Red Dirt Catholics
Join Jayce, James and guests from "Red Dirt" Oklahoma as they discuss what evangelization and discipleship looks like in real life.
Red Dirt Catholics
The Science of Happiness
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Jayce and James sit down to ring in the first episode of season 6! James, returning from his Artic pilgrimage, is back with Jayce to discuss sourdough, Utah and the "Science of Happiness." "The Science of Happiness" was a talk given at the 2025 SEEK conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, by world-renowned author and speaker, Arthur Brooks.
You can watch a replay of his SEEK presentation here: https://seekreplay.com/video/137
Happiness is more than a feeling; it's a scientifically backed framework that encompasses enjoyment, satisfaction, and meaning. Throughout this episode, Jayce and James unpack insights from Harvard professor Arthur Brooks, encouraging listeners to reflect on their happiness and the relational aspects of their experiences while seeking a deeper understanding of their purpose in life.
• Exploring the importance of family and home cooking habits
• The rise of hobbies like baking and sourdough culture
• Celebrating the birth of a new family member and what it means to become an uncle
• Insights from the SEEK conference and the influence of Arthur Brooks on happiness
• Breakdown of Brooks' framework: enjoyment, satisfaction, and meaning
• Examining the relational aspect of happiness as a functional experience
• Call to action for self-reflection on life purpose and happiness
Register now for the 2025 Discipleship Conference for the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City! This full-day, bilingual event will feature amazing speakers, breakout sessions, adoration, Mass, confessions, vendors and more at the Oklahoma City Convention Center on Saturday, August 9. Register now to get the early-bird price at OKDisciple.org.
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Links and other stuff from the show:
Pastoral Letter, "On the Unity of the Body and Soul:" archokc.org/pastoral-letters
Red Dirt Catholics Email Address: reddirtcatholics@archokc.org
The Book "From Christendom to Apostolic Mission" (Digital and Print): Amazon
The Social Dilemma: https://www.netflix.com/title/81254224
Daily Examen Prayer: https://bit.ly/309As8z
Lectio Divina How-To: https://bit.ly/3fp8UTa
We are live, finally, once again. It's been a few months. You know, james went on a pilgrimage to Antarctica to save penguins and I was just here waiting for him to come back. Yeah, something like that. No, but we're happy to start season. This is season six. That is a six years we've been doing this. That's pretty crazy. It's crazy, um, cool milestone. Good kudos, buddy. We've been going, we've been going on and on about it. What's what's new and what's new in James' world?
Speaker 3:Let's see, We've got our four kiddos now. Baby Clara is almost three months old and after a little bit of a scare pre-pregnancy, she's super healthy. We're claiming our little miracle baby. She's 10 pounds now. Everything's checking all our milestones. We're real happy. The brothers fight over who gets to hold her. It's pretty fun. We've been enjoying since the new year eating at home more. I kind of had a resolution to do more family dinners and not be so rushed and go eat out, Making some more food and things like that at home. Last weekend I took up baking. My wife wanted a mixer like a stand mixer Stan is the brand now, oh no, stand mixer just the type is like one that like standing mixer.
Speaker 3:Yeah, instead of the ones you like, put the little guys on and do this oh, like the egg beaters. Yeah, yeah, it's like one that has a the different mixing like a kitchen aid yeah, it's a kitchen aid. Yeah, all the rage.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:She wanted one that had this pretty brass bowl on it.
Speaker 2:What color?
Speaker 3:did she get? It's a cream. You could see it on her Instagram.
Speaker 2:I'm sure it's like a cream deal and then has a brass. What's the tag? What's the Instagram handle? Emily?
Speaker 3:Ryder, emily Ryder, r-i-t-e-r. R-i-t-e-r. But yeah, so she's got that on there. I'm sure you could L-T-K it if you wanted to have the same one she's got no shameless plug alright let's recheck from Emily is coming coming soon.
Speaker 3:Right the sponsorship but the yeah it comes with like a bread hook, you know so you can instead of kneading your own bread, the thing can. It's kind of fascinating how it works it like kneads the bread itself. Favorite bread I made was like we want to get into sourdough. David Mollman's really good at it, so I'm taking some lessons.
Speaker 2:You've joined the cult of sourdough.
Speaker 3:Yep joined the cult Not yet Gosh.
Speaker 2:These people Working on my starter I have like we have like three in the pastoral center. All they can talk about is oh, my sour, my sourdough starter is doing really well today and I'm like, oh great it is a game changer.
Speaker 3:This is, but you'll how, james how is it a game changer?
Speaker 2:it's a piece of dough that you treat like a child and talk to it like it's a child.
Speaker 3:A sourdough bread with butter on it, you know, next to your pasta or whatever, is way tastier than store-bought bread, just right.
Speaker 2:The tastiness of sourdough is not what I'm debating here. It's the decision to invest all of this time and emotional energy into, because sometimes your starters die or whatever, right, if you let it, and yeah if you, if you botch it, and it's just like. People's happiness is based on whether or not their starter dough is still alive or not.
Speaker 3:That's not going to be the case. You can just start over. But favorite bread I made was this like sausage and cheese bread.
Speaker 3:I borrowed it from Now I'm listening, I looked up this recipe but I was inspired by Betty Bodman and Rebecca Spahn, her daughter. They make this bread that's like it's actually made out of a pizza crust. So I make the pizza crust dough, roll that out really thin and then sprinkle the sausage and cheese and some peppers. This time, how fine do you have to get the sausage? I did like ground sausage and then roll that up and leave like a little bit of extra room at the back that doesn't have the filling, so you can have a decent bottom layer. Roll that up, put it in the oven for 20 minutes. Pretty good. We made ours a little more Italian tasting than the others, so it was like Parmesan cheese and mozzarella cheese and dipped that in marinara sauce. It tastes like calzone. It's pretty tasty.
Speaker 2:That does sound tasty. I will say that, but it does crack me up people and their sourdough. You could just go buy a loaf of sourdough and be done with it.
Speaker 3:That's right, that's right loaf of sourdough and be done with it. You know that's right. That's right if you value your own time at some. You know earning capability hour. You know per hour. I've tried to work that out in my head. It'd have to be a lot of sourdough I was making at once to you know make it justify it but if it's a pastime and you're enjoying it yeah, I mean it can be.
Speaker 3:It's a hobby, like anything. It does say it is cheaper to do it that way and fresher. You don't have all the. I'm convinced a lot of gluten intolerance stuff, like where you can't eat bread and carbs, is because we're eating food that has all this extra junk crammed in it, whereas, like sourdough bread, only has a few ingredients.
Speaker 2:I just recently started learning about these red dyes that we're not supposed to give to our children.
Speaker 3:You've been listening to some Make America Healthy Again stuff.
Speaker 2:No, chris was just telling me. He was like, yeah, we can't give this to Faustina because it's got red dye number four now in it and I was like what's that?
Speaker 3:It is fascinating, some of those dyes. You can't buy food products with them in Europe and other countries, but in America we're just like, yeah, whatever them in, like europe and other countries but in america we're just like yeah, whatever manufactured food, we're good.
Speaker 2:One of these five avery's like why are we talking about this stuff? Um well, it's fascinating and all of that stuff and other news. My, my niece, was born this morning, nice, so I'm excited to go visit her whenever we finish up here, which will be great. But the rest of my siblings have gotten to be aunts and uncles within within the eight of us this whole time since Peter was born. But I've been, I've been left out and now I'm finally in.
Speaker 3:Now you're an uncle, I'm also like.
Speaker 2:Technically, my first niece was Danielle's sister had her baby a couple of months ago in. October.
Speaker 3:Nice.
Speaker 2:But this one is my little sister's baby, which will be great Little Wendy Fun.
Speaker 3:What's Wendy's full?
Speaker 2:name it's either Wendy Diana or Wendy Diane. Palmer Okay or not, she's not Palmer Terry. Okay, cool, sister's last name changes. You got to remember that sometimes. How good are you at changing maiden names when women get married, like in your contacts?
Speaker 3:oh not that great. Like my friend Erin Scanlon, it took a long time. At one point I was like, okay, I'm gonna make her Erin Valbo now, you know, yeah, you kinda have to make a decision, like Apple kinda made it easier cause people can update their names that like automatically, that automatically updates which is nice as well, but sometimes there's definitely people that I still haven't changed their last name.
Speaker 3:It's fascinating. We have a friend at school that well, our friend isn't at the kids' school but their sibling was doing some babysitting for us, so we were picking her up from school and I kept. I was so confused why in the car line she wasn't getting picked up and I was using this almost you know, almost 40 year old woman's old name like and like taking that old name onto her child, and so I'm like with the teacher I'm describing her name. She's like you mean this person, and I was like, oh okay, she's like that is her grandparents name, like oh, I don't. Then I asked my wife. I was like you didn't even know her when she was not married. Like how did this work? She's like I don't know. I must have got the contact file from someone who knew her in high school so we've been thinking this person was a yeah, had a different last name for 10 years yeah, I've got a fun gauntlet this weekend.
Speaker 2:I bought peter a bed from amazon nice, uh. So I'm gonna be building that. Who knows how good the instructions are gonna be. It's got to be like an ikea bed style. Like gonna be really hard, but I'm excited to dig into it this weekend you're actually surprised him. Yeah, I am excited he's, I'm excited for the moment he's gonna see it, that's right, um, because his bed stinks right now, and not like smells, but just his bed.
Speaker 3:Talking like it's a dog bed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we just don't clean it.
Speaker 3:It's been soiled too many times.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's been soiled too many times and he just sleeps in it. Yeah, His bed just doesn't stink.
Speaker 3:It's subpar.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just not a cool bed, but this is going to be a nice one.
Speaker 3:Nice, any theme to it, or just a big boy bed.
Speaker 2:There's going to be like underneath, there's going to be like a clubhouse type thing that you can go underneath it, so is it bunk bed-ish. Yeah, it's a little lofted. Not like all the way, lofted where it's at that height, but just enough that you can get on your hands, knees and get under there. So I think he'll really enjoy that.
Speaker 2:It has some bookshelves and drawers and different things, as I'm saying all of this and realizing how much time I'm going to be spending on this this weekend, but for the bedspread, sonic the Hedgehog is all the rage in our house right now.
Speaker 3:Next session of banter we'll ask Jace how the bed assembling went.
Speaker 2:My hair is just going to be pulled out and it's just like super difficult. But yeah, we can certainly check in on our next thing. So recently over the new year, uh, so it's like january 17th or something right now, uh, and so over the new year we always go, we always go to seek every single year, um, and this year our youth office, we went. We went out to Salt Lake City, beautiful city, very clean, very like. I really really liked it and like just surrounded by mountains, like better than Denver, the views of the mountains in my opinion are yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2:The only thing holding it back is it's dominated by the LDS church.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but but LDS and Mormon people, when they do something, they do it right, they do, they do a great job, they're very good.
Speaker 2:They're the best evangelizers. They have the best software to help evangelizers there's a lot of, really.
Speaker 3:Investing movie production, I mean media, they're really good. Yeah, they do stuff.
Speaker 2:They got the Studio C, which is like the Christian version of SNL, and it's actually funny Really. Have you ever seen the Scott Sterling videos? No, I'm interested in it. We'll watch some videos and if you haven't seen or heard of Scott Sterling, do that. Scott Sterling Soccer Some YouTube.
Speaker 3:You say it's the Christian version, so do they allow Christian content? Sorry, I say Christian.
Speaker 2:When I say Christian, I mean like they're not saying F-bombs or not cracking sex jokes, it's a wholesome version. We'll say, yeah, yeah, wholesome version. Yeah, mormons aren't Christian, so we can't call it that. But we went to the cathedral there for mass a lot of the time because, now that I'm 31, going to mass with 20,000 people wasn't as exciting. I did it for the opening Mass and I was like Cathedral, I have to wake up a little earlier and walk a little farther, but I think it'll be worth it Avery's laughing at your old age.
Speaker 2:Or something else, we're not sure. We're just putting everybody on, blast crunchy people, mormons, and. But we went to the cathedral there and the cathedral was specifically crafted, like some of the architecture, some of the artwork, some of the different scripture passages that they put on the wall were specifically calling out mormons. Oh really, yeah, it would have like, if any, if anyone presents a gospel other than the Artwork, some of the different scripture passages that they put on the wall were specifically calling out Mormons. Oh really, yeah, it would have like. If anyone presents a gospel other than the one that I've proposed to you, let that person be anathema. Big gold letters.
Speaker 2:Oh interesting, like the Catholic version of a neon sign.
Speaker 3:Like it was contextually appropriate for where this cathedral sat.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and they could have been much more like at the time that they had to have built this cathedral like it had a mormon population had to be even more of a majority than it is now, so they could have gone a much more just like subtle way of going about it, but in a catholic church that those were the equivalents of a giant neon sign saying mormonism bad, which is.
Speaker 2:I was kind of, proud of in a way of like that they were being that bold with it. Yeah, the two cathedrals aren't far from each other like the big old Mormon temple or whatever it's called. We had a great time, but what we're talking about today comes from Sikh, and we do this every year. There's always one talk that I'm like. I want to talk about this talk.
Speaker 3:Speaking of SEEK before we drill into it isn't there like next year? I feel like a lot more of us should be able to go, because isn't there like multiple locations?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's an interesting move by Focus. So for the long time there's been one main location for SEEK, like this year, it was mostly in Salt Lake but they had an East Coast location. But that East Coast location wasn't, it was kind of a tester run, so it wasn't even the fullness of what they were hoping for. But next year there's three different locations for SEEK. There's one in the east for Columbus, ohio, and then in Denver for the west and then in Dallas, texas. So I've already been starting to put a beat into the powers that be here that we should be sending a lot of our staff.
Speaker 3:I think we should. I would love to go. I haven't been able to go to one. One thing that's compelling. I think maybe the idea came up post-covid, when they had all these satellite locations and there was some simulcasting. But I think if I'm right correct me if I'm wrong the the three different locations, it's not really going to be simulcasting.
Speaker 2:It's like three seat conferences with keynote speakers and I think they're all going to have different keynotes, but I think the keynotes will be simulcast okay, so there might be like a big thing each day that's simulcasted and then there's separate.
Speaker 3:All the breakout sessions are localized, yeah.
Speaker 2:I would guess that, like each keynote, one of the three, they're going to rotate through one of the three different spots. Okay, that's pretty cool, it's neat, and they did that for one of the things and it was pretty darn seamless.
Speaker 2:It was just like oh wow, sister Miriam James is here. When you're in a big room like that, you're not sitting close enough most of the time to really get to see them live. You're kind of watching the TV screen. So I didn't notice a huge difference, um, but the very first talk was given by a guy named Arthur Brooks, who I really hadn't heard of previous to this, and but I decided I'd actually decided going in. I was like you know what I'm not going to be, you know the crotchety chancery worker who goes to the conference, and it's like I've already heard these talks before. I'm going to skip it tonight. And whatever.
Speaker 2:And I'm going to go. I'm going to like like this is for me too. And so we went and I didn't know who arthur brooks was opening night, but was excited to give it a shot and the the introduction for this guy was mind-blowing that he was speaking at a seat conference. First off, he's a like a big time harvard professor. He's time magazine's top 50 world leaders right now. He's been in the business world for a certain amount of time. He's written many books, one of them with Oprah somehow. And he's also this super awesome Catholic teaching at Harvard University and what he teaches. When people ask him what he teaches, it's interesting. And what he teaches like. When people ask him what he teaches, it's interesting. And he's like I teach happiness. And then people like laugh and say no, seriously, what do you teach? And he says happiness. And he drills a little bit more into that and like his class is called the Science of Happiness. It's kind of a catchy title and it is the most popular elective at Harvard University right now there's 150 spots.
Speaker 2:They're all taken. The wait list is 450 people long. There's an illegal Zoom link where people are trying to stream his class. No way so people can just watch it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I didn't get off the wait list, but I want to see what the secret sauce is.
Speaker 2:Right, that's cool, which is fascinating, which I think is so important for us to understand. The dire want to be happy is the desire that, as evangelists, we have to get better at cultivating and bringing into our gospel presentations in the way that we think and the way that we present things to people.
Speaker 3:Do you think students look up to him as more than a professor? Probably Do you think he has a mentor-like quality with office hours and things like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say so in his talk, and if you've seen his talk then you can probably hip skip on this podcast, because we're just going to go through a lot of points.
Speaker 3:Or just think through it again with us yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah and talking it. But his office hours get used extensively and this isn't just some nice elective, that's easy. It's like he goes into the neuroscience, the brain science, like it's like crunchy real stuff where you have to do work and memorize everything, like a biology class, um. But when they come to his office hours they don't tend to ask him about that stuff. In his talk he discussed there's two of the main questions that he would get asked, the first one being how do I fall in love, get married, stay married and have a family? Number one question he gets asked At Harvard.
Speaker 3:At Harvard, that's pretty cool At Harvard, at Harvard, at Harvard. That's pretty cool.
Speaker 2:At Harvard.
Speaker 3:All these people who are like you'd presume, have like worked their entire high school careers to like get into Harvard and now, yeah, you'd presume that, like the driving force of a Harvard or any Ivy League person, might be like a careerism pursuit sort of, and that sounds to be the higher rung of desire than careerism.
Speaker 2:Right. And so there's that one, and the second one is that this guy is really not ashamed of his faith and says early on in his class that my Catholic faith is the most important thing in the world to me outside of my family. And they say you said this. Could you tell us more about that please? Which just makes me think of John Sr and KU and all of them.
Speaker 2:So he basically gives this talk on the science of happiness. We're going to go through it all, but if you've read the Nicomachean Ethics I'm not sure if I pronounced that correctly by Aristotle, Sounds like you haven't read it.
Speaker 3:I've read significant parts of it for classes actually Spell that for myself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm not going to be able to spell that, say it again. Nicomachean Ethics, it's like what is the Nicodemus Okay, I believe, is some of the things for that, but anyway, he basically takes those and slaps an MBA on it, and that's where a lot of the brain science has come and has come to support the philosophy of why people are happy and why people are not happy. And so at Harvard they will why people are happy and why people are not happy. And so at Harvard they will pick people out of the crowd and force them to try to answer questions that they're not prepared to answer. It's like something that Harvard prides themselves on. So first day he'll point to different students and say what is happiness, define it, and they'll say I don't know. And that as he goes through his students, the main thing that he hears a lot is like I don't really know what, exactly what it is, but I know it when I feel it I know what it feels like.
Speaker 2:I know what it feels like yeah, and the reality is is like those feelings are just evidence of happiness, like in the same way that the smell of a thanksgiving turkey is evidence that the food is almost ready on thanksgiving, but it isn't the actual food a turkey is made of, you know, carbohydrates, proteins, different things like that whereas, uh, happiness also has, like macro nutrients, thatrients, that are the main things that are contributing to those happiness. So the three things that he would say are the happiness macronutrients. It's so funny to say it this way.
Speaker 2:That is a funny way to say it and enjoyment being number one, and we'll go into exactly what that means Satisfaction, taking joy in your accomplishments and meaning overall. And I just want to talk about how like we talk about happiness. I just think this is the perfect precursor step, because you and I have said over and over to our blue in the face, like that God is what's going to make you happy, and his whole premise of this talk is that happiness is the gateway drug to heaven oh cool. And that if you hone really deeply into some of these things, that it is very naturally going to lead you towards the faith. Essentially, it's a beginning step and it's similar to like a principle and foundation from St Ignatius.
Speaker 3:It's like the starting place.
Speaker 2:As a starting place. Are these?
Speaker 3:hierarchical Enjoyment satisfaction meaning.
Speaker 2:No, I think that there's just three components, and none of us are good at all of them was something that he was really forceful about, and there is. This is like the best part about this.
Speaker 3:Yeah, someone who's really good about like pursuing meaning might not take it slow and enjoy life, for example, whereas someone who's maybe a little more present to the moment, laissez-faire, might spend less time pursuing the satisfaction from hard labor or something to that effect. Yeah exactly.
Speaker 2:So, there's something for all of us to practice and get better at. And so his whole idea was I'm a spy. I'm basically a focused missionary at Harvard, because they're asking me these questions in my office hours and I want to teach you how to be a spy, too, and how to explain happiness, because it's obviously within the world. We talked about the religion of the day all last year like eight episodes of it. This is something that they want. That is a real desire that they can't get rid of because they're human, and if we are able to capitalize on some of the science behind some of this stuff and some of the thoughts and introduce a little bit of that philosophy but call it an MBA, it'll be really attractive. I like that Is the idea.
Speaker 2:So enjoyment he's really quick to talk about what enjoyment is not, and it isn't just pleasure, and he talks about the three parts. He kind of simplifies the brain into three major parts in the way that we see the world right. There's the reptilian brain, the piece of you like I am aware of what the temperature is in this room and it's a little bit cold, but it's not like in my brain thinking about that, it's just something that you become aware of. Or I'm aware that I'm a little bit cold, but I'm not like constantly. It's not like in my brain thinking about that, it's just something that you become aware of. Or I'm aware that I'm a little bit hungry, but it's not in my prefrontal cortex, it's not in the human part of my brain yet, it's just like it's there. It's your way of bringing information in as a human, because if all of the information that our brain was aware of was in our consciousness, we would be in overdrive?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we'd be in overdrive, we wouldn't know anything. So we have our reptilian brain he talks about. Then we have, so we take, we collect that data and that data gets processed and sent through our limbic system, right through our limbic system, right. And our limbic system is a neuroscience part of the brain where a lot of our feelings and everything develop. I am cold, that makes me unhappy, or it's uncomfortable for me. I'm hungry and that's uncomfortable for me, or somebody yelled at me and I don't feel safe, or whatever. That is A lot of those feelings he would call. Those feelings are not a human part of you. We actually share this part with all mammals. Still, it's not to the human part of us yet and it's just data coming in. And then, as all of that data comes in, we get to our prefrontal cortex and we decide what to do with that data.
Speaker 2:There are a lot of people in the world that will immediately react and move with whatever their limbic system is telling them, whatever those feelings, whatever those emotions are discussing, without regard to anything from the prefrontal cortex. Those people are called children. Without regard to anything from the prefrontal cortex, those people are called children and the art of growing up is tapping more and more into that adult, that human piece of you, and instead of like immediately responding to whatever emotion, whatever data is coming in, you're learning to filter it through and make decisions and be like no, I don't have to feel this way right now in different things, which is fascinating. So back to enjoyment. Pleasure is a purely limbic type of thing. It is an animal instinct, it's an animal desire, not inherently bad, but it's this animal desire and so we're trying to move for happiness. You have to be human is, like the key thing that he wants to drive home here and the enjoyment side. So we have to move this pleasure from the limbic system to our prefrontal cortex and he gives two main things that helps move that and like so you want to be in an area where you are receiving some sort of pleasure, but the two things that you have to add to that pleasure to make to create happiness is people and memory.
Speaker 2:So what, whatever that thing is, if you're doing it only by yourself, or if you're just playing video games by yourself or playing with with strangers, that there's no real friendship component to it. That you're just playing video games by yourself or playing with strangers, that there's no real friendship component to it, that you're like they're not even real humans or really other real people like. It's not going to scratch that happiness, enjoyment itch for you if you're going like I can. The easiest way for me to describe it for myself, I feel, is like if I go like, my favorite thing in the world right now is disc golfing.
Speaker 2:I'm playing, playing a ton of it, I go by myself, I am, I'm having a good time, but there isn't a whole lot that's really memorable about it. And I would way I'm way happier afterwards if there was somebody there who I got to spend the time with and enjoy it with and like create the memory Afterwards, if there was somebody there who I got to spend the time with and enjoy it with and like create the memory. So that's a really important thing to pay attention to is engaging people in memory Fascinating.
Speaker 2:If we don't have people in memory, it stays a limbic experience and doesn't and doesn't just. It just doesn't contribute to your overall feelings of how things are going. It just is a. It's just a, it's just a quick, a quick hit essentially in all of that stuff and doesn't and doesn't translate, doesn't, doesn't build in yourself, into your sense of self and all of that other stuff and this is like a cursory thing below it. So you go from reptilian brain to your limbic and to the prefrontal cortex and whenever we tell our kids like use your words, don't just like get all mad and stuff, what we really want to be saying is don't be so limbic, actually process this as a human Actually process this as a human.
Speaker 2:So that's the first of all of those macronutrients is enjoyment, the second one being satisfaction in your accomplishments. And the easy way— Is it specifically in your accomplishments.
Speaker 2:Mostly it's kind of referring to, when you do something hard, the suffering that you have. If you save up for the car and you forego and you suffer and you don't get to eat out anymore for a certain period of time but you finally get the car, you are satisfied. If you study really hard for an exam and get your A, you feel satisfied by that. If you work really hard for a project and the project goes well and your company makes money or whatever, there is a satisfaction there.
Speaker 2:So satisfaction he's talking about isn't necessarily like a full stomach from eating, but it's like Well, he even uses that as an example of like if you eat a snack at three o'clock and you're have this beautiful dinner later on and you're just not that hungry for it, you're not as satisfied.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But if you allow yourself to suffer a little bit and to feel the pangs of hunger for a little bit extra man, that dinner somehow tastes better. Yeah, right. So he's kind of referring to it in that way. And the beautiful, or the beautiful and interesting part of our brain is because we were designed to be hunters, right. So he uses the fancy word homeostasis where our brains? Because we, we achieve all of these things and we're still never really satisfied. So we can achieve satisfaction, we just can't keep satisfaction and homeostasis.
Speaker 2:Our brain resets to and literally does a reset of okay, that was great. Next hunt is essentially what happens within our brain and and wipes it. And we're still. We still want to, we still have our drive, we still have our desire to go and accomplish something, to the ability to sift through and deal with um, whatever challenges may come, and so there's a satisfaction in your accomplishments that really only grows over time, because once we achieve one thing, we want to go to the next thing. That's part of being human. So he proposes a change in that and going for your joy after struggle and needing your delayed gratification, is that you do. It's basically the formula to satisfaction is a math problem and the numerator of your math problem, the top side of the fraction, is what you have. I remember this.
Speaker 2:And the bottom of it is divided by the things that you want, and one way to make a number of satisfaction a lot bigger is to increase the numerator buy more stuff. But at the same time as you buy all this stuff, the things that you want tends to grow, and so your satisfaction number really doesn't change. I love that, and so the key to getting a better, a higher number for satisfaction is actually decreasing the denominator, the lower part, to want less, to want less To want less.
Speaker 3:It's fascinating. I don't know if we talked about it on here or not, but the scripture passage the Lord is my shepherd I shall not want. There's at least two meanings to that right, and it's really related to this numerator and denominator In some sense. If the Lord is my shepherd and he's where most of my desire is fixated and the things I want, well then I really don't want other things anymore. Like I don't want.
Speaker 3:I still get to the satisfaction from receiving other things or earning other things, but I really only supremely want the Lord, and so then when something else comes in, it's more satisfying, right. But then there's this other reality that I don't want, because the Lord is providing the top part of the numerator right, and so he's providing things. So actually I don't need to want because I'm being provided for, and so it's kind of cool that even in Scripture Scripture reinforces what he's saying here is like you get to play with both of them. The higher leverage is on the denominator of wanting less, but it's almost mystical when you really play with it. Because even if you, I would argue if you play with decreasing your wants, like fixating yourself on Christ and being satisfied with what you already have, and appreciating and being full of gratitude, well then you actually start to notice even more the wants that come into the top part of the numerator, if that makes sense.
Speaker 3:You start to notice that, oh, I actually have a lot, and while you notice that you have a lot and you're decreasing your wants, that a lot that's already being provided for you is so much greater than what you wanted anyway.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's why you can see people who don't have a lot but be way more satisfied and fulfilled and content. It's because they've been doing a great job of like there's so many things that go into the thing decreasing the things you want. There's attachment, there's gratitude. There are two really key components to having those things being detached from the things that you have. Like I could have this. I could not have this. Like you said, I rely on the Lord and serve at His mercy and if he sees fit to give me these things, great.
Speaker 2:And if he doesn't then it's going to be good for me ultimately in the long run. So that's a fascinating component.
Speaker 3:Macronutrient. Yeah, it's interesting, there's actually more of a. I think one reason why it's more leveraged to focus on the denominator is there's more of a limitation to the numerator. Like there's only so many hours in the day dollars in your bank account. You know, whatever that you could put towards the wants.
Speaker 3:Like at some point you hit a point where I can't physically add to my own wants anymore, um, but when you kind of take the counterintuitive step of decreasing the things you want, um, and you're kind of I'll choose another word like your expectations, um, like I, I would almost say it's a little different, but you could put reality of what I have and what I'm getting at the top part and then expectations in the denominator, you know, and so if your expectations start to change to none or very little or very essentials, it's interesting, like there's a certain point where I can't add to what I have anymore. But if I focus on not wanting much or only wanting supreme things, well then, like first principles and God, well then what I have can actually be supplied by others, by the Lord, by sacrifice by suffering and that has a you know greater ability to compound than me going and getting what I want.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and and all of these things. Remember like like being really good. We're not all like, if I'm good at any of these things, like enjoyment is probably one of the things that I'm best at on here, and enjoyment and meaning, I would say, are the two the satisfaction thing I am terrible at? Meaning, I would say, are the two the satisfaction thing I am terrible at? That's where I want to focus in and get better at. But before I get into some of that stuff and the different knobs that we can turn in our lives and different ways we can rely upon the Lord that can help us with this, let's finish and talk about meaning overall.
Speaker 2:So he talks about there's two main questions. I love this that derive from meaning and that he uses, and it's a test, and you can do this test in a million different ways. It doesn't have to be exactly these two questions, but it's really important that you answer it for yourself and don't just steal somebody else's. Actually think about this. And if you don't have answers to these questions, that's actually a good thing, because it reveals to you that there's something for you to look for, for you to seek.
Speaker 2:And so the first thing is why are you alive? The meaning of life, blah, blah, all that stuff. And if you were to die today, what would you die for? Happily, persons causes different things, and the answer to those two questions really is where you can derive a whole lot of your meaning in your life. Easy ones for us would be our families. Easy ones for us would be for our faith, for Dr Brooks' son, who really struggled with figuring out where those two things, those meanings, early on, but then he went to the military and all of those meaning things fell in line for him.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it became clear I'll die for freedom, I'll die for my country, I'll die for my family, I'll die for truth, you know yeah yeah, all of these different things and those are.
Speaker 2:It's important, because a lot of people will say I don't know nothing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. I feel like a common refrain for the world and even maybe for lots of us at some point in our life. For the first question you know, why do you exist? It might be an, I don't know. And then what would you die for? I don't really want to die. You know, might be the honest two answers, and those are great answers, um, but I think it's.
Speaker 2:It really reveals that there's not a whole lot that means something to you. That's right, and we're designed as humans to like the second that comes out of our mouths that I really don't care about. Anything like this is why the mental health crisis is so bad, like the meaning is a really key part of it, and it's a. The meaning is a part that the religion of the day attacks with, with perpetuity and and tries to fill it in different things and tries to, tries to take that meaning into the satisfaction area, but they're.
Speaker 2:They're separated.
Speaker 3:It's interesting, like the second question I'm chewing on, like I feel like a lot of the world's honest answer, like can't be an answer because it's like a, a null, like it's a self-referential answer, and what I mean by that is like what would you die for? Well, at first it's like an honest answer, for most of us is probably nothing, um, and then the. If you were to try, if you're just changed the question slightly, like what are you?
Speaker 3:willing to take risks to prevent and it's like well, at all costs I want to prevent, like loss and death and suffering right. Loss of reputation, loss of friends.
Speaker 3:I'm actually like not even like earthly death, but death to self. I'm actually not interested in death, like I actually want to run from anything that looks like death as much as possible. I want to whitewash death, whitewash suffering, and so in some sense it's even just asking the questions very valuable because most of us aren't asking it, like what would I suffer for, what would I die for, what would I deny myself, for I'm not trying to suffer. Yeah, I'm actually trying to avoid that question, mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So pulling it back to what this means for us, I can't wait. Tomorrow morning we're leading a high school confirmation retreat and in the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City we confirm people in sixth grade so we're leading this retreat for a percentage of people who haven't been to mass are you gonna ask them why they exist and what they're gonna die for?
Speaker 2:where I'm doing this exact thing. Yeah, I have. I'm doing a completely. I've been doing confirmation stuff for a while. We like it's.
Speaker 2:It's embedded into the culture, into the american cath Catholicism and all of that, and Archbishop Coakley and I wholeheartedly agree has moved it back a little bit to sixth grade more time for grace. I'm not here to talk about exactly that, but there's always been a tradition of having a retreat attached to that, and so often, because of the way that we've done catechetics, the way that we've done retreats for the last 50 years here, it's been very class-oriented, very knowledge-oriented. These are the fruits of the Holy Spirit. This is what confirmation does. Maybe there's a mass, Maybe there's a little time in adoration, but what I've come to discover like I'm giving an impassioned talk to somebody in high school who hasn't been to Mass in five years and his parents are probably making him be there and it's very hard and so I'll see the eyes roll into the back of his head do this while I'm cracking the funniest joke that I've ever made, Like I prepare hard for these because, of how intensely disinterested in church that these people are because it hasn't been a part of their life.
Speaker 2:But all of a sudden it has to be, because I need to get confirmed, because my mom wants me to be confirmed, and so I changed my mind.
Speaker 2:Instead of taking this one shot with them to get them the truth one last time before they're gone forever which is the fear I have adapted the way that I think and I want to give them an experience, a good experience of church for the first time, so we're spending the morning playing these awesome games with them that are inspired by shows that they've watched, that they're going to get to compete for their favorite candy, which is Nerds Gummy Clusters, by the way, the most popular candy in America right now, but with teenagers, is that better than?
Speaker 3:nerds rope? Or is it just small pieces?
Speaker 2:It's actually some small pieces of nerds. Yeah, that's pretty good. Yeah, very good, better, better than the rope, cause the rope is just, was just kind of unwieldy.
Speaker 2:So and satisfaction yeah, enjoyment yeah, in a way enjoyment and satisfaction, but the whole time they're spending time with these small group leaders and just having a good time with them, and so we're like we only have a day. Building trust in a day is really, really hard, but they're going to have a lot of fun doing that. And then the second half of the day I'm going to go through science of happiness and just talk about this and really, like you guys have mentioned, we're talking about this from a really Catholic lens, but it's really easy to do this from a fairly secular point of view and just from a scientific point of view, and people are going to be like oh, that totally makes sense and doesn't inspire this. Well, that doesn't affect me at all, because you're talking about Jesus and I don't believe in Jesus. So giving them that and giving them like the goal is to convince them to seek something and hopefully that they're going to get a little taste when we ask them after that talk, what are those two meaning questions for? You.
Speaker 2:We're going to hear a whole bunch of I don't knows or I don't really want to die, and all of that stuff which is going to be really good for them to know about themselves. And then we're gonna do like I'm just gonna do, a brief history of salvation, history lesson of hey, you're Catholic. I wanna talk to you about how the whole world has gone down and it'll be great. That's cool. But enjoying enjoyment, satisfaction meaning there's not. All of us are not good at all. Three of these things I am very easily my my homeostasis resets really quickly. I would assume that yours does too. It tends to happen for really really driven people. So my satisfaction stuff, I want everything and uh, and I don't have a lot either. So it's just like it can be a really easy thing to be grumpy in that area, and that's where I want to decrease my wants.
Speaker 3:Quick question on satisfaction to your point there with the homeostasis. So does working on this numerator denominator thing of working on the decreasing what I want and then still obviously pursuing some of the numerator of things to have, does that increase the time of homeostasis or the frequency of homeostasis?
Speaker 2:I'd have to take the class to find out, but that sounds I bet you, homeostasis happens regardless.
Speaker 3:Because I think there's probably two problems in the satisfaction spot like, or two weaknesses, like speaking from experience. And I think one weakness is maybe being like overly good at getting to homeostasis, like getting like working hard, sacrificing, and then getting to that moment of satisfaction that you accomplish something. And if you're really good at that and let's say you're getting some reset right away and and let's say, you're getting some like pretty big wins on the what I want thing, going into the science of like dopamine, for example, like if you get a high in dopamine which you usually do for anything in this satisfaction category like let's say, it's a a big work-related success. You worked out this milestone, you got there and it's like the biggest you've ever had. Well, you're going to have a big rise in dopamine.
Speaker 3:Well, after that's over, your fall in dopamine is deeper than the rise was from your baseline and so you go even lower beyond. So in some sense, like, while you have experience and you have the high satisfaction, now you need a bigger thing to rise you back up. Now you need a bigger thing to rise you back up. Um, or you need to have things in your life that are smaller, things that keep get you back to baseline better, um, and so it's interesting. I think someone who's, like polarity, really good at this satisfaction part on the numerator side of things probably struggles with never being content, like never being happy in an achievement.
Speaker 3:And never is probably the wrong word. They're like shortly happy, and then they're sort of crashing into this, like well, you know what's next. And the what's next, because it's such a low drop on dopamine, could be kind of disparative. And then the other one would be, maybe, the polarity of someone who's just like that, not really motivated to go get satisfaction. And so I think it's wise that he talks about working on focusing on the denominator, because in either of those cases, um, wanting less is helpful, uh, but it's.
Speaker 3:It's interesting if I'm really low on that, like I'm kind of lazy and not motivated by anything. I probably do need to work on. I almost need to work on meaning in order to be interested in achieving something. It's kind of a fascinating paradigm.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I mean.
Speaker 3:So, pray with those three things and consider them, because they're things that the world wants for you, and the two questions to take to the journal to talk about with a friend maybe, so it gets to our prefrontal cortex are why do I exist and what slash? Who would I die?
Speaker 2:for yeah, why are you alive? Happily that you die, for Happily I think that makes a difference what I happily die for. Yeah.
Speaker 3:You'd be excited to die for you. You'd be excited to die for You'd feel emboldened.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it would just Strike at your core. Yeah, I'm here for it. Of course, I'm going to do this.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so I think that my main challenge is like we're kind of coming to a close here For us is that, like we are, there is a serious win here within the way that our culture operates If we begin to communicate in this way early. And the other key piece of this is happy people are leaders.
Speaker 2:People follow happy people because they want to be happy, and if we're happy as missionaries and evangelists, then people are going to want that happiness and are going to follow us all the way to heaven because of happiness which is hysterical, especially if this happiness is like coming from life.
Speaker 3:In all three of these categories, right, like I don't know. It's extremely attractive. Like, even if I'm fully secular. Right, if I can see that someone has meaning in their life and they're pursuing something. I can see that someone has meaning in their life and they're pursuing something. So they're like, even if I can't describe all the things about it or I'm not fully, I don't even know what their meanings drive from or what they're pursuing, that person's really attractive.
Speaker 3:Like I want to be about them, like I think of you know, even like after my formation, when I was sitting down with Father Jerome one time, I was like man. You're the type of person that's moved by something and I can tell you are Obviously becoming a priest or being sold out in your vocation to marriage or being an on-fire Catholic that's devoted. I can see that. But there's something here, there's a life in you. You're moved by something and I know that those are archetypal parts of it, like your vocation and the priesthood and the Catholic faith. But there's something that's, there's some meaning you're pursuing Like what is it?
Speaker 2:Like.
Speaker 3:I was just innately curious and I think you're right. Like those, people blaze a trail and folks want to follow them 100%.
Speaker 2:So I think that the more that we can use these things, use these natural tools to help us become more happy, we're going to be more effective evangelists from the start of it. But also it's just the most beautiful jumping off point, the beautiful meeting people where they're at point where you don't have to say Jesus but man. It points there.
Speaker 2:And it's really really clear that that's, and if you're the one living out your life in a happily way, so I'm just. I really think that this has given us a better way of saying happiness is a need and a goal in a human and this is a way of achieving that. But you're really just like why? Why are you alive? The only thing that makes sense ultimately like intellectually, honestly is is like who made the world? And asking all those questions created.
Speaker 3:So it's just a beautiful place to start the search. And yeah, in some sense, if I give a a weak sauce answer to why do I exist, like I kind of know that it's weak immediately, you know if I give a why I exist. That's kind of halfway there.
Speaker 2:I'm left with a hunger to keep asking questions about the why do I exist thing yeah, so it's just a beautiful way to stoke that curiosity and a beautiful tool that I don't think that we've had access to in a in the easiest way before. So so go after that. I'm sure I'll talk more about this again.
Speaker 3:Should we have people email in why do I exist and what would I die for? That'd be pretty awesome. That'd be fun yeah.
Speaker 2:The email's somewhere in the show notes and Producer Avery will throw it in there. We'd love to read a couple of those. Actually, It'd be really interesting. That'd be really cool follow-up episode.
Speaker 1:But anyways, this has been Red Deer Catholics. I'm Jace and I'm James. We'll see you next time, thank you.