAlain de Botton1:39:52

        And there's a tremendous value in simply having your say, even if that say is only heard by you as the audience.

    12. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:39:58

        Yeah. That, that's a wonderfully novel perspective on conversation. I think many of us think a conversation is a two-way dialogue. Uh, and of course, there are benefits to having a two-way dialogue. But as you say, if you're not able to, for whatever reason-

    13. ABAlain de Botton1:40:15

        Yeah

    14. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:40:15

        ... well, you can still say your side of it, and that has-

    15. ABAlain de Botton1:40:18

        That's right

    16. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:40:18

        ... incredible value. And I know I've experienced this and many people have, whereby, uh, WhatsApp voice messages-

    17. ABAlain de Botton1:40:24

        Mm-hmm

    18. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:40:24

        ... I know it's, you know-

    19. ABAlain de Botton1:40:25

        Mm

    20. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:40:25

        ... not, not the same thing-

    21. ABAlain de Botton1:40:26

        Mm

    22. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:40:26

        ... but, uh, I've got a very close friend who we exchange, uh, WhatsApp voice messages-

    23. ABAlain de Botton1:40:32

        Mm

    24. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:40:32

        ... very regularly.

    25. ABAlain de Botton1:40:34

        Mm.

    26. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:40:34

        And they could be five, 10 minutes sometimes, and, you know, we're both happy to receive them and send them. Um, but you find that, you know, often I'm out for a walk and I'm, I'm leaving this message, and it's incredible how therapeutic it is because you're, you're kind of-

    27. ABAlain de Botton1:40:47

        Mm

    28. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:40:47

        ... working through stuff as you're saying it. It has real, real power.

    29. ABAlain de Botton1:40:52

        And more poignantly, you know, sometimes people who've had difficult upbringings, different, difficult childhoods will, after a period away from their parents, think, "Right, I'm gonna go and meet my parents, and I'm gonna tell them how things really are for me." And sometimes those conversations go well, and sometimes, I would say perhaps more often than not, they go really badly wrong-

    30. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:41:08

        Mm

Episode duration: 1:45:26