The Happy Learner

In this uplifting and insightful podcast, we explore the natural consequence of being happier: greater curiosity and a deep passion for learning and exploring. (Please note, this is a lecture, not a guided meditation.)

Transcript

Welcome to the Happiness Podcast.

I'm Dr.

Robert Puff.

Here on the Happiness Podcast,

We talk a lot about how to be happy,

How to make our lives go well,

How to find peace and joy in our daily lives on a regular basis.

But we all know people who say they're happy,

Perhaps even ourselves,

And then along comes a bump,

And they're not happy anymore.

It's almost as if they were pretending being happy,

Or had fooled themselves into thinking that their lives were going great,

And then all of a sudden it wasn't.

So in today's episodes,

We definitely don't want to judge others or ourselves,

But we do want to explore if there's a way to tell that life truly is going well,

And when the bumps come,

We handle them well.

Is there anything that we can look towards to say,

Yeah,

I can tell my life is improving because of this.

For example,

When most of us are on vacation,

It should be a happy time where things are going well,

We don't have to work,

And we can just focus on exploring the world.

Yet how many people do we know when we go on vacation?

They may choose to get really drunk the entire time just to numb themselves,

Or if something goes wrong,

Or they're on a flight,

Or their luggage doesn't arrive,

They get really angry,

And yet they're on vacation.

Why does that happen?

Or as I said earlier,

We all know people whose lives seem to be going pretty well.

Then something happens,

Some form of tragedy,

And as if their lives fall apart,

Sometimes they even reach the point of committing suicide,

And we didn't see it coming.

So how do these things happen,

And how do we make sure that in our lives,

That we're truly striving towards happiness?

Is there something we can look towards that indicates,

Yes,

I'm on the right path,

I'm ready for those bumps in life,

Because if they come,

I'm doing a lot of things that are keeping my heart in that good place,

And my mind clear of egoic talk and struggle.

But what is it?

What is the thing that I'm referring to today?

Well,

I want to start with young children.

What do young children have?

Because they don't have egos yet.

What do they have that is unique to them,

That they really all have if their environment is safe,

And they're happy,

And things are going well?

What will we see in them?

Or how will they be interacting with the world?

And what we're going to see is a curiosity,

A deep love of learning about their world and all that it entails.

It's like a freedom to explore and say,

What's out there?

What can I learn?

Children who are in a healthy environment learn at an incredible rate.

It's amazing.

Their minds are open,

And they just want to explore their world and all its various dimensions.

And one of the arguments that I've made over the years in this podcast is,

As we get healthier,

We're going to look more childlike.

We're going to have less ego,

Far more curiosity,

And just pure pleasure with life.

And today,

That's what we're going to talk about.

I believe that when we get healthy,

When our hearts are in a good place,

And we're truly flowing with life,

We're going to discover that our curiosity about life,

Our love of learning and exploring life in all its various dimensions starts to manifest.

And we're going to be like young children,

Wanting to explore our world.

Now,

At first,

This may seem confusing,

Because we probably all know people who are very educated and are having to do a lot to keep that education going.

And some of them aren't very happy.

I mean,

If you visit the halls of academia,

You may see that some of the professors struggle with alcoholism and other addictions.

If they're learning,

Shouldn't they be happy then?

That's not what I mean.

In these situations,

It's far more a sense of accomplishments or goals,

Achieving,

Developing or building up their egos so that other people admire them,

Far more than just learning and for the love of learning.

Mind you,

There are people that are professors that very much just do what they do for the pure love of it,

Many of them.

But it isn't in and of itself the solution.

What we're looking for is truly a pure love of learning,

Just for learning.

It's not to accomplish anything.

It's not for the sake of impressing others.

It's merely for the sake of learning,

For the pure love of learning.

Or let's look at traveling,

Which is a form of exploration.

It too can fall in two camps.

One where we're trying to impress people,

Let people know all the places we've gone to.

And it's almost as if they have to get to the social media sites as quickly as possible to post their pictures so that everyone will know what they're up to,

Instead of just doing what they're doing for the pure love of exploring the world.

Now mind you,

There's nothing wrong with posting on social media.

It's just that shouldn't be the purpose.

That's more of a side effect.

It's like,

Of course I want to share with people that love me what I'm about and what I'm doing.

There's nothing wrong with that.

But if you're doing it to impress others,

Then it's not for the sake of just exploring.

So today what we're looking for is that childlike love of learning,

Of exploring.

I really think we all know what that feels like when we just pick up a book to read it,

When we watch a documentary just to learn something,

When we go to someplace just to see it.

It's just for the sake of sinking it in.

It's like having a really good meal.

But it's a mental meal.

It's an exploration meal.

It's a meal of exploring our world and all that it entails.

And you're just doing it for the sake of doing it.

Then we know that,

Oh,

Hey,

I'm doing more and more of this.

I actually want to create time to do more and more of this.

Then we're probably going to realize that,

Oh,

I think I'm getting on the right path.

Because now my desire to learn,

To explore is kindled and getting stronger day by day.

That,

I believe,

Is a real good test of how our hearts are doing.

And if we're on the right path,

If we're on the path of happiness and peace,

We're going to see that exploration,

That love of learning becoming stronger and stronger.

I remember reading once about a study that showed that the average college graduate reads less than one full book a year every year.

I mean,

When they're in college,

They might read 20,

30,

40 books a year.

But then when they finish,

They're only able to read up to one a year.

That was shocking to me because I read a lot of books in a year.

But I'm going to pre-warn you,

This is going to have some effects.

I think they're good effects,

But they're going to have effects.

What's going to happen is,

As you develop that curiosity and that love of life and learning,

You're going to want to make time for it.

And you're going to care far less about what people think about what you have or what you've accomplished.

What you're going to want is time to explore our world,

To learn,

To go places,

To read books,

To watch documentaries,

And truly get into exploring our world and engaging with it on a daily,

Regular basis.

So all of a sudden,

Our choices are going to look different.

Instead of moving up in the world and buying a bigger home or a nicer car,

We're going to say,

Wow,

How do I create time?

How do I get more time off from work?

How do I get home earlier so that I can do the exploration of the world?

Because I just love to learn for the sake of learning.

I love to explore for the sake of exploring.

And so what will happen is,

Our choices will begin to change.

Instead of focusing in on our careers,

We're going to focus in on how to have more time to enjoy what we do.

Now mind you,

This isn't party enjoying.

This isn't getting drunk.

This isn't doing crazy stuff.

This isn't even coming home and watching television,

Because most of what television involves is mindless.

It's more numbing.

This is about learning.

It's about exploring.

That's what it's about.

So when we're tired,

When we're exhausted,

We don't feel like opening up our minds at all.

We actually want to do the opposite.

We just want to watch something on television that's mindless,

Or we want to come home and have a bottle of wine to numb our brains.

That's lots of people,

Perhaps the majority.

But when we start going on the path of creating happiness in our lives and truly developing the skills that we learn here on the Happiness Podcast to do that,

A natural consequence of that is going to be a love of learning,

Of life.

It doesn't have to look the same to all of us.

For example,

I love to learn about art.

I love history.

I love mathematics.

I love physics.

I love astronomy.

There are so many things that I love.

You may want to learn a language.

You may want to play an instrument.

You may want to explore how to develop a skill that no one else has,

Like a craft.

But it truly is a deep passion and love for learning,

Like children have.

We lose it when we're stressed,

When we're overwhelmed,

When we're caught up in egoic thoughts.

Then we have no time for that.

You can really see that.

People that are exhausted,

They don't come home and watch documentaries.

They come home and numb themselves.

So as we get healthier,

As we grow,

We're going to see that natural curiosity.

If we're not seeing it,

Then we need to ask ourselves,

Maybe I'm learning these skills,

But have I taken them to my heart or core level of who I am?

Because when we do,

It's just going to naturally grow out of us.

We're going to want to explore the world.

We're going to have time for it.

And we're going to make time for it because we're going to find such joy in exploring our world.

We're going to find such pleasure in discovering new things,

Whether it's physically traveling,

Mentally exploring.

And the old things that you seek again,

Like coming home and numbing ourselves after a long day because we're utterly exhausted,

Will begin to dissipate.

And what we'll see is a pure curiosity about our world and all that it has.

And we'll develop that skill and it will just grow out of us naturally.

It'll be something that we will want to feed because as a child loves to learn,

So do we.

We have become childlike and the world has become a place for us to explore on so many different levels.

And we make time for it because it will be like a hunger.

We're going to crave it.

We're going to love it.

We're going to enjoy it.

And we will make time for it.

So today's a little different.

Instead of learning a skill about how to be happy,

This is more about what we'll see when we are happy.

When we have developed the skills of peace and happiness in our life and are really applying them to our lives on a daily basis,

Then what we're going to see is we are going to become curious.

We're going to become explorers of our world and we're going to listen to that.

We're going to make time for that.

We're going to crave that in a good,

Healthy way.

And so instead of saying,

How do I develop this creativity or this curiosity about the world,

It truly is a natural consequence of finding peace and happiness in our lives.

So if we don't have it,

Then we need to say,

Okay,

What am I not doing?

What am I not letting go of in order to be happy so that I am seeing this curiosity spring up inside of me?

And the curiosity,

The desire for exploration is going to be so strong that we'll make changes in our life to free up time for it.

We will change our lives so that there's time to explore our world.

We'll make choices to make sure that we can.

We'll simplify our lives.

We'll do so many different things to say,

Okay,

How do I become an explorer?

How do I make time for this craving to explore,

To learn?

Because it will be there.

And if it's there,

If it's truly there,

We're going to want to meet it.

But this,

Instead of our other cravings for addictions,

This is a healthy,

Beautiful craving of being healthy.

It's just a natural consequence of a good,

Happy,

Healthy,

Peaceful heart.

So let's look for it.

Let's see if we can develop it by developing an overall peace and happiness in our lives.

And when we have that,

We should,

We will see that curiosity about our world.

Thank you for joining me on the Happiness Podcast.

If you are finding these episodes helpful,

I would love for you to share your experience with others.

The easiest way for new people to listen to this podcast is just refer them to www.

Happinesspodcast.

Org.

That's happinesspodcast.

Org.

Or if you want to do more and leave a review,

On that site you'll find a Yelp link,

A Google Plus link,

A testimonial link,

Or perhaps even the site you're listening to this podcast on.

Often you can leave reviews there,

Too.

The reviews are an awesome way to encourage people to start listening to the Happiness Podcast.

And until next time,

Accept what is,

Love what is.

Reviews

1. Life is short and time is precious. As a result don’t spend more time working than you need to
2. Television is a mindless waste of time.

Those are two great lessons from this recording.

I suspect that what Dr. Puff means when he says “happiness” is actually “contentment”. Happiness is like a non sustainable sugar rush (or stiff alcoholic drink) with very temporary results. Being addicted to temporary happiness seems no more useful than being addicted to alcohol. Contentment is far more durable and can endure throughout a lifetime.

Here is wishing you contentment. Neil 😀☯️

Thank you!! Food for thought and inspiring

Always so helpful. Thank you 🙏🙏

Excellent advice

Reminded me of my old self. I need to get back to learning and exploring. Letting my curiosity find the pleasures in life.

A revelation to me- I had never thought about this before, but it makes total sense!! Thank you, I love this podcast ♡

I really needed to hear these words today. Thank you for this wonderful meditation!

Dr. Puff I begin my mornings with one of your podcasts and it helps in setting such a positive tone to my day. Thank you for these wonderful nuggets of wisdom. 🙏

It took me a while to get into these podcasts. I now find them so encouraging and useful that I never want to miss one! Thank you.