Unlocking The Good Life: The Power Of Psychological Richness

We all want to live the Good Life, but what does that really mean? Is a good life simply a happy one? Do we need to keep pursuing happiness, or should we shift our focus to finding meaning and fulfillment instead?

Lorraine Besser, PhD author of The Art of the Interesting on how to cultivate a good life.

Transcript

I am Anna Seewald,

And this is Authentic Parenting,

A podcast about growing ourselves while raising our children.

I'm a psychologist,

Educator,

And parent coach,

And on this podcast,

I explore how you can connect to your authentic self,

Practice radical self-care,

And raise emotionally healthy children.

Let's break the cycle of generational trauma for a more peaceful,

Kind,

And compassionate world.

Today,

Unlocking the Good Life,

The Power of Psychological Richness.

My special guest today is Dr.

Lorraine Besser.

She's a professor of philosophy at Middlebury College who specializes in the philosophy and psychology of the good life and teaches popular courses for undergraduates on happiness,

Well-being,

And ethics.

An internationally recognized scholar,

She was a founding investigator on the research team studying psychological richness.

She's the author of two academic books,

The Philosophy of Happiness,

An interdisciplinary introduction,

And Eudaimonic Ethics,

The Philosophy and Psychology of Living Well,

And dozens of professional journal articles on moral psychology.

We all want to live the good life,

But what does that really mean?

Is a good life simply a happy one?

Do we need to keep pursuing happiness,

Or should we shift our focus to finding meaning and fulfillment instead?

Traditionally,

Psychologists and philosophers have thought of the good life in terms of happiness and meaning or some combination of both,

But emerging research is revealing something more.

Psychological richness.

Today's guest is the pioneering researcher behind these studies,

And she shares how psychological richness can make our lives not just happier,

But more interesting.

She has written a book on this subject called The Art of the Interesting,

What We Miss in Our Pursuit of the Good Life,

And How to Cultivate It.

I really enjoyed this book,

And I highly recommend it.

What makes an experience interesting?

According to Lorraine,

It's those moments that captivate our minds,

Engage our emotions,

And often shift our perspectives.

And what's interesting is different for everyone.

The good news is we can all develop the skills to access more of the interesting in our lives.

As we begin this new year,

I want to inspire you with fresh ideas that can help you cultivate your own good life,

So let me ask you,

Do you know anyone who is truly living the good life?

Lorraine shares personal stories and offers practical tips to help you integrate these principles into your daily life.

I hope you find this conversation as intriguing as I did.

Please enjoy,

And thank you for listening.

Well,

Lorraine,

Welcome to the podcast.

I am so delighted to meet you.

Thank you,

Anna.

I'm really happy to be here.

I really enjoyed your book,

And I am so excited for this conversation.

I think to begin with,

I would love to ask you to talk about what were the dominant theories about happiness before your research,

Going into Aristotle's times,

Right,

The two main ways we thought about happiness.

I think it's good to know that,

Then we can dive into your work.

Yeah,

Thank you.

It's a great place to start.

So when Aristotle,

Who's an ancient Greek philosopher who really is the first to develop a serious account of the good life,

So he introduced two forms of candidates for what he thought would be the good life.

And the first was something like happiness,

Right?

He called it hedonia,

And that's what we can commonly know as hedonism.

And then the second is a form of life that's really wrapped up in meaning and fulfillment.

And for Aristotle,

This was eudaimonia.

He thought it would be a very distinctive kind of human flourishing that really involved our rational capacities.

And since Aristotle,

These dominant trends have really survived throughout history.

And certainly with the wake of positive psychology,

When positive psychologists first started studying the good life,

Right,

They looked to this very dichotomy between hedonism and eudaimonia,

Or what I'll refer to as happiness and meaning.

Yeah.

And what are the downfalls,

Pitfalls for those two approaches?

Clearly,

We can't always be happy.

We can't always seek pleasure.

That would be pretty boring.

But I bet there are other things than that you can elaborate on.

Yeah,

Thanks.

I think there are real limits to both of these forms of good life,

Which is why I essentially advocate for three dimensions of the good life.

And so we can start with happiness.

And as you said,

You know,

Happiness is really distinctive by our feelings of pleasure and positive affect.

And these feelings of pleasure originate within us as rewards,

As part of a reward system.

So when we do the things that we're supposed to be doing,

Like eating and having sex,

We feel pleasure as the reward.

And in order to function as a reward,

Though,

It's got to go away.

And so the way our systems are built is that the experiences that we can have of really robust happiness and pleasure are just going to be limited in their duration.

And I think this is something we all might intuitively know.

Yet I also worry a lot about what I think is a really common tendency,

Which is to think that we have to do everything we can to be happy.

And given that we can't,

You know,

I worry this sets us up for a really defeating cycle.

And I have similar concerns about putting all our eggs into like a life of meaning.

And so the life of meaning,

What we're really after there and what I'm describing here is a life guided by our rational capacities,

Whether that's through finding meaning,

Whether that's through finding meaning or purpose or achievement.

And what happens when we go after those things?

And they're all really good things to go after.

But what happens when we go after those things exclusively is that we really end up narrowing our focus.

Right.

We're interested in what we need to do to get ahead and anything else that either interferes with it is bad or if it doesn't interfere with it,

Just has nothing to do with it,

Then we don't pay attention to it.

And so we limit our focus a lot in the pursuit of meaning.

And we make a lot of sacrifices.

I'm sure all working people are familiar with this.

Right.

We make a lot of sacrifices along the way.

Yet at the end of the day,

What turns out to happen when we reach our goals is nothing.

And this is very,

Psychologists describe this in terms of the arrival fallacy.

Right.

We think as we're working,

We think it's going to be so great to finish this project,

To to achieve this goal.

And then when we get there,

Right,

Most of us are really left with a form of emptiness.

Right.

It feels feels like we just waited for this big thing to happen that it doesn't.

I think for these reasons,

You know,

It really makes sense to go for different good things in life.

And in particular,

Our new research is showing the importance of living a psychologically rich life.

Yeah.

I recently interviewed another author.

It just clicked for me when you said that she does talk about when we reach and pursue our goals,

There is that emptiness right before the next achievement,

Before the next goal.

She calls that in between space,

Wonder hell.

And she's a motivational speaker,

Not a scientist.

But she wrote a book about that space that is filled with intimidation,

Emptiness,

Yet also excitement because what's to come.

But then we're wrapped up in that cycle of achieving,

Pursuing,

Planning.

Right.

And that's not the happy life necessarily.

Right.

Very seldom we derive happiness from that.

We can't also pursue the pleasure path.

And so what is there?

Right.

What is there?

So psychological richness,

Which is a term I truly admire.

It's such an all-encompassing,

Rich term.

So you're not denying value of meaning and pleasure,

But you are adding the psychological richness as the third leg of the stool.

So what is psychological richness?

Yeah,

Thank you.

So psychological richness describes the impact that a particular set of experiences have upon our mind.

So experiences that tend to be complex,

Challenging or even novel have stimulated our minds to engage in a very robust way.

And the state of psychological richness that we're after is the state where you are experiencing this deep form of cognitive engagement.

And that's marked and really characterized by the experience of new thoughts and new emotions.

And so when we're having a psychologically rich experience,

Right,

We don't really know what we're going to be thinking or how we're going to be feeling.

Right.

But we're going along with the kind of trajectories of our mind and we're letting ourselves feel and think.

And what tends to happen,

What we know about these kinds of experiences is that after we have them,

You know,

They shift our perspective.

Right.

Just a little bit.

Right.

But over time,

When we keep engaging in these kind of ways,

Right,

We really find the benefits of having these kinds of experiences and ways in which they contribute to our good lives.

So psychological richness has three components,

I guess.

Novelty,

Challenge and complexity.

We will talk about that.

But why do you think we are so preoccupied,

Obsessed and chase happiness all the time?

What is that come from in humans?

It's even written in the Constitution of the United States,

Right,

And in pursuit of happiness.

It's something that we need to pursue.

That's why I love the title of your book,

Right?

The Art of the Interesting.

What we miss in our pursuit of the good life and how to cultivate it.

And I love that second part,

How to cultivate it,

Because it is cultivatable.

You know,

It's upon us.

We have,

We can design it.

It's not something that is out there that we need to pursue and get it.

Right.

Yeah,

It's really something that we can create within our minds.

And if we develop a certain kind of mindset or way of looking at things,

Right,

Then we'll be able to have interesting experiences that develop this psychological richness.

And I think that's among the many advantages or the highlights of this research.

I mean,

I think that's really most significant.

These other forms of the good life that we've just talked about.

Right.

They're very limited.

And whether or not we experiencing,

Whether or not we experience them really is out of our hands.

Right.

We're not completely in control of whether or not we make our achievements or get the rewards from others that we're seeking.

And we're certainly not in control of whether or not we can live any kind of sustaining,

Pleasurable state.

But we are able to engage with our surroundings,

With everyone around us in a way that makes our lives more psychologically rich.

So pleasure basically is sensory based,

Predominantly,

I guess.

Meaning is more rational,

Cognition based.

And so psychological rich experience also involves sensory,

Cognitive and emotions.

Right.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

And the extent to which,

You know,

Psychological richness,

As we can say,

You know,

It's really happening within our minds.

And it's certainly the product of many senses and our different and our different ways in which we are connected to the world.

But what's happening in the psychological richness,

Right,

Is that we're activating an area of our mind that often tends to get neglected.

So we tend to think when we think about our minds,

We think about this rational planning,

Pursuing,

Goal seeking side,

Super important to many areas.

But there's more to our minds,

Right?

Our minds have a capability for what I describe as unstructured cognitive engagement,

Where we simply engage in thoughts and allow ourself to feel things without aiming or trying to get anywhere.

And I think so it's a form of cognitive engagement.

So it's really based within the mind.

But it's all about activating this area of the mind that tends to get neglected.

It just tends to tends to like lose the battle between the planning side.

And and I think we're all really enhance our lives by activating it.

Yeah,

There was a story in your book that you and your friend decided to go plant,

Right,

This experience to go and look at some type of houses that they were built in this area.

But can you tell that story and what you discovered at the end?

Yeah,

Yeah.

This is such a great story.

I was going on an afternoon with a journalist who was interested in writing about psychological richness.

And she was really hoping that we would go out and have some kind of interesting experience.

And from the start,

I was skeptical.

This is the beginning of my research on this.

And I sensed that we really could not be planning these things.

But this proved it to me.

And so we set out on a mission.

There's this island in Lake Champlain where there's lots of different fairy houses built.

Right.

So someone had just randomly built fairy houses.

And we set out on this drive around the island to find the fairy houses.

We were very focused in the beginning.

Right.

We were very much like,

How do we find these things?

Where would they be?

And yet once we kind of figured out what to look for,

Right,

Then we were able to actually loosen up our focus.

And the most amazing thing happened for us along that drive is that we suddenly turned and looked at the forest next to us and we saw a bunch of very just colorful painted bird houses along with full size dinosaur statues just lingering in the forest.

And it was that was by far the most interesting thing that happened that day.

And we didn't plan it.

Part of what it made it so interesting,

No doubt,

Was that we just stumbled onto it.

And the other lesson that we opened with,

Right,

We would have missed it if we were planning and focusing too hard.

If we were just focusing on those bird houses exclusively,

We would have just driven straight by without looking out the window.

And so that's always been this really classic experience that serves as a reminder.

Right.

It really like when we're pursuing things,

Whether it's whatever it is that we're pursuing,

Right,

We narrow their focus and we miss out and we miss out on a lot of potentially very interesting experiences.

What you're talking about is that's room for spontaneity and for things to happen,

Allow and let it be the flow.

But I feel like I know people,

I have a friend,

We go on retreats together and she's a planner and I am the flowy type.

I'm like,

Oh,

Whatever happens,

Let's see.

Maybe we'll see something interesting.

Maybe we'll take Uber.

Maybe we'll do this because I find that that's that's more interesting.

But there's room for planning,

Right?

Obviously,

You need to plan ahead of time to go somewhere.

But if you're too,

You know,

Strict about your plans and expectations,

Then you're not going to find the interesting and find the benefits that come from it.

And,

You know,

Then there's more room for disappointment.

I feel like if you're when you plan and you want things to go a certain way,

Whether that's a vacation or a dinner,

You always end up feeling unhappy because it never goes according to plan.

Yeah,

I think about that in terms of like a yardstick.

Any plan just sets up a yardstick from which you measure like how far along you are and how exciting it should be at that moment.

And sometimes it is right.

But as you know,

You know,

Once we build expectations,

Then they can often be disappointed.

So in many areas,

We're better off.

Just not expecting things.

And as you said,

Though,

It can be hard.

Right.

You know,

I mean,

We need to plan.

And I think the message here is that we need to leave room for all of it.

Right.

We need in certain areas of our lives.

We certainly do need to plan.

And in other areas,

Though,

We're better off.

We're better off not or at least moving to a state where we loosen the grip that plans have on us.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I also kept thinking about a certain type of people that I know very closely who are not open to novelty change or they don't want to take on challenges.

They just love their comfort zone.

I know some people like that.

And I was wondering,

And you wrote about safety,

Feeling safe.

That's a prerequisite,

Right?

You need to be feeling safe in yourself or in the environment to let your mind wander and explore and find interesting things.

If you're constantly stressed,

You know,

In that overwhelmed state of being,

You miss a lot of interesting things.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

And,

You know,

One of the things about interesting experiences is that they're all very unique and specific to the individual.

Right.

There's nothing one thing that everyone is going to find interesting.

And I think one advantage of this is that when it comes to questions of comfort zones and what it takes to have an interesting experience.

Right.

It's all about where your comfort zone is and learning to push out the boundaries of your comfort zone.

And depending on where we're coming from,

That can be really hard.

And it might take real kind of baby steps to really kind of push out and just do something different.

And bit by bit,

Wherever your boundaries of that comfort zone are,

You can push away from them.

And yet the really important thing is to figure out where your comfort zone is,

Right,

And where those boundaries are for you.

Because what we're after is,

Again,

Novelty,

Complexity,

Challenge.

And what that looks like is different for everybody.

Right.

What's new is based on your own experiences.

What's challenging is based on your skills.

So it's a very individualized.

And I talk a lot in the book about how you can really learn your starting points and then try to build from those.

Yeah,

By reading your book,

I learned a lot about you.

And I was so surprised that you do all those adventurous things that I can never dare to do.

Snorkeling and skydiving,

Not skydiving,

Maybe,

But all those adventurous things that you do.

Skiing.

And that would never be my interest thing.

But it made me think a lot about my own comfort zone and my own interests and how you can make the ordinary in your life a little more novel,

Right?

You can incorporate.

So what I took away from your book was novelty.

There's two sort of prongs.

You can find it or you can create it.

Either it's there that you are looking differently or you create it.

There was this list in the book,

Probably 10 items,

What's engaging you today.

Can we perhaps read them and see what resonates with you and what resonates with me?

Just to illustrate that the interesting for people is always different.

Yeah,

Please,

Please.

So number one,

Hawaii has the most beautiful rainbows.

It's OK.

Right.

How is it for you?

Same?

Yeah,

It doesn't really spark me right now.

OK.

Lemons float,

But limes sink.

My mind goes,

Really?

Wow.

I want to go to the kitchen and try this.

It really sparked my interest.

Yeah,

For me,

For sure.

The first time I started thinking about it and I think I thought a lot about this one and kind of figured it out.

And so a little less novel for me in the moment.

Yeah.

Mount Everest is taller now than it used to be.

Wow.

This sparked my interest,

Too.

Really big time.

You know,

It was very interesting.

Let's do another one.

Steve Martin was a philosophy major.

OK,

It's just a fact for me.

Yeah,

Yeah.

It's an exciting fact for me as a philosopher.

But yes,

Yes.

And let's do the last one.

The circulatory system of a human being is more than 60,

000 miles long.

That piques my interest,

But not like in the lime and lemon situation.

That's the one that gets me every single time.

I just can't even imagine it.

Right.

I can't wrap my head around how something could be that long.

And,

You know,

One of the things that I do,

I so I develop that list as a way for readers to really learn that spark.

Right.

And to develop a sense of how it feels inside when interesting is kicking in.

And one of the things that I often do when I have this spark of something that I'm just find out and I'm like,

Oh,

That's that's super interesting.

You know,

I don't Google about it.

I don't do the research that would actually answer these questions.

Explain to me why limes sink first.

And because that would kind of end the that would end the intrigue.

And so I'm going to stay with that circulatory system.

That's the one that consistently really,

Really sparks me.

And I find it amazing to think about.

And I'm sure there's an explanation that will kind of take away the mystery.

But I don't need it.

I'm just going to be intrigued by it.

So how can we cultivate this openness to seeking or finding and seeing the interesting in our day to day life?

And you do talk about in your book that it doesn't have to be like a skydiving experience.

And I'll ask you a question about the contrast between those.

But where can we start?

Yeah,

We can start in our everyday lives.

We can start right now.

We can start on our way home from work.

Take a different route to look out the window.

See what's going on.

We can wear something different that we don't normally do.

Right.

We can,

You know,

Choose a different color pen to write with.

Right.

All of these ways are very small ways to introduce novelty in our lives.

But they add up.

And we can also discover novelty.

Right.

Simply by really noticing things when we tend to be in the same places and take the same routes.

We failed.

We stopped noticing things at a certain point.

But we can be in the same place we've habitated for a very long time and just look out and notice something new.

And that's the first start.

Right.

Is to bring to your awareness something,

Something that's new.

And that doesn't have to mean it is newly on the,

You know,

In your room or something like that.

But it's just all about bringing to your awareness something that's new.

Maybe this explains that I love rearranging furniture and books and home plans and things like that in my environment a lot.

I am known to do this since I was a kid.

Maybe I like the novelty of a room,

Right?

Of my environment.

I love it.

I'll share with you that right before I got on this phone call,

I rearranged my office and I'm still not quite happy with it.

But yeah,

It makes a big difference,

Right?

Stepping into a different place and it helps.

And it's these little tweaks that we can do.

And that's what I think is really neat.

We can we enhance our lives without having to really radically change them.

And that's distinctive about psychological richness.

Do all three components need to be present?

Can it just be novelty or the complexity and the challenge also have to be present?

Yeah,

No,

No.

It can be any of those.

And it could possibly be more.

Essentially,

The things that are correlated with psychological richness are things that really prompt your mind to engage.

And so,

You know,

When you're faced with something really complex,

Your mind,

You know,

We don't know what to do with it.

We have to think about it.

We have to figure it out.

And same thing with challenging experiences and novel ones.

That's what they're sharing in common,

That they are really placing you in a position where your mind is forced to engage automatically,

As it were,

Right,

Because of this newness or the complexity or the hard or the difficulty in this.

That being said,

Right,

We can these things are prompts,

Right,

To novelty,

Challenge these things are excellent prompts,

But we can create psychologically rich experiences without the prompt.

We can just simply start the engagement ourselves by being very curious.

And so if we bring their curiosity to the table,

Then we're actually stimulating our mind in a way that that novelty does and these other well-known correlates are.

We don't need,

You know,

We don't have to have those things in order to have a psychologically rich experience.

And I think we can get them really by being open to experiences and by being curious and by being a little creative and connecting new thoughts in our mind.

It's openness is one of the five personality traits,

Right?

Do you think we can,

People who are not so open minded,

Can they cultivate and become more open to experiences,

To novelty and all of that?

Yeah,

Of course.

Absolutely.

And it goes,

We're all starting from a different place.

And the degree to openness that we currently have is really just a product of largely about how we've been raised and the kinds of experiences we were introduced to or not as we've grown up.

Yet,

Even if you find yourself very low in openness to experience,

Right,

So you're not going to jump out of a plane or anything like that.

You don't have to do that,

Right?

But what you can do is just start to really kind of push,

Again,

Push your boundaries of openness.

And so if you are someone who is very,

Who hadn't tried a lot of different cuisines in your life,

Right,

And so you have a very limited kind of taste,

You can easily push that out very smallly,

Right,

By just,

You know,

Having,

You know,

Getting out there and just having something new or having your favorite ingredients in a different way,

Right?

All of these things are going to create and generate a kind of engagement that we're looking for,

And they'll help you push your boundaries.

It's really,

You know,

For a long time,

We did think that these personality traits were fixed and you either had it or you didn't,

But they're not fixed.

And so I think we can all enhance our openness to experiences simply by trying new experiences.

And what that looks like for each of us is going to be different depending on our starting points.

Can you talk about the role of solitude?

I really enjoyed reading about it because I really derive a lot of joy and meaning and happiness,

I guess,

From,

You know,

From solitary activities,

Being in solitude.

But I know not many people like that.

They find that uncomfortable,

In fact,

Right?

What's the role of solitude in finding the interesting or the psychologically rich life?

Yeah,

I think it's a great place to practice having interesting experiences when you are in solitude,

Right?

The only kind of thing that's on your mind is yourself.

And I sympathize with those who struggle in solitude.

And I find for me personally that when I'm having these rare moments in our lives where I'm alone,

You know,

I can very easily just kind of be like,

I'm alone,

I don't know what to do.

But you got to flip a switch and just say,

Yes,

I'm alone.

And now I can do what interests me alone.

And so I advocate for a lot of different kind of practices in solitude.

You know,

Journaling is a great one,

Right?

Just sit down and try to write something.

And through these practices in solitude,

Right,

Or just going for a walk on your own outside,

Noticing the different,

You know,

Whatever your different surroundings happen to be.

So through these different practices,

They really offer an opportunity for us to generate the skills within our mind and to learn how that feels for us.

And so psychological richness,

It happens in our mind.

So we can we it is a great thing that we can derive from with solitude.

It's also great when we explore it with others,

Too.

There's absolutely.

But I do think there's this nice advantage of solitude at really triggering these moments where,

Again,

If you can kind of flip that switch and realize,

Well,

This is your chance just to follow your own interest,

Right,

And to do what is coming and rising from you and what your mind wants to do,

Then the trick,

Again,

I think it's really recognizing it,

Flipping that switch and just allowing yourself to enjoy the solitude and to make something of it.

I also found the part about vicarious experiences interesting as well.

Can you say a few words about that?

Yeah,

I think this is one of our when we started this research,

This was definitely high up there and what we thought would be is a big advantage.

So vicarious experiences can be equal sources of psychological richness as our actual experiences.

It's all about how something hits your mind,

How it opens it up,

How it engages it.

And so we can have vicarious experiences that will they'll deliver.

I mean,

They feel different.

Right.

But they'll deliver psychological richness.

Right.

And this is really exciting,

I think.

It ties in so many different factors about,

You know,

Where we're coming from with the degrees of openness and what challenges us.

So we tend to think,

You know,

Travel is an excellent way to develop psychological richness.

But it's not something everybody loves and it's not something that's accessible for everybody.

And yet we can derive the same similar benefits from as we do from travel simply by really engaging in documentaries about other cultures,

Reading books about different times and places.

These are all great sources to stimulate your mind without having to,

You know,

Have the resources to go somewhere or the time or the desire to go places.

We can build our,

You know,

This is another great way to build our openness.

Right.

To start reading books about different people and different experiences.

And those will become psychologically rich.

And you'll end up,

You know,

These will end up shifting your perspective.

That's what these experiences do.

And they'll end up,

I think,

Pushing you a little farther along on the line of openness.

Throughout your research,

Can it be measured,

Let's say someone who is cultivating psychological richness before and after?

Have you done such work?

Is it possible to see how much someone can enhance their life and cultivate it?

Yeah,

So we haven't.

This research is really new.

And that kind of research involves these longitudinal studies right across time.

So so we really haven't gotten the concrete facts,

But it's very intuitive,

I think,

That that we can start right once you begin on a certain path and do it slowly or the way it works for you.

Right.

We always want to be careful about,

You know,

Putting ourselves in situations that are too challenging or too complex.

Right.

For us to really engage with them.

But I think it's really going to,

You know,

The research will show that it's a very intuitive thing,

That once we start having these different kinds of experiences,

We will start to change our perspective and in ways that will be get more interesting experiences.

It was a list at the end of the book that was so hard for me to answer,

But I want to read some of these questions.

What is something that is interesting yet not fulfilling?

What is something that is pleasant yet not fulfilling?

I can name several things like that.

Right.

What is something that is pleasant but not interesting?

What is something that is fulfilling yet not interesting?

What is something that is interesting but not pleasant?

What is something that is fulfilling but not pleasant?

I thought this was so interesting to engage with,

And I am going to journal on this.

The reason I read it on the podcast is for the listener to perhaps engage with those questions as well for themselves.

Which one do you want to answer,

Maybe,

If I put you on the spot?

Well,

I think,

You know,

What all these questions are doing is they're trying to get us to understand the kinds of experiences and how they're different.

And so I think the category most interesting is the what is interesting but not pleasant or yeah,

That's the area that I think is really neat,

Right,

To think about things that can be really interesting,

Even though they're not pleasant.

And we tend so often to gravitate towards the pleasant things and avoid the challenging,

More difficult things.

Yet the interesting is very distinct from pleasure.

And sometimes it's pleasant,

Sometimes it's not.

And so a great example of that would be,

You know,

Something like watching horror movies or something like that,

Right,

Or putting yourself in a very difficult situation,

Whether that's by doing it,

Watching the documentaries or,

You know,

Going to a very impoverished country and witnessing the impoverishment.

So these are experiences that are ripe for the interesting,

Right?

They can all be very interesting experiences,

Yet they're not going to be pleasant.

They're going to raise difficult,

Challenging emotions.

And it's important that I think we learn not to shy away from those.

And so if we recognize that we can have really good experiences that enhance our lives,

That aren't pleasant,

Then I think that really just is going to shift the way that we operate and it's going to make life better,

Right?

Too often,

I think we experience something unpleasant and we just think,

OK,

I have to get it to stop,

Right?

And,

You know,

Because it's just have to avoid it.

But there's another way and a way that will benefit us more.

We can experience the complexity of the difficult situations create and we can turn them into a psychologically rich experience.

Yeah,

I agree.

That was resonated with me a lot.

And I think we can also teach that to our children,

Right?

Speaking about parenting,

Helping them,

You know,

To embrace all of the feelings.

And life doesn't always have to be,

You know,

Pleasant or,

You know,

Entertaining.

It can be interesting.

Or even the boredom is interesting,

You know,

Then you come up with something with something else.

I think we,

You know,

We struggle with that as a society,

As a culture,

Where everything is a click away.

It's everything is has to be entertaining,

Right?

This online life and our kids are exposed to that.

And I think it's good for parents to reframe those difficult experiences for themselves as psychologically enriching experiences.

That's going to contribute to a good life then and to help their children maybe learn and reframe things for themselves as well.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

I think that is really important aspect of this research.

And for me,

I think about it a lot also in terms of,

You know,

The kind of how we tend when we're really like after trying so hard to be happier,

To have a good life,

And then we experience pain.

You know,

It really feels like there's I don't know,

To me,

It often feels like there was something wrong with me,

Right?

Like there's,

You know,

This is my failure or something.

And recognizing,

Right,

That happiness is really limited,

That you're going to experience complex emotions,

And that doesn't mean that your shots for the good life are over,

That they can be harnessed,

It's going to give you a much better perspective to deal with challenging situations in life,

And one that will really help to allow us to really live a life that hits all of these different dimensions and takes advantage of all of the different kinds of states that we'll find ourselves in.

I belong to a book club that is,

You know,

Heavily elderly folks.

And I observe these people,

People is something I'm interested in,

That's what interests me,

Other people.

And I noticed one thing,

You know,

Observationally,

You know,

From my life that people who read a lot,

Who are seeking interesting experiences,

And they're curious,

They live longer.

Is there a connection to longevity?

Or is this something that grows to your mind?

It has nothing to do with that.

But it seems like there is a correlation,

There's some kind of connection I'm noticing.

I've observed elderly people for a long time.

And it seems like the people who are,

You know,

Use their mind,

And they,

I guess,

Psychologically reach lives that they live,

They live longer.

That's really interesting.

I haven't thought about the longevity issue.

I have thought about the experience of the interesting for elderly.

I think it's a really fascinating issue and question about how we can really live good lives when our capacities are very limited.

And it's really super clear that you can have capability for psychologically rich experiences well through the stages of aging.

And even as you lose your rational kind of decision making capacities,

The capacity to experience the interesting still remains.

And so I think the more that we can harness it,

Right,

The better we'll be able to approach that stage of life.

And be able to see that life is really worth living and is really something that we can really still enjoy,

Even when,

You know,

We sense our other faculties are diminishing.

Well,

I don't want to do this abrupt change,

But there was a point about sensory experiences like jumping from an airplane.

That's a novel and risky activity.

I want you to speak more about that.

That's not what we're talking about.

You know,

When we say new and novel,

Interesting experiences,

But a lot of people associate new and novel experiences with risk taking and adrenaline rush and things like that.

Are these psychologically enriching activities or can they be?

So I guess it's possible that they can be,

But they're definitely not the go-to kind of sources.

And yet I think it's important to talk about because when we describe this kind of,

You know,

Mentality and the mindset,

It is one that brings to mind,

Well,

The risk takers in lives and the people who are really pushing the envelopes.

But I think,

You know,

It's really important to realize that risk taking is truly more accurately called sensation seeking.

So what we're doing when we're really taking those risks is like we're seeking a really high degree of sensation.

We're seeking that adrenaline rush.

And that's just a different thing than having a psychologically rich experience.

And I think what happens when we're sensation seeking is that we really get on a different path altogether and we move away from being able to appreciate the psychological richness or develop psychological richness out of it.

And we know sensation seeking is correlated with all kinds of negative life experiences and life events.

And so I think as we go about thinking about what interesting experiences mean for us,

One thing that will really help us is to think,

Yes,

We need to push our boundaries and yes,

We need to develop more openness and push that comfort zone.

But what we're after is this really kind of cognitive engagement,

Right?

We're not after this sensation,

Right?

But what we're after is something that's going to really help us engage our minds.

And very often,

I think what happens in those risk taking scenarios,

Right,

For one thing,

The adrenaline takes over and it just kind of puts us on another path.

But in other situations,

Right,

It becomes so dangerous that your fight or flight system operates and that just closes off the possibilities of psychological richness.

That's like,

Get out of here now.

And that's all you can think about.

But and that's also going to close off this possibilities of psychological richness.

So it's really all about finding these sweet spots for yourself and learning that feels like inside so that you can really seize interesting moments when you can recognize when you're going too far towards risk taking and sensation seeking and recognize when you're going into your danger zone.

Right.

Nothing is good happening there.

So you want to be able to find that balance for yourself where you're challenging yourself without pushing over to this other side.

What have you learned from your own research that has changed your life in some ways?

So I started working on this project.

And when a colleague in psychology,

A psychologist,

Shigehiro Oshi,

He had this first idea of psychological richness and he needed or was seeking advice from the philosopher about how to kind of understand it and frame it within the different discussions of the good life.

And,

You know,

I had the experiences,

Which I hope many will have when they're first learning about this,

Which is,

Gosh,

Yeah,

This is really something that resonates with.

I know this,

Right?

I know how valuable psychological rich experiences are.

And it's something that really did resonate with me for a long time.

Yet at this stage in which I was beginning this research,

I'd actually just forgotten all about that.

Right.

I was tenure track.

I was all of a sudden a single mom.

I was pushing.

I was pursuing.

And I really had forgotten all about that kind of side of me that really relished interesting experiences.

So that,

I think,

Is a really an important marking point for me.

So and I hope it will do so for others.

So,

You know,

We didn't like create this thing.

Right.

But we're but we're being able to understand it and name it and validate it.

And I feel so often when we have,

You know,

Those of us and I really am really heavily drawn towards I've learned this about myself.

Right.

I'm really heavily drawn towards psychological richness.

But too often we,

You know,

Without this understanding that it is actually a really important part of the good life.

We often just tend to neglect it.

And so there's something very affirming and validating about saying,

No,

These kinds of experiences you sometimes have,

Those are really valuable and you should go for them.

Right.

They can be better than happiness,

Better than fulfillment.

And so the three legged stool,

You know,

Happiness,

Meaning and psychological richness,

I guess what I'm learning is it's a balance of all three and it's very individual how you design,

You know,

That balance between the three.

Is that right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I believe you said there's these three different dimensions of the good life.

And I am strongly committed to the fact that each of them are important for all of us.

Right.

I mean,

I think we all respond to these different ways of living and yet we respond to them in different degrees.

And and so I think that our task for if we really want to take seriously this project of living a good life,

Our task is really to learn for ourselves how what what our good life looks like and how,

You know,

How much of a role should we attribute to fulfillment or meaning and how much of a role should psychological richness play within your life?

And that's how we,

I think,

Can really create our best possible lives is by learning how we respond to it and learning really what fits in.

Now,

I think as I say that,

Right,

I think we all need all of it.

Right.

And I mean,

Happiness is super important.

Meaning is super important as is psychological richness.

And but we can actually have it all.

Right.

Maybe not at the same time,

But we're talking about a life.

Right.

And shifting between these different states.

So what I'm encouraging everyone to be doing is to really kind of learning about psychological richness,

Learning the extent to which it really resonates with them and finding space for it in their lives.

And that will look different for everybody.

But but I think we all should have space for it in our lives.

Yes,

I agree.

Thank you so much.

This was really interesting.

As I said,

I really enjoyed the book and I learned a lot.

And the book for the listener,

I want to mention that it includes quizzes and worksheets and things like that,

Which is kind of fun to engage with.

May I ask you,

What's the quote behind you that there is a quote?

Yes,

It's that the mark of an educated mind is to entertain a thought without accepting it.

Oh,

Interesting.

Consider something without really committing to it or having to accept that.

We could talk a lot about how we can have interesting experiences doing that.

Right.

But it's all about this idea of like just being able to hold something into your head without and explore it without necessarily saying it's true,

It's false,

It's right or wrong.

Just explore it.

I think that's what blocks us having interesting experiences,

Just that evaluative part of our brain,

Because we're so,

Right,

We're always evaluating.

I think maybe that's a takeaway for the listener to walk away from this conversation and to just experience things and notice things without evaluating them.

And that's an open mind.

That's a curious mind.

But we always bring evaluation to every situation and every experience.

Yeah,

That's a great point to kind of close on,

Because I think one of the best ways we can go about doing that is just to stop saying good or bad.

Right.

Just every time you're tempted to say good or bad,

Just stop,

Actually describe the thing and see how that feels like.

You'll loosen up on that evaluative mode and see what happens.

Yes,

This reminds me,

I'll end on this note.

My husband comes home every day from work and says,

And I work from home predominantly,

And he comes home and says,

So how was your day,

Anna?

How are you?

Are you happy?

I'm like,

Yeah,

I'm happy.

Every day he asks the same question and he gets the same answer.

He's like,

How come we're happy all the time?

I'm like,

Because I'm happy.

I'm not looking for happiness necessarily,

But I am happy.

I don't need,

You know,

Fireworks or rainbows or anything like that.

I am happy.

I'm content.

I guess I am living a psychologically rich life.

You know,

I interview people like you on the podcast that stimulates the mind.

I guess I have to give credit to the podcast,

You know,

For 10 years.

It kept me happy.

It's a big part of my life.

You know,

The community of listeners who are appreciative and are there.

We formed relationships,

My guests who are always fascinating,

And just this entire medium that has created this community is just amazing for me.

It's a big psychological richness contributor to my life.

Yeah,

Yeah,

That's so amazing.

And that's so nice to hear.

And I share these feelings about the podcast medium.

And I think listeners listen to these because they're interesting,

Right?

So we're all having a great,

Interesting,

Psychologically rich experience today.

And I love that.

Great,

Great.

Thank you so much,

Lorraine.

It was really a pleasure.

And I really enjoyed this conversation.

Yeah,

Thank you,

Anna.