Source: Politics<\/p>\n
Most people come to Washington seeking power.<\/p>\n
Power to change policy; power to elect new leaders; power to sway the most influential judges; power to tell stories that shape people\u2019s minds.<\/p>\n
But the oldest story in Washington is how the quest for power almost always comes at the expense of what everyone says they really want: happiness.<\/p>\n
Of course it\u2019s not just a Washington story. It\u2019s part of a much bigger story afflicting the country.<\/p>\n
Life expectancy in America is down from where it was before the pandemic, driven by so-called deaths of despair: fatal drug overdoses, alcohol-related diseases and suicides.<\/p>\n
Depression, anxiety and chronic illness are all on the rise.<\/p>\n
Vivek Murthy, the Surgeon General, has described a national \u201cLoneliness Epidemic\u201d that has a similar effect on the human body to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.<\/p>\n
If there\u2019s a silver lining to these grim trends, perhaps it\u2019s that more people are trying to figure out what truly makes us happy.<\/p>\n
A few years ago, Arthur Brooks traded away his job running one of the top think tanks in Washington for a career as a fulltime happiness scientist. He\u2019s also a bestselling author on this subject and recently published a book with Oprah Winfrey called \u201cBuild the Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier.\u201d<\/p>\n
On today\u2019s show, he\u2019s going to share a secret at the heart of his research that we hope you\u2019ll find a worthy idea to reflect on over the holidays.<\/p>\n
In a city of strivers, workaholics and perfectionists, a lot of people \u2014 maybe even you \u2014 come to Washington believing that success will lead to happiness and then they\u2019re confused and even crushed when they attain the former but the latter doesn\u2019t follow.<\/p>\n
Brooks\u2019 many years of research show we\u2019ve got it backwards: It\u2019s actually happiness that leads to success \u2014 not the other way around.<\/p>\n
The question of course is how do we obtain happiness? Well, Arthur Brooks is going to tell us.<\/p>\n