April 6, 2021

Finding happiness ☀️ in challenging times: a cross-cultural comparison

Hear from top happiness experts about who finds happiness, what happiness feels like, how happiness varies across cultures & age groups. What can you do to be happier every day?

Speakers

Robert J. Waldinger

Director, Harvard Study of Adult Development; Director, MGH Center for Psychodynamic Therapy; Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital

Keyun Ruan

Founder, Happiness Foundation & Institute; Computer Scientist & Economist

Wade Davis

Professor of Anthropology, BC Leadership Chair in Cultures and Ecosystems at Risk; Author; Explorer-in-Residence, National Geographic Society

Highlights

Show Summary

Throughout our lives, it seems as if we’re always in the “pursuit of happiness”. Thomas Jefferson even listed it as one of three inalienable rights in the Declaration of Independence. But what if the key to happiness was right outside your door? This week on Imagination in Action, we host Robert Waldinger, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and the Director of Massachusetts General Hospital’s Center for Psychodynamic Therapy, Keyun Ruan, the Founder of the Happiness Foundation & Institute, and Wade Davis, Professor of Anthropology, author, and an Explorer-in-Residence for the National Geographic Society, who speak to us about the importance of relationships and being at peace with your emotions, how our humanity connects us, and how studying what makes us happy reveals not only our values, but deeper truths about human nature. With music from Alex Frankel, Max Holm, Cory Pesaturo, and Hayley Reardon, learn with us this week about why, as Keyun puts it, we “can hardly find a better goal than solving happiness.”