Arthur Brooks Shares About Finding Meaning and Being Open to Happiness

The 2008 financial crisis upended the global economy, with financial markets, the banking and investment sectors, and personal finances all destabilized. It was also, according to Arthur Brooks, the start of a period in modern society when “happiness fell apart,” particularly for those who had traditionally been deemed the happiest — women, younger people, the college-educated. 

Beyond the stress and the strain from global economic disruption, it was the society-altering influence of social media use and an increased reliance on powerful smartphones that were primary contributors to an era during which an expanding swath of the population finds it challenging to find meaning and purpose in their lives, the renowned author and Harvard Business School faculty member told those gathered in Page Auditorium on Thursday, March 5. This has been the focus of Brooks’ work for the past five years and the subject of his new book, “The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness,” which comes out March 31. 

“Something happened after 2008 that drained meaning from people’s lives,” Brooks said. 

But far from delivering a message of doom and despair to those in the audience, Brooks shared a path back toward meaning and happiness that involves pursuing the answers to complex questions — Why are you alive? For what would you die right now, happily? It’s the pursuit of answers to these questions, not the answers themselves, that can open a person up to finding coherence, purpose and significance in life. Reducing the addictive use of technology, taking time to be bored, asking more questions about people and life and demonstrating awe for your relative place in history and the universe can lead you there, Brooks said. 

And then teach what you have learned to others. “You’ve got to put it into practice,” Brooks said. “How do you do that? The answer is this — you’ve got to teach these ideas. … Give the lecture in your own way, in your particular way. Because if you do, you’re going to be responsible for it, and your life is going to actually change when you teach.”

Brooks’s visit to Duke was sponsored by the university’s Transformative Ideas program in partnership with the Office of the Provost and its Initiative on Pluralism, Free Inquiry and Belonging. Following his lecture, Brooks joined British psychiatrist and philosopher Iain McGilchrist in a discussion moderated by Nita Farahany, the Robinson O. Everett Distinguished Professor of Law at Duke Law. Co-sponsors for the event included Duke Community Affairs, Duke Chapel & The Bridge Internship Program, Duke Law, Duke Student Affairs and the Duke Divinity School. 

The pathway Brooks was leading the audience toward is based upon making your mind — particularly the right hemisphere of the brain — more receptive to seeking and identifying meaning. Brooks noted, and later discussed with McGilchrist, that the brain’s right hemisphere is more rooted in mystery, meaning and love (very complex “why” questions) while the left handles technical, analytical and “how-to” matters — (more complicated “what” problems). In today’s society, the left hemisphere’s desire to lock down absolute answers often overpowers the right hemisphere’s ability to be open to questions that are more complex and challenging to answer, Brooks said. 

“Here’s what happened after 2008 — our culture hit a threshold of complication,” Brooks said. “Our culture became a left-brain culture. What we taught our students, how we lived our lives, how we passed our hours. No more were we living in the complexity of the silence and in relationships in real life. That was when we passed the point of no return, when the left brain began to dominate the right brain, when we entered the world of “how to” and “what,” and when why faded away.”

Brooks takes inspiration from his great-grandfather, Leroy Brooks of Olathe, Kansas. The elder Brooks benefited from “his brain working the way it was supposed to,” not distracted by technology and dominated by left-brain tendencies. His supposed “boredom” as a farmer may have meant routine days and fewer distractions, but also left his mind more open to finding meaning in his work and life. 

“Here’s the irony for young people today and for a lot of us as well — we’re never bored from moment to moment, but at the end of the day, we realize how bored we were over the course of the day,” Brooks said. “We solved the little problem and created a much bigger problem, didn’t we?”

During the discussion following the lecture, McGilchrist reminded the audience that “boredom” is a relatively modern word that was not coined until the 18^th Century, coinciding with a period of time when sources of real fulfillment in life and life’s purposes became more concealed. Yet boredom, along with disconnecting from technology in a meaningful way, asking more questions during your day-to-day life and spending time reflecting on your place in the world can open you up to better seeing purpose and meaning. 

“The questions are more important than the answers,” McGilchrist said. “To have answered the question is to have misunderstood. … Meaning is something that is lost once you close the thing down to a certainty. All the life is in the gaps.”

For Brooks, opening up his head and his heart to possibility often lies within his feet. Ingrained into many religious traditions, is the practice of walking — the pilgrimage. When Brooks retired from his role leading a think tank in Washington, D.C. and struggled with what he would do next, he set out to walk a portion of the Camino de Santiago, an ancient route for Catholic pilgrims across northern Spain, with his wife. The belief is that in completing the pilgrimage and entering the Santiago de Compostela cathedral in northwest Spain, what you are looking for will find you. 

“On that last day, here is what found me — that I was going to spend the rest of my life lifting people up and bringing them together in bonds of happiness and love, using science and ideas,” Brooks shared. “I didn’t find that — that found me.”

Brooks, McGilchrist, and Farahany kicked off a series of discussions among students in the new University Course “Devil’s Advocate” and Transformative Ideas LLC, as well as faculty, staff, and international guests who gathered at Duke for a two-day conference on Cognitive Liberty following the public lecture. 

“It was a privilege to convene one of the most interdisciplinary meetings on the subject of Cognitive Liberty to date, spanning neuroscience, psychology, law, philosophy, theology, public policy, business, medicine, and engineering” said Polly Ha, Director of Transformative Ideas. “Duke excels at finding meaning and finding holistic solutions to complex challenges.”