Happiness for Cynics podcast
This week, Marie and Pete discuss what it means to be living a psychologically rich life and how to reach your potential.
Show notes
Measuring your Psychological Richness – according to University of Virginia psychologist Shigehiro Oishi and his team.
Just answer on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree) and see how you go! What you do with your final score is up to you 🙂
- I have had a lot of novel experiences.
- My life has been full of unique, unusual experiences.
- My life consists of rich, intense moments.
- I experience a full range of emotions via first-hand experiences such as travel and attending concerts.
- I have a lot of personal stories to tell others.
- On my deathbed, I am likely to say ‘‘I had an interesting life.”
- On my deathbed, I am likely to say ‘‘I have seen and learned a lot.”
Recommended book on monogamy in the 21st century
Mating in Captivity by Esther Perel
Transcript
[Happy intro music -background]
M: Welcome to happiness for cynics and thanks for joining us as we explore all the things I wish I’d known earlier in life but didn’t.
P: This podcast is about how to live the good life. Whether we’re talking about a new study or the latest news or eastern philosophy, our show is all about discovering what makes people happy.
M: So, if you’re like me and you want more out of life, listen in and more importantly, buy in because I guarantee if you do, the science of happiness can change your life.
P: Plus, sometimes I think we’re kind of funny.
[Intro music fadeout]
P: [Dame Edna voice] Hello darlings.
M: [English accent] Hello.
P: Laugh, we’ve gone English!
M: I’m not going to keep that up because I don’t feel like being vulnerable right now, laugh.
P: Oh, that’s not good, are you ok Muz?
M: Ahh… yeah. Just, just tired. Tired, which just makes everything, you know, that bit testier and yeah.
P: Yeah, resilience gets low when we’re tired.
M: Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. So, we were just talking about a lovely listener who wrote us a beautiful message. Her name’s Laura.
P: Hi, Laura. We love you, Laura. Thank you so much for your email. It was so lovely to hear from you.
M: And we’re dedicating this episode to Laura, who’s had a tough year. A lot of us have, but [she’s had] a particularly tough year. So, Laura is also a positive psychology fan and is working on her own podcast.
P: Yes!
M: Which she’s yet to launch.
P: Come on, Laura, you can do it!
M: Laugh.
P: Just jump in! Turn towards the tidal wave with open arms and dive in! Laugh.
M: Be vulnerable, do it!
P: Laugh.
M: We’ll be your first listeners.
P: Absolutely, absolutely. I love what she said in the email because she talks exactly about what we talk about here on the podcast, the interest in positivity and being creative and finding different ways of reframing and being vulnerable and… just hit that open button and just go for a Laura! Share it! Because that’s ultimately the best way to create more energy and to create more connections.
M: And who would have thought, Pete, that anyone would give two hoots about what we have to say?
P: Laugh! I know, hello?!
M: When we launched my Mum, your sister, my sister were our only listeners.
P: Laugh, yeah, yeah.
M: We do have some lovely, like good friends that we know of. But there are hundreds of people who tune in every week to listen to us have a chat, laugh.
P: Laugh. Crazy really!
M: It is.
P & M: Laughter!
M: We’re calling all our listeners crazy. That’s probably not smart marketing.
P: No, definitely not. We’re fabulous. We’re artists, we know that we’re fabulous.
M: Well, our listeners are fabulous.
P: Yeah, our listeners are fabulous. Out listeners are unicorn idealists, laugh!
M: Absolutely.
P: Laugh!
M: I actually saw a lovely quote, which said, you know, next time you think ‘oh, I can’t believe we’ve got to work from home’, remember that you have a home, and you have a job.
P: Very true. Very true. Miserable being must find more miserable being and then he’s happy.
M: … I have no idea what that means.
P: Laugh!
M: What did you say, a miserable being must find another miserable being and then he’s happy?
P: Look up, Lady and the Tramp, the Russian Wolfhound talking to the Tramp. You’ll get it, laugh!
M: All right. Thank you for that clarification. We all have our marching orders, laugh.
P: Laugh!
M: Me and our listeners, laugh.
P: The Lady and the Tramp 1947. Don’t quote me on that, laugh. [1955!] Anyway, moving on.
M: Moving on. What are we talking about today?
P: A psychologically rich life.
M: A psychologically rich life.
P: Mmm.
M: And I don’t think that anyone, in my entire… 21 years has ever said to me it’s important that you have a psychologically rich life.
P: I love this idea. I think it’s brilliant. It’s kind of, it is that thing of turning towards the world and going ‘Come at me. I’m ready!’ Laugh, bring on everything.
M: I think it’s a real… struggling for the right word, real example of how far we’ve come since we grew up, in the early 2000’s.
P: [Snort] Laugh! That’s being very generous!
M: Laugh, ok in the 21st century. When we grew up back then [late 1900’s] mental health and psychology were… I mean psychology was purely about fixing the ill, the mentally ill.
P: The seriously mentally ill, yeah.
M: I said purely – we do acknowledge that positive psychology was around at that time but really was in its infancy. And secondly, like no one talked about mental health.
P: Yes.
M: It was like death and taxes – not death and taxes, wrong thing.
P: Laugh.
M: Health and money. You never talk about it. Very English.
P: Not a conversation one brings up in polite society.
M: Mmm hmm, and nowadays it is on the front page.
P: Mmm.
M: Self-care is on the front page of every woman’s magazine. Men have magazines dedicated to mental health. You guys are lagging a little bit behind us women, we cottoned on a bit earlier, you know.
P: Yeah, you’re so much more emotional. Laugh!
M: Not only that but more in touch with our emotions. I would argue that men are just as emotional because anger is a very, very strong emotion.
P: You don’t, you don’t have to justify that. That was completely tongue in cheek. Let me qualify for our listeners, laugh. Uh, there’s this wonderful programme that I’ve been watching about Australian politics and the role of the female in Australian politics.
M: Yep.
P: And there’s this, there’s this whole point that they make about, that’s a line that is levelled at women when they are getting aggressive and they’re getting passionate. It’s like ‘Oh, stop being so emotional.’ I’m like what the?
M: Mmm hmm.
P: No, I’m not being emotional. I’m being direct. I’m being assertive.
M: Passionate.
P: Yes, exactly. And I’m all for the passion and displaying passion.
M: Oh, we know you’re all for passion.
P: [Fake offended voice] What are you saying? How dare you suggest such a thing.
M: Can’t tell you what I’m saying, it’s a PG show.
P & M: Laughter.
M: Anyway, back to a psychologically rich life.
P: Yes, sorry. We digress.
M: Laugh, we digress. We tend to do that a lot.
P & M: Laughter.
M: So, this idea is very much driven by University of Virginia psychologist Shigehiro Oishi.
P: Well done.
M: Who defines happiness and well-being as a psychologically rich life. So, we talk about happiness and what is happiness, and Shigehiro, says happiness is about living a psychologically rich life, and that is a life that is characteristic by:
- Variety,
- Depth, and
- Interest.
P: Mmm.
M: So, it’s about not being bored and about having novel experiences.
P: I like the use of the word novel because… it’s not about just the pleasant, fluffy stuff on top. It’s about everything. It’s having the lovely, beautiful, indulgent moments. But it’s also about some hard nuts of reflection.
M: Novel for me means things like chasing new experiences all the time and the one thing that makes me think, ‘Oh, I don’t know if I’m quite on board with this’ is what does that mean for monogamy?
P: Wow. Okay!
M: Laugh, we’re going there.
P: I’m strapping myself in, laugh.
M: And I think there’s some great feminist literature, and I’ll have to find the books and put it in the show notes. [see above]
M: Some great books out there that talk about monogamy in the 21st century and how there’s a pull between wanting novel, we search for novel things in life. We get bored quite easily as humans.
P: Yep.
M: Especially, you know, one year, two years, five, ten, twenty, thirty years in.
P: Yep.
M: You know, if you’ve been with someone, there’s not much you don’t know about them after about three years, you know, once that honeymoon period is over, right?
P: Sure.
M: And the reason we have that honeymoon period is because we’re finding out new things, right?
P: Mmm, mmm.
M: However, love relies on that depth of connection over time, the real deep love. So, if you always end your relationships when those honeymoon periods end then you’ll never get that true depth of connection.
P: Okay, I like the way you’re describing this. This is. Yeah, I’m with you.
M: So, I think for monogamy, you’re giving up on that novel-ness with that one person you spend the rest of your life with.
P: Mmm.
M: That’s what you’re agreeing to not have.
P: Hmm.
M: Open relationships, kind of is a new thing that a lot of, not only LGBTQ people are considering nowadays, but straight couples are now, you know, opening the doors to that.
P: Yep.
M: But I think novel experiences in the rest of your life, absolutely agree. That, to me, is psychological richness.
P: I agree. And they’re not always pleasant experiences either. It’s, it’s not always the, the fun and exciting stuff. Sometimes it’s the unpleasant, and it’s the difficult investigation that needs to actually come out.
M: Mmm hmm.
P: And I’ve got an article that I’ve referenced here from someone who also references Oishi. Which is by Scott Barry Kaufman. Interestingly enough, Laura mentioned Scott in her email to us.
M: Yep.
P: Laugh.
M: Small world, laugh.
P: Yeah, yeah, it was always meant to happen, laugh. But yes, Kaufman talks about the psychologically rich life as being:
- Deep Emotions,
- Diverse,
- Novel – as you said,
- Surprising, and
- Interesting Experiences.
M: Mmm hmm.
P: Sometimes the experiences are pleasant. Sometimes they are meaningful, and sometimes they are neither pleasant nor meaningful.
M: I… Oh. So, when we went to India, that was transformative for me.
P: Yes.
M: It was the most run down, impoverished society I’d ever been in and trust me, I’ve been in. I’d lived, actually overseas, in a house that had no windows and no running water, so you know, I’d seen poverty. But the things I saw in India have stuck with me. I can still smell, smells of India.
P: Yeah, wow.
M: And I can still in a real tangible way, remember a lot of just horrible, horrible things. But I also still remember the, the polar opposite, the beautiful, beautiful countryside and the riches of that country. You know, the juxtaposition is just amazing. And for me, of all the countries that I’ve visited, that’s the one that stands out because it was it was novel the whole way through.
P: Mmm.
M: But some of it was not nice, laugh.
P: No.
M: No, laugh.
P: Yeah, but it’s still beneficial. It gives you an experience, it gives you a relative understanding, and this feeds into reframing, which we’ve talked about before. It’s a perspective. So, coming back to my original quote, a miserable being must find a more miserable being. It’s about understanding that there is always something that could be worse. And when you have that breadth of perspective than the fact that you can’t get a choc soy latte with no foam, it’s a little bit relative, laugh.
M: It does give you that relativity, right? It’s the juxtaposition of how horrible life was at some point that it helps you appreciate how good life actually is a lot of the time.
P: And that can turn things around. I find myself doing this a lot. Yeah, I’m an emotional, demonstrative person and –
M: – No?
P: Laugh! Don’t agree too quickly, Marie.
M & P: Laugh.
P: The point is, when you’re in the depths of despair and like, ‘Oh, my God, life is so hard’ all it takes is that relative understanding and going, ‘Oh, but I’ve got this. I’ve got that’ and it’s what you we’re saying, ‘I have a job, I have a house.’
M: Mmm hmm.
P: That’s enough and if I just focus on those things then maybe I could turn this around.
M: But it’s not turning it around, because you’re allowed your tantrum, you’re allowed to feel crappy.
P: Absolutely.
M: You know, things go wrong.
P: Who doesn’t love to put on their Princess tiara and go for it!
M: Me!
P: Laugh!
M: Well, actually, Pete, you found me today with my vodka and my chocolate.
P: Laugh!
M: I’m having one of those days where I’ve allowed myself chocolate bickies. Dairy free of course.
P: You’re going to pay for that. You know you’re going to pay for that, the next 24 hours, laugh.
M: No, no, no, they’re dairy free, gluten free. …You know, people don’t need to know my eating [intolerances].
P: Laugh!
M: Anyway. Um, but you found me today with the chocolate biscuits and the vodka, laugh.
P: Oh, dear.
M: Right? Laugh. It was one of those days where I needed to. And we talked about different types of care and rest. This was a rest from having to be healthy and look after myself and do the right thing all the time.
P: Love it.
M: Look after myself.
P: I’ve had a day like that. As I said, I said to Marie this morning, I sat down this morning, I’ve got a week off of lectures this week, I was gonna do four hours of study. I lasted 45 minutes and then I went and played in the garden, laugh.
M: Perfect.
P: Yay.
M: I think that’s part of self-care and forgiving the fact that you didn’t do four hours of study and you only did 45 [min]. That will come back, you can’t avoid things forever, right?
P: No, it’s not about avoiding. No, very true, and you pick it back up again. But it is important to give yourself that slack. When you’re having those days, It’s okay, and that’s a novel experience.
M: Gardening instead of studying?
P: Sure.
M: There’s nothing novel about that for you, Pete.
P: Laugh. Come on, I was reaching, laugh.
M: All right, so let’s help people understand how they can have a psychologically rich life, according to Shigehiro.
P: Mmm.
M: So, the way that him and his team measure a person’s level of psychological richness or propensity towards novel experiences is by asking a whole lot of statements. So, what we’re going to do, Pete, is I’m going to read these statements out.
P: Ooh, fun! Audience participation!
M: Did you say the F word? You dropped the F bomb then.
P: No, I said audience participation and I shimmied my shoulders.
M: Oh, I’ve got no idea what I heard there…
P: Laugh!
M: Anyway, we are going to answer on a scale from one which means strongly disagree to seven which means strongly agree.
P: Okay. All right, I’m ready. I’m strapped in, laugh.
M: Okay. And what you do with your final score is up to you. So, this is just a bit of self-exploration for a Monday morning, which is when we launch or whenever you’re listening to this.
P: It’s Monday already! Oh, my Lord!
M: Laugh. [Quietly speaking] We release our episodes on Monday morning Pete, laugh.
P: I knew that, laugh.
M: You rock up every week and you’re like I don’t know what happens after this.
P: Laugh!
M: Somehow, stuff gets published, laugh.
P: La, la, la, la I’m fabulous.
P & M: Laughter!
M: Alright, let’s get through. So, I’ve picked eight statements for us to go through before we run out of time. So, the first one on a scale of 1 to 7. Do you strongly disagree [1] or strongly agree [7]?
I have had a lot of novel experiences.
P: I’m going to go a big old seven. I feel like I’ve… If I died tomorrow, I’d be really happy with the life that I’ve had thus far. I’ve had some amazing highs and big lows. I’ve had lots of different stuff going on. I’ve had lots of novel experiences and so, yeah, I’d be really happy with saying seven on that. I feel very lucky to have had the opportunity to live the life that I’ve lived.
M: Aww, that warms my heart.
P: Well, you’re a big part of that Marie. Big love.
M: Oh, even better. All right, number two,
My life has been full of unique, unusual experiences.
P: Mmm. I’d probably say another strong, a strong seven. Um, unique? definitely. It’s always relative when you talk to people.
M: Mmm hmm.
P: And I can say, ‘Oh, I’ve done this, this and this and people go, ‘Oh, my goodness. You’ve lived a really full life.’
M: Mmm hmm.
P: And you go, ‘Oh, have I? It’s just It’s just what I’ve done.’
M: Ha, ha, ha. Yep!
P: Doesn’t everybody do this?
M: I been stumbling through and that’s where my life took me so I went.
P: Yes, I was kicked out of France and held in a holding cell with French policemen. And that was fine.
M: Laugh. They were cute, so it was okay.
P: They were fabulous, all they wanted to talk about was rugby.
M: Ha, lovely. And they probably would have been nice, I’m sure because they won the world cup.
P: Yeah.
M: That was a while ago.
P: Yeah, yeah. Laugh.
M: Okay. Moving onto number three.
My life consists of rich, intense moments.
P: 6 to 7. Rich and intense. That’s an interesting use of phrases I would say intense, definitely. I think I almost encourage intense experiences. And that comes from having…
M: Do you?
P: Sorry?
M: Mmm, no. Keep going.
P: I’d say.
M: No, you finished.
P: Intense experiences. I would say that I’m the person that runs headlong into a storm.
M: Mmm.
P: I’m like, ‘All right, if it’s coming at me, I’m not going to run away from it, I’m gonna go ‘Right, come at me, here we go.’
M: I hate conflict, but in general yes.
P: Yeah.
M: I feel like my life is kind of like a bell curve. It’s either I’m hiding away and writing for hours on end with no like –
P: Yes.
M: Everyone leave me alone and I want to read a book. And I want to lead the most grandma-ish of lives. I just need to pick up knitting and I’ll be right.
P: Laugh. I can’t see you knitting.
M: It takes too much patience for knitting. And then on the other side, it is I don’t know the word no, I’m all in and I’m in 150 million bajillion percent, laugh!
P: Yeah, yep.
M: There is no in between for me.
P: That’s richness.
M: Yeah.
P: You’re probably a rich thrill seeker.
M: Absolutely. Yeah.
P: Yeah.
M: Give me a theme park.
P: Yep, you’re in for the ride.
M: Yeah.
P: Laugh.
M: All right, number four.
I experience a full range of emotions via firsthand experiences such as travel and attending concerts.
P: Big old yes. Hard yes.
M: That’s a yes for me too. Well, pre covid.
P: Obviously. But even, even within covid, there’s, there’s I think that yeah, there are.
M: You compromise.
P: There are ways of accessing, you go seeking it. You go looking for it.
M: Mmm hmm.
P: It’s like I need I need that rush. I need I need something exciting so, whether it will be, you know, having a naked bath on the front of the balcony where everyone can see you or something like that, I don’t know. I’m thinking of a friend of ours.
M: [Whispers] Remember we’re PG?
P: I know, but it’s so much fun!
M: Ok, moving on.
P: I love you, Felix. Laugh!
M: I have a lot of personal stories to tell others.
M: See, I don’t think I’m the best storyteller, but I do have a lot of stories, I’d say.
P: I’m mid-range on this one. Yeah, yeah, that’s a hard one because that’s again that’s being vulnerable.
M: And open and you don’t generally tend to go ‘blah, here’s my everything.’ Like it’s taken me a while to get to know you and hear your stories, but I would say you do have a lot of them.
P: Interesting. Okay, I would never make that judgement. I would let my friends make that judgement to be honest.
M: I’ve never had troubles with you, not talking. Laugh.
P: That’s because it’s you Muz. Laugh. Well, yeah, well, me and shy don’t necessarily go together.
M: Laugh, mmm.
P: Although I can be. I do say to people sometimes I’m naturally very shy, really, I am.
M: [Snort] Laugh.
P: Laugh!
M: All right. Let’s get through these last two so our lovely listeners can go off on their days. Okay, they get a bit morbid here.
P: Oh, my Lord!
M: On my deathbed, I’m likely to say, “I had an interesting life.”
P: I think I’ve already answered that one. I answered that one in question one.
M: Yeah, you did.
P: Moving on.
M: And the last one is,
On my deathbed, I am likely to say, “I have seen and learned a lot.”
P: Hard yes.
M: For me, yes. But I do want to say that I hit a period in my life and career after studying, going overseas and, you know, um, playing volleyball around the world and all of that where I hit my career and I settled. And I, for some reason, thought that was when, you know, like, things should calm down and you have your four weeks of holiday and a lot of people get into that trap.
P: Mmm.
M: You know, I was climbing the corporate ladder, saving to buy a house. That kind of stuff and life didn’t… wasn’t psychologically rich. I kind of stopped doing a lot of that stuff for a while, and I burned out. I was too focused on work.
P: That’s a really interesting point to kind of bring to a conclusion with the episode is that if you feel like you’re not having a psychologically rich life, is that a point to turn around and go, ‘Maybe something’s not right here? Or maybe, maybe I need to reframe. Maybe I need to relook at this?’
M: Or make some plans. That’s, I mean that’s really all this comes down to.
P: Mmm.
M: What unique, intense, novel experiences that are interesting or can teach you things or show you new things can you put into your next month and your next year that you can look forward to and plan for?
P: I think that’s our weekly challenge to our listeners.
M: Mmm hmm.
P: We want rich, intense, novel… What was the fourth one?
M: Laugh, it doesn’t need to be all of them. One is fine.
P: Oh, come on!
M: Me and my eternal optimism just booked a cruise next year in Europe.
P: Oh! Wow! You’re brave.
M: We will see if I actually get to do that.
P: I just want to go to the mountains! Laugh.
M: But I’m all in!
P: So, that’s our homework people. To find something that can bring psychological richness into your month. It doesn’t have to be huge, remember that it can be something small, but I think I think that’s a really good focus for a monthly task to find something psychologically stimulating and rich, novel, intense.
M: Yep.
P: Open arms into the tidal wave, here we go.
M: And on that note, we’ll see you next week.
P: Have a happy week.
[Happy exit music – background]
M: Thanks for joining us today if you want to hear more, please remember to subscribe and like this podcast and remember you can find us at www.marieskelton.com, where you can also send in questions or propose a topic.
P: And if you like our little show, we would absolutely love for you to leave a comment or rating to help us out.
M: Until next time.
M & P: Choose happiness.
[Exit music fadeout]
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