I’m British and when we first moved to
the United States a few years back it
was a bit of a tough time in my life
here I was in California which everybody
knows is the world headquarters of
happiness but I’d left all my family and
friends behind
I was quite isolated and really I was
more lonely than happy so I thought I’m
gonna do what Americans do and pursue me
some happiness so I got out my phone and
I went to the App Store now I was
surprised to see that they were over a
thousand different options for apps that
promised to make me happy one way or
another and the one that I ended up with
would send me a text message every few
hours with a photo montage of happy
things so beaches sunsets puppies and
also pictures of my own loved ones so
one night I’m at home and my phone
buzzes you know that lovely sound that
suggests that somebody from the outside
world might be trying to get in contact
and I get that little Pavlovian jolt of
excitement and then I lurk and know it’s
my happiness app and it’s sending me
some pictures of my husband so I start
scrolling through the pictures trying to
get happy I look over and sitting next
to me on the sofa is my actual husband
and he has his boner as well and I can
see that on his phone screen he’s
looking at a picture of me and then I
look at the turbo sitting next to each
other in total silence looking at
pictures of each other
on our cellphones and I think this is
the end of civilization America has a
bit of an happiness obsession you know
it’s right there in the founding
documents of the nation happiness and
assault rifles those seem to be the two
major take-home messages from the
founding fathers and as a slightly
skeptical slightly reserved Brit the
whole happiness thing can feel quite
alien in the UK if somebody asks you how
are you the standard response is not bad
you know bad is the baseline and all
emotions must be expressed in multiples
of bad Oh can’t complain which we all
know is really just an opener for a good
ten minutes are really fulfilling
complaining but here it seems like if
you say anything less than great
everyone starts writing down the phone
number for their life coach it says
something about their extreme positivity
here it’s actually a trait that I really
admire this ability to see the positive
in almost anything at all when my son
first went to preschool here he got a
report card and this report card divided
up his performance not into strengths
and weaknesses as you might imagine but
into strengths and emerging strengths
emerging strength it actually turned out
he had a lot of emerging strength so it
was we’re hoping that one day you might
get to go to emerging Harvard or
problems that’s another one
apparently in California there’s no such
thing as a problem it’s like there’s
been a state law issue problems have
been officially renamed opportunities
don’t see it as a problem see it as an
opportunity and not long ago I went to
the supermarket and I went to use the
restroom and I walked through the door
and I immediately trod in a large puddle
of urine on the floor and as I was
wiping the pee off my shoe I looked up
and there on the wall was a sign and
this sign said if this restroom fails to
meet your expectations please inform us
of the opportunity opportunity I was
like well perhaps hygiene was one of the
emerging strengths in the UK it’s really
is almost the complete opposite we can
be kind of a miserable bunch let’s face
it when I used to work for a large
organization and at one point our
manager decided he’d had enough of what
he saw as this pervasive negative
attitude amongst the staff so he booked
this motivational trainer to come in and
and kind of G us all up a bit and this
trainer had us do this exercise and we
had to sit in a circle and the first
person had to say an idea and then the
next person was supposed to respond to
that idea with this statement starting
with the words yes and and the idea was
that we would all build on each other’s
suggestions rather than trying to knock
each other down with her no but here’s
all the reasons why that won’t work so
it starts off well first person says his
idea throws it to the next person and
that person responds yes and that’s
very honest thumbs aren’t really so
coming from that mindset it was really
quite a culture shock to see just how
seriously people in America really do
take the pursuit of happiness
it comes up in conversation all the time
people evangelizing almost about the
different plans and schemes and projects
that they’re undertaking to reach that
happy ever after
whether that’s mindfulness gratitude
journaling positive thinking self-help
book self-help workshops go to yoga it’s
almost like the way people talk about
happiness here it’s like the way people
talk about going on a diet you know
there’s not much pleasure involved in it
but it’s going to make me a better
person if happiness doesn’t hurt it’s
and all of this translates into really
big business the self-help industry is
worth about eleven billion dollars to
the economy and that’s not a very
conservative estimate Americans spend
more money and time and shared emotional
energy on trying to be happy than anyone
else in the world so by rights they
really should be the happiest people on
the planet but if you look at the data
really the almost the exact opposite is
true people in America rates that own
happiness lower than people in almost
any other developed nation they really
come right down at the bottom of the
list and one study recently actually
ranked the day to day contentment of
people in the United States as two
places behind people in Rwanda I mean
think about that for a second so what’s
going wrong why is a nation that is so
dedicated to the pursuit of happiness
really so comparatively unhappy well as
a journalist and as a person who is very
keen to become happier myself I became
fascinated by this paradox and I ended
up writing a book about it trying to
work out what was going wrong I had all
kinds of adventures in the self-help
movement and elsewhere I got into
various sticky situations I looked at
Parenthood I looked at religion I looked
at social media use I looked at working
culture or to try and work out what was
going wrong and what perhaps we might do
differently and also as part of my
research I spent many many hours reading
academic studies on happiness which let
me tell you is they fundamentally deeply
now is perhaps a mark of just what a
cultural obsession this is that there
have been over 60,000 research studies
published into what makes human beings
happy and as I started digging into this
vast body of research I realized pretty
quickly that these studies are
staggeringly inconsistent you can find a
study there’s suggest that almost
anything is the key to happiness but
also so is its exact opposite so
positive thinking will make you happy
but it will also make you anxious and
miserable mindfulness is the key to
contentment but mindfulness actually
won’t really do very much at all money
is of very little importance to
happiness but it’s also crucial
conservatives are happier than liberals
but liberals are also happier than
conservatives you get the picture
often these studies end up revealing
more about the agendas of the people
funding the studies than they do very
much about actual human beings but there
was one very notable exception there was
one thing that was completely consistent
across all the research one single
factor that contributes more to our
happiness than anything else by a very
very significant margin in fact it
Dwarfs everything else and this is
consistent across race across class
income gender personality type it really
is as close as you can get to a human
Universal I don’t really like this
terminology but I actually became
convinced that it was the secret to
happiness so what is it other people the
relationships that we form with the
people in our lives the support that
they give us and the time that we spend
with them accounts for a greater
proportion of our happiness than
anything else other people so with this
in mind have a think about some of the
common pieces of happiness advice that
we tell each other the kinds of things
you’ll see shared on social media
written in self-help books said in
graduation speeches
the received wisdom on happiness find
yourself be yourself search inside
yourself happiness comes from within
don’t let your happiness depend on other
people in an individualistic culture we
are taught that if we want to be happy
we should focus on the self self-help
self-care self-knowledge
self-improvement self self self we have
happiness back to front and at the same
time we’re locked into this rat race of
the self we are actually spent in
surprisingly little time connecting with
other people according to time use data
the average American spends only around
4 minutes a day hosting and attending
social events for minutes I mean add
that up across a year it barely gets
most people through one argument at
Thanksgiving with their racist uncle
hook and when it comes to any form of
socializing and communicating at all
where that’s our main activity rather
than an incidental part of something
else we spend barely 30 minutes a day on
that and that includes the bad
communicating as well as all the
heartwarming stuff 30 minutes so to put
that another way the most important
thing we can do for our own well-being
but yet we spend 23 and a half hours out
of it every day focusing on everything
but that so if you want to be happy and
most of us do here’s my advice step off
that self-improvement treadmill for a
bit give yourself a break from trying to
be more mindful more positive to think
better thoughts to drink more couches to
rack up more minutes on your meditation
app and instead follow the people call a
friend call your mum set aside time to
really talk with your spouse really talk
with your kids arrange to meet someone
do someone a favor be a good friend
invest your time and energy into
nurturing the relationships with the
people in your life the ones that you
love and thankfully no app can do that
thanks very much
[Applause]
[Music] [Applause]
the United States a few years back it
was a bit of a tough time in my life
here I was in California which everybody
knows is the world headquarters of
happiness but I’d left all my family and
friends behind
I was quite isolated and really I was
more lonely than happy so I thought I’m
gonna do what Americans do and pursue me
some happiness so I got out my phone and
I went to the App Store now I was
surprised to see that they were over a
thousand different options for apps that
promised to make me happy one way or
another and the one that I ended up with
would send me a text message every few
hours with a photo montage of happy
things so beaches sunsets puppies and
also pictures of my own loved ones so
one night I’m at home and my phone
buzzes you know that lovely sound that
suggests that somebody from the outside
world might be trying to get in contact
and I get that little Pavlovian jolt of
excitement and then I lurk and know it’s
my happiness app and it’s sending me
some pictures of my husband so I start
scrolling through the pictures trying to
get happy I look over and sitting next
to me on the sofa is my actual husband
and he has his boner as well and I can
see that on his phone screen he’s
looking at a picture of me and then I
look at the turbo sitting next to each
other in total silence looking at
pictures of each other
on our cellphones and I think this is
the end of civilization America has a
bit of an happiness obsession you know
it’s right there in the founding
documents of the nation happiness and
assault rifles those seem to be the two
major take-home messages from the
founding fathers and as a slightly
skeptical slightly reserved Brit the
whole happiness thing can feel quite
alien in the UK if somebody asks you how
are you the standard response is not bad
you know bad is the baseline and all
emotions must be expressed in multiples
of bad Oh can’t complain which we all
know is really just an opener for a good
ten minutes are really fulfilling
complaining but here it seems like if
you say anything less than great
everyone starts writing down the phone
number for their life coach it says
something about their extreme positivity
here it’s actually a trait that I really
admire this ability to see the positive
in almost anything at all when my son
first went to preschool here he got a
report card and this report card divided
up his performance not into strengths
and weaknesses as you might imagine but
into strengths and emerging strengths
emerging strength it actually turned out
he had a lot of emerging strength so it
was we’re hoping that one day you might
get to go to emerging Harvard or
problems that’s another one
apparently in California there’s no such
thing as a problem it’s like there’s
been a state law issue problems have
been officially renamed opportunities
don’t see it as a problem see it as an
opportunity and not long ago I went to
the supermarket and I went to use the
restroom and I walked through the door
and I immediately trod in a large puddle
of urine on the floor and as I was
wiping the pee off my shoe I looked up
and there on the wall was a sign and
this sign said if this restroom fails to
meet your expectations please inform us
of the opportunity opportunity I was
like well perhaps hygiene was one of the
emerging strengths in the UK it’s really
is almost the complete opposite we can
be kind of a miserable bunch let’s face
it when I used to work for a large
organization and at one point our
manager decided he’d had enough of what
he saw as this pervasive negative
attitude amongst the staff so he booked
this motivational trainer to come in and
and kind of G us all up a bit and this
trainer had us do this exercise and we
had to sit in a circle and the first
person had to say an idea and then the
next person was supposed to respond to
that idea with this statement starting
with the words yes and and the idea was
that we would all build on each other’s
suggestions rather than trying to knock
each other down with her no but here’s
all the reasons why that won’t work so
it starts off well first person says his
idea throws it to the next person and
that person responds yes and that’s
very honest thumbs aren’t really so
coming from that mindset it was really
quite a culture shock to see just how
seriously people in America really do
take the pursuit of happiness
it comes up in conversation all the time
people evangelizing almost about the
different plans and schemes and projects
that they’re undertaking to reach that
happy ever after
whether that’s mindfulness gratitude
journaling positive thinking self-help
book self-help workshops go to yoga it’s
almost like the way people talk about
happiness here it’s like the way people
talk about going on a diet you know
there’s not much pleasure involved in it
but it’s going to make me a better
person if happiness doesn’t hurt it’s
and all of this translates into really
big business the self-help industry is
worth about eleven billion dollars to
the economy and that’s not a very
conservative estimate Americans spend
more money and time and shared emotional
energy on trying to be happy than anyone
else in the world so by rights they
really should be the happiest people on
the planet but if you look at the data
really the almost the exact opposite is
true people in America rates that own
happiness lower than people in almost
any other developed nation they really
come right down at the bottom of the
list and one study recently actually
ranked the day to day contentment of
people in the United States as two
places behind people in Rwanda I mean
think about that for a second so what’s
going wrong why is a nation that is so
dedicated to the pursuit of happiness
really so comparatively unhappy well as
a journalist and as a person who is very
keen to become happier myself I became
fascinated by this paradox and I ended
up writing a book about it trying to
work out what was going wrong I had all
kinds of adventures in the self-help
movement and elsewhere I got into
various sticky situations I looked at
Parenthood I looked at religion I looked
at social media use I looked at working
culture or to try and work out what was
going wrong and what perhaps we might do
differently and also as part of my
research I spent many many hours reading
academic studies on happiness which let
me tell you is they fundamentally deeply
now is perhaps a mark of just what a
cultural obsession this is that there
have been over 60,000 research studies
published into what makes human beings
happy and as I started digging into this
vast body of research I realized pretty
quickly that these studies are
staggeringly inconsistent you can find a
study there’s suggest that almost
anything is the key to happiness but
also so is its exact opposite so
positive thinking will make you happy
but it will also make you anxious and
miserable mindfulness is the key to
contentment but mindfulness actually
won’t really do very much at all money
is of very little importance to
happiness but it’s also crucial
conservatives are happier than liberals
but liberals are also happier than
conservatives you get the picture
often these studies end up revealing
more about the agendas of the people
funding the studies than they do very
much about actual human beings but there
was one very notable exception there was
one thing that was completely consistent
across all the research one single
factor that contributes more to our
happiness than anything else by a very
very significant margin in fact it
Dwarfs everything else and this is
consistent across race across class
income gender personality type it really
is as close as you can get to a human
Universal I don’t really like this
terminology but I actually became
convinced that it was the secret to
happiness so what is it other people the
relationships that we form with the
people in our lives the support that
they give us and the time that we spend
with them accounts for a greater
proportion of our happiness than
anything else other people so with this
in mind have a think about some of the
common pieces of happiness advice that
we tell each other the kinds of things
you’ll see shared on social media
written in self-help books said in
graduation speeches
the received wisdom on happiness find
yourself be yourself search inside
yourself happiness comes from within
don’t let your happiness depend on other
people in an individualistic culture we
are taught that if we want to be happy
we should focus on the self self-help
self-care self-knowledge
self-improvement self self self we have
happiness back to front and at the same
time we’re locked into this rat race of
the self we are actually spent in
surprisingly little time connecting with
other people according to time use data
the average American spends only around
4 minutes a day hosting and attending
social events for minutes I mean add
that up across a year it barely gets
most people through one argument at
Thanksgiving with their racist uncle
hook and when it comes to any form of
socializing and communicating at all
where that’s our main activity rather
than an incidental part of something
else we spend barely 30 minutes a day on
that and that includes the bad
communicating as well as all the
heartwarming stuff 30 minutes so to put
that another way the most important
thing we can do for our own well-being
but yet we spend 23 and a half hours out
of it every day focusing on everything
but that so if you want to be happy and
most of us do here’s my advice step off
that self-improvement treadmill for a
bit give yourself a break from trying to
be more mindful more positive to think
better thoughts to drink more couches to
rack up more minutes on your meditation
app and instead follow the people call a
friend call your mum set aside time to
really talk with your spouse really talk
with your kids arrange to meet someone
do someone a favor be a good friend
invest your time and energy into
nurturing the relationships with the
people in your life the ones that you
love and thankfully no app can do that
thanks very much
[Applause]
[Music] [Applause]
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