Transcript
00:00:00Confession. Vacation is hard for me. I work a lot. If I were left to my devices, I would
00:00:06work all the time. And so maybe you, like me, find taking a vacation a hard thing to
00:00:10do and relaxing, pulling away from your generative work, a hard thing to do. I'd like to tell
00:00:16you that the perfect vacation will make you permanently happy, or at least happy for the
00:00:20rest of the year. But it doesn't because that's not the way that your limbic system works.
00:00:24Today's episode is about how you can have a happier vacation. Really what it's about
00:00:29is how you can be happier as a person by taking the right kind of vacation, not the wrong
00:00:34kind of vacation, which many people do, and also how you can be happier while you're on
00:00:39vacation. I'm going to try to give you the criteria for building vacation that actually suits you
00:00:44the best, as well as the people that you love.
00:00:54Hey friends, welcome to Office Hours. I'm Arthur Brooks.
00:00:58This is a show about lifting people up and bringing them together in bonds of happiness
00:01:01and love using science and ideas.
00:01:03That's my mission as a social scientist is to do that. But I need you with me. If you're
00:01:08trying to make the world a better place with more love and happiness, I hope this has been
00:01:13helpful to you, this show. And if it is, please do share the show with other people. We're building a
00:01:19a pretty big following of people who share these values. And I like that we can be part of that.
00:01:26I think that we can make a better world with these ideas. This is what science is supposed
00:01:30to do, as a matter of fact. Anyway, I also hope that you're enjoying the show. If you do,
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00:01:39the algorithm get to more people and share it with your friends. Tell your friends that this
00:01:43is something you like to listen to and let us continue to grow as a movement of people dedicated
00:01:49to happiness and love. It's summertime. It's June. And that means that a lot of you are thinking about
00:01:55your vacations. And that's what I want to talk about today. Today's episode is about how you can
00:01:59have a happier vacation. Really, what it's about is how you can be happier as a person by taking the
00:02:06right kind of vacation and not the wrong kind of vacation, which many people do. And also how you
00:02:12could be happier while you're on vacation. Maybe you've already planned your vacation. Maybe not.
00:02:17One way or the other, maybe I can shift a little bit the science of your vacation taking,
00:02:22understanding what's actually important to you. So this is going to be quite specific. I'm not going
00:02:26to talk about what everybody should do. I don't know what you should do. I'm going to try to give
00:02:30you the criteria for building vacation that actually suits you the best, as well as the people
00:02:35that you love. Now, as always, please give me your comments or criticisms. You can write them to me at
00:02:42officehours at arthurbrooks.com or put them wherever you're watching or listening to this. In the comment
00:02:47section, we do look at the comments. And also, if you want more content like this, please do subscribe to
00:02:52my newsletter. 210,000 people are getting it every Friday. It's full of new ideas, things that you're
00:03:00not that might be related to the episode. It might not be one way or the other. It's the same style,
00:03:05just in written form, three to 500 words. You can read it really quickly. Friday morning also has
00:03:11usually some stupid jokes that I think are funny, and I hope you do as well. You can get that at
00:03:16arthurbrooks.com slash newsletter. If you're interested in going a little deeper and maybe
00:03:22working in person with other people who like this show or interested in this material, do think about
00:03:27checking out some of the retreats that we're doing. This is a nice way to actually work in person with
00:03:33me and others who are dedicated to the science of happiness. You can actually look at that on our
00:03:37website as well. You can go to retreats.arthurbrooks.com. And when you're on the website, you'll find all
00:03:43kinds of other cool stuff. You can take the happiness scale to measure your happiness.
00:03:47You can take a little internet workshop that will help you with what you've got going on. There's
00:03:51lots and lots of cool things. And there's even a community of people that are meeting once a month
00:03:55for an hour on Zoom with me. They have access to an AI tool that actually helps you with all of the
00:04:02things that we do in the science of happiness and lots of other cool bells and whistles to help you
00:04:06become a happier person and bring happiness to other people as well. So thanks for all of that.
00:04:11Now let's talk about the main point today, which is this theme of vacations. It seems like we wouldn't
00:04:18need a show about how to be happier on vacation, right? I mean, what could come more naturally than
00:04:23that? Well, I don't know. It doesn't come naturally to me at all. Confession. Vacation is hard for me.
00:04:30I work a lot. If I were left to my devices, I would work all the time. I mean, part of it is because I
00:04:37really love my work. I mean, this beats having a real job. Talking to you about love and happiness
00:04:44is the best thing ever. But the truth is, I've always been like that. You know, when I was 19 years old and
00:04:49I, you know, left college to become a professional French horn player, all I did was practice and think
00:04:54about the future and my career. And then I went to graduate school and got my PhD and I just worked
00:04:59and worked and worked 12 hours a day, seven days a week. It's a miracle that Esther, you know, put up with
00:05:05that while I was in graduate school. And then I was an assistant professor and you'd think, well, that's a
00:05:10pretty nice lifestyle. Are you kidding me? I was working 80 hours a week writing my papers. I'm just, I'm a little
00:05:15bit workaholic. And that's because I'm a striver and so are a lot of you. Whether you have a traditional
00:05:21education or not, you're really serious about your life and you want to put points on the board. And so maybe you,
00:05:27like me, find taking a vacation a hard thing to do and relaxing, pulling away from your generative work, a hard thing to do.
00:05:35I did a show some months back on the essence of leisure, how to get good at leisure. And if you need
00:05:41to, go rewatch that show. What does excellent leisure mean? This is going to be an even more practical
00:05:48look at how to build a vacation. What do they all have in common for good vacations? And most especially,
00:05:56how can you build one that's suited to your personality and your particular priorities? And even if it's hard,
00:06:02how do you get better at vacation? That's what we really want to get at. Okay. Now Americans are actually pretty bad at
00:06:10vacation, I have to say. So I'm not alone in the way that I struggle with the, you know, getting away. A lot of people are
00:06:16like, I don't want to go sit on a beach. It's just so boring. Maybe you think, oh, that's the best thing ever, but just
00:06:22chilling on the beach. That isn't so great for a lot of people. And how do I know that? Because I've got data. The US Travel
00:06:27Association says that in the 1990s, the last decade of the 20th century, Americans took on average 20.3
00:06:34vacation days per year. Okay. 20.3 in the whole year, not including federal holidays and not including
00:06:42weekends. By 2018, that had fallen by 14% to 17.4 days. In other words, we're getting richer,
00:06:48but taking fewer vacations. A lot of what you hear, well, that's because Americans are getting so much
00:06:53poorer. That's wrong. That's simply factually incorrect. We are actually getting richer. And
00:06:58one of the reasons maybe we're getting richer is because we are taking fewer vacation days. Furthermore,
00:07:03we have access to more vacation days that we're taking. Americans left 768 million vacation days
00:07:10voluntarily unused in the year 2018. And I'm sure it's higher today. I mean, that's a lot. Now, that's
00:07:16mind-boggling to Europeans. When I first moved to Europe when I was 25 years old, and not just Europe,
00:07:24Spain, it's a vacation culture. I mean, Spain, the number one industry in Spain is vacation,
00:07:30not the Spaniards vacation, but other people taking vacation in Spain because the weather's so nice.
00:07:35That's that tourism is the number one industry in Spain. It's a huge part of the economy is the way
00:07:40that that works. But Spaniards themselves are very serious about their vacations. When you go to a party in
00:07:45America, you know, and you're breaking the ice to somebody, it's like, what do you do? Which means,
00:07:49what do you do for work? As my wife pointed out, who is my wife? She's a Spaniard. For those of you
00:07:55who don't know, she said, that's incredibly discreet. You're asking people what they do for money.
00:07:59The most normal question in Spain at a party is, where are you going on vacation? I kid you not.
00:08:04It's like, oh yeah, you're going to Fort Mendera. You're going to the La Costa Dorada. You're going to
00:08:09some, you know, one of these like Tony vacation spots or someplace to the, you know, to the beach,
00:08:14or you're going to the mountains. And that's what you're talking about. You don't care if the guy's
00:08:18a lawyer or college professor or politician. You don't care. You care where they're going on vacation,
00:08:24whether you know somebody who's there. That's what people really have in common because that's
00:08:28priorities. In Spain, you get double pay traditionally for the month that you're on vacation.
00:08:34You get double pay in December so you can buy your Christmas presents. You get double pay in August when
00:08:38you're on vacation so you can pay for your vacation, which suggests to me that people in Spain need to
00:08:42save more money. And you know, you get a whole, you get a whole month too. I mean, stuff just stops in
00:08:48Italy and Spain and other parts of Europe in August. You want to, you want to actually want to get
00:08:52something done around in your house and get a contractor. Good luck. It's not going to actually
00:08:57happen. I mean, whole businesses literally shut down. In my neighborhood in Barcelona,
00:09:03there would be almost no stores open the entire month of August, which seems like an unbelievably
00:09:09good opportunity for somebody who wants to work, except that most people weren't in the neighborhood
00:09:14either. So maybe that was pretty smart. One way or the other, there's a different
00:09:19attitude toward it. And when it comes to wellbeing, I'm not going to say what come for economic growth,
00:09:24what's better. I'm not going to say what's better for productivity, but for wellbeing,
00:09:27the Spaniards have got it right. This is clear. What do I mean? That they're going on vacation
00:09:32and that they like vacation. Why? Because vacations understood properly are a huge source of wellbeing.
00:09:41And there's the journal called the Annals of Tourism Research. There's a journal of everything,
00:09:46my friends, that ran a pretty well-cited article from 2012 that showed that vacations increase
00:09:54quality of life for most people, here's the catch, more than health, money, family, and work.
00:10:01And it only came in second place to religion. So being religious is really good for your mental health
00:10:08and your wellbeing. And especially if you take vacations, that's what it comes down to. The other
00:10:13stuff is important, but that's a big deal when you think about it. And if you don't know how to take
00:10:18vacations, that means that you don't know, that you don't actually know how to use this really important
00:10:24part of life, which is getting away from your ordinary life and doing something that's fun and leisurely
00:10:31and enhances your relationships. And well, let's be more specific. What should it do?
00:10:38That's the main question I want to get to today. Because I have actually, and combing through the
00:10:43research on this, which is not research, my friends, this is me search. This is me trying to figure out how
00:10:48I can actually get over this barrier and have the best possible vacations. In the literature, outcome,
00:10:55nine rules for having a great vacation this summer or any time in your life. So that's what I want
00:11:01to build. Now I want you to think about this in terms of your own priorities. I'm not going to tell
00:11:05you where you should go. I want you to understand yourself better. Starting with rule number one,
00:11:10discern your motive for going on vacation in the first place. Different people had different
00:11:16motives for going on vacation, depending on their tastes, their memories, their history,
00:11:22their pocketbook, their psychological wiring. And there's all sorts of interesting patterns. I'll give you
00:11:27an example. Introverts like the mountains and extroverts like the beach. Like, huh, that's
00:11:32weird. Why is that? I'll give you, I'll tell you why. Because introverts don't like to get naked in
00:11:36front of other people. I mean, practically naked in America, like literally naked in Spain is
00:11:41unbelievably awkward. That's why it makes sense, right? Because in the mountains, you're all covered
00:11:46up, which introverts like to do. Okay, got it. By the way, some of you are very modest extroverts,
00:11:51so don't take offense. But that's one of the funny things that you find in the literature is that
00:11:55different strokes with different personalities and different motives for what they actually do.
00:12:00Okay, so what's your motive? Let's find out. There's a 2015 study of Danish tourists,
00:12:06and this is from Advances in Economics and Business, the Relationships between Sociodemographic
00:12:12Variables, Travel Motivations, and Subsequent Choice of Vacation, that shows, based on these Danish
00:12:19tourists, that there's six basic motives. And this goes through a large sample of people and asks them
00:12:24why they go on vacation in a structured set of interviews. And out pop basically six motives.
00:12:29It's a pretty exhaustive list. And knowing what your motive is, is going to be really helpful
00:12:35for building the vacation that best suits your motives. Because one of the reasons people don't
00:12:38like their vacation is they got one motive and they wind up going on a kind of vacation that's
00:12:43incongruent with that. So for example, you have a motivation of getting away from it all,
00:12:49but you're doing something that's actually unbelievably stressful and intensive, and you're wondering why
00:12:54you don't like your vacation. Because there's incongruence. So let's start with your motives.
00:12:59Number one is exploration. A lot of people really want to explore, which is a learning motive.
00:13:03Number two is escape. Just not ordinary life. Some people want to get away from ordinary life.
00:13:08That's a primary motive. Number three, family and friends, aka relationship deepening. Very big
00:13:16motive for a lot of people on vacation. Number four is prestige. Their motive for going on vacation is
00:13:21kind of looking cool or looking rich. Now, that's a bad motive, as you can imagine. If you watched any
00:13:27of my stuff, you know that that's all based on social comparison. I'm going to come back to that one later.
00:13:32Still, that's something that shows up a lot that people will say that that's their motive. Usually
00:13:38not in those words. They don't say my motive for vacation is prestige. But what it comes down to
00:13:41through the structured interviews is that's what they want. They want social comparison. They want
00:13:45to do something that other people envy. Number five, nature. Just the beauty of nature. Now,
00:13:51I've done episodes on the importance of nature and how nature actually changes your brain. And some people
00:13:56actually know that. And they know that the more nature that they can actually get into long hikes,
00:14:00sleeping outside, whatever it happens to be. These are sort of national parks people, typically,
00:14:05that they really, really get a lot out of it. And if you know that's the case, then that's an
00:14:09important motive for you to be gearing your vacation plans around. And number six is history
00:14:14and heritage. That's different than exploration. It's not just seeing new things, but it's a learning
00:14:19motive as well. And people really, really love that, as it turns out. So how does that map onto your
00:14:25motives? And by the way, you don't have to choose just one. You might have like three and have them in
00:14:30order. But the more that you know what they are, the more likely you are to choose a vacation
00:14:34that's going to be satisfying to you and regenerative for you. I'll talk in a minute about
00:14:42prestige. So I'm going to leave that aside for now. One thing that I will note is that in almost all of
00:14:48the cases, no matter what your motive is, you'll get more from your vacation if you share it with
00:14:52people that you love. One of the things that you find is that there are very few people that have the
00:14:57most fun vacations by going away by themselves. Now, maybe you're one of those people.
00:15:01Okay. But that's not typically the case. It's not what we see. When you're enjoying something and
00:15:06you're enjoying it with others, the enjoyment tends to rise because we are social animals. That doesn't
00:15:11mean you're out there with 300 people. It might mean one other person, whoever it happens to be. But
00:15:16consider the social aspect, the social magnifying aspect of the motive that you have. Okay. That's
00:15:21rule number one. What's your motive? Now, rule number two. When you do choose a vacation that's
00:15:27congruent with your motive, savoring the anticipation of the vacation is a critical component of getting the
00:15:34most out of it. One of the happiest parts of vacation is looking forward to it. There's some good studies
00:15:39on Dutch and Chinese vacationers, and they see that they have way greater happiness over non-vacationers
00:15:48in the weeks leading up to their holiday. It's not just that people go on vacation and they're happier
00:15:54than people who stay home. It's people who are going to go on vacation are happier than people who are going to
00:15:58stay home. I mean, a really significant thing, as it turns out. I'll put a couple of links to the research in that,
00:16:04one from the Applied Research in Quality of Life. Great journal. And the Annals of Tourism Research, Empirical
00:16:10Insights. The data say that one of the greatest sources of happiness from any pleasurable activity,
00:16:15actually, is the anticipation of it. And there's a reason for that. There's a neurochemical reason for that.
00:16:20I've talked a lot about the neuromodulator dopamine, which is really...people think of it as a kind of a
00:16:26pleasure chemical. It's not. It leads to anticipation of reward. Dopamine is implicated in the wanting and
00:16:32learning and liking cycle, where you learn about something that actually is good for you. And so
00:16:38the result of it is that you want it more and that you crave it, and you anticipate the reward from
00:16:43getting it the next time. All of those feelings that you get, that all has to do with dopamine. It's
00:16:49being sprayed from a little thing in your brain called the locus coeruleus, largely onto the nucleus
00:16:54accumbens, and your brain, "I want that. I want that roast beef sandwich. I want that to see that
00:17:03person that I'm anticipating seeing somebody that I'm falling in love with." That's dopamine talking
00:17:09right there. And the same thing is true when you anticipate a beautiful vacation that you've planned,
00:17:15and when you savor it in advance. What you're doing is giving yourself little spritzes of dopamine onto your
00:17:20nucleus accumbens. I think it's going to be so fun. I'm going to like it. It's going to be so great.
00:17:25And that adds to your happiness in the run-up to the vacation, which net-net is good for you,
00:17:30good for your well-being. That's great. Use this science to your advantage by setting up your vacation
00:17:36agenda in advance and studying it, studying your destination, learning more about actually what
00:17:42you're going to see. I used to do this a lot with one of my sons. When my kids were little, my three
00:17:48kids, I don't have 16 kids, so this was possible. I had three kids, and each one of them, they each
00:17:53wanted to do different things. And once a year, I would go away alone with them. I was always a super
00:17:57hard worker. But once a year, I would take three or four days with each one of my kids and go someplace
00:18:04that they wanted to go, just the two of us. You know, my middle son, who's always been an avid
00:18:08hunter and fisherman, we would go hunting and fishing. Hunting is not my thing, but he is my thing.
00:18:14With my daughter, we would go to amusement parks. He was super into like radical rides. And then
00:18:18she went on to, you know, she's in the Marine Corps. She likes strong experiences. And my oldest son,
00:18:24he was very, very into classical music from a young age. And so for his birthday in May, every year,
00:18:30we would go to New York City. We would go to the Met. We would see opera. And he was like a 12-year-old
00:18:36kid. He wanted to see opera or chamber music. And we would go see the New York Philharmonic. And for
00:18:40me, that's my whole background. I'm seriously crazy about classical music, and I know a lot about it.
00:18:45But that was an opportunity for him to learn about it. And so what we would do in the anticipation of
00:18:49these trips, two months before, we would actually get our tickets and know what we were going to do.
00:18:54And we would buy the scores of the pieces that we were going to see, either the orchestral pieces
00:18:59or the chamber music pieces. And we would study the scores with CDs, the old days of CDs, before
00:19:05he went to bed at night. So we'd go before, you know, before we'd say his prayers and say goodnight
00:19:10for half an hour, we would go through a movement or two of whatever it is that we were going to go
00:19:15see in New York City. And he would learn the music, which really helped him to read music better.
00:19:19If it was an opera, we would study the libretto or we would actually watch videos of the opera.
00:19:24So he really had the tunes in his head. And the result was he got more and more and more excited.
00:19:27And me too. It was so great. What we were doing was like our locus coeruleus was like a little
00:19:33fire hose of dopamine inside our brain saying, this is going to be so great. If you're not into classical
00:19:37music, you're like, what a drag. But do your thing, whatever it happens to be, you'll like it better.
00:19:42Now, one thing to keep in mind is that too much anticipation can backfire if you imagine your
00:19:48vacation will put you in a state of constant bliss. So you got to have realistic expectations that
00:19:53nothing is perfect. You don't want to be disappointed to be sure. But enjoying the learning about what
00:20:00you're going to do in advance, that's a really great thing. That will really increase your,
00:20:05the enhance the value of the vacation with respect to your wellbeing.
00:20:08Right now you're like Neo in the matrix. You can keep scrolling, experiencing a simulation of life,
00:20:15or you can wake up to how your attention is being harvested for profit. It's happening to people
00:20:21all over the world right now. You don't want to be productized like this anymore, but it's hard.
00:20:27Tech addiction is so potent because it's been designed to tap into your dopamine system,
00:20:32just like heroin, porn, gambling. You've got the cravings, you're addicted. You don't like it,
00:20:37and I don't either. But I can't just tell you to stop doing it. That's hard.
00:20:40If you want to break free from the system, you need an incentive. Here's one. Why don't you join a
00:20:46phone company that pays you not to use your phone? If you want to reduce brain rot, get Noble Mobile.
00:20:52It pays you to use less data. It gives you an incentive to unplug. Noble Mobile is the phone
00:20:58plan that finally aligns incentives with what's good for you. Use less data, earn money back. And when you do,
00:21:04you'll be living once again in real life, and you're going to like how it feels.
00:21:08Okay. We're only on number two. Now we're going to go to number three, and I got nine. Okay. So I'm not
00:21:13going to be here all day. Let me pick up the pace a little bit. Number three, manage your expectations.
00:21:19That kind of picks up on the last point that I just made in the following way. Time away
00:21:24might raise your perceived wellbeing, but it doesn't last super long. I'd like to tell you that the perfect
00:21:32vacation will make you permanently happy, or at least happy for the rest of the year. But it doesn't,
00:21:36because that's not the way that your limbic system works. Your limbic system is console of tissue
00:21:42inside your brain between two and 40 million years old, which is basically the factory of your emotions.
00:21:48It's there to give you signals about things around you, whether they're threats or opportunities.
00:21:53It's not there to give you a permanently nice day. If you did something like had a good vacation or ate a,
00:21:58you know, delicious Snickers bar, and it gave you permanently better mood, that would distract you
00:22:02from things you need to be paying attention to, potential threats. That would be dangerous.
00:22:07The result is that, yeah, you can get a higher affective state. You can improve your mood. You can
00:22:14get more positive emotionality by having a really great vacation, but it's not going to be a permanent
00:22:20state of affairs. And it's important that you manage your expectations about that. Not thinking,
00:22:24"Oh, it's going to be great forever," because it isn't. It tends to wear off, and in some cases,
00:22:29kind of quickly. There's a 2010 Dutch study of vacationers, and it found that for sure, while
00:22:35they were on holiday, that's what they call it, people on vacation were healthier than when they
00:22:41weren't on vacation, less stressed, more energetic, more satisfied, and better spirits, for sure.
00:22:46Generally, they were. Those effects largely disappeared at the end of the first week back at work.
00:22:52They got a glow of a few days. That's what it came down to. Now, there's some studies that find a
00:22:56slightly longer-lasting effect, even up to weeks at a time, but none of them say that they're going
00:23:02to be permanent or even really, really long-term. So manage your expectations, that this is a good
00:23:07thing to do. What you're trying to do is to make some really nice memories with people that you love,
00:23:11doing something you really enjoy. You're going to be really significantly happier and healthier while
00:23:16you're doing it, and you get a lot of savoring beforehand. But don't think that six months from now,
00:23:20that this is the game-changer, because it probably isn't.
00:23:24Okay. Now, one way to make it last a little bit longer, however, is lesson number four,
00:23:29the strategy number four. Break your trip or break your vacation into vacationettes,
00:23:35into little vacations. Don't take one month in Borneo. Take 15 long weekends to the Jersey Shore,
00:23:43or wherever your thing is, what it comes down to. Now, this is a great way to get an afterglow that
00:23:50goes on longer, because it's more frequent. It's more frequent dosage. I remember when I was a little
00:23:55kid, I remember thinking, um, I wanted to play, it was summertime, I want to play outside all day.
00:24:01And what really annoyed me was that my mom would make me come back for meals, you know, breakfast,
00:24:07lunch, and dinner. Come on, man, every day, every day, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Obviously,
00:24:11I wasn't really into eating, which is why right now I look like a skeleton in a shirt. But my point being
00:24:17that it was like that when I was a kid. And so I remember thinking and proposing to my mom, you know,
00:24:22how about if I eat all three of my meals at breakfast, and I can just stay playing until
00:24:26I go to bed at night. Not realizing, of course, that that doesn't work metabolically. That's
00:24:30not going to work. That's not a strategy that actually worked with my biology. But the same
00:24:35thing is true with the big vacation. One big vacation for most people actually doesn't give
00:24:41you a very big afterglow. And more frequent, smaller vacations will give you, uh, an effect that will,
00:24:48it's not super long term, but that's okay, because your next vacation is right around the
00:24:51corner. Over the past few years since our kids have grown up, um, Esther and I like to take
00:24:56pretty frequent, uh, weekends away. You know, we'll go someplace. Where do you want to go? You
00:25:00want to go to the mountains? You want to go to the shore? You want to go to Florida? Whatever. We'll
00:25:04just, you know, go, which is great. What a privilege it actually is to be able to pick up and do stuff
00:25:09like that. And, and what we find is that we're quite, we're quite refreshed by doing that. Not as much as,
00:25:15you know, the two week deal, but more often. So maybe that's the way to think about it. That actually,
00:25:20there's an interesting paper from stress and health, uh, effects of short vacations is the name
00:25:27of the article. I'll put that in the notes. These are sort of punctuations to your equilibrium that
00:25:31you can spread out over time, even if they fade. And that leads to higher life satisfaction and better mood
00:25:36overall than the single long vacation. Hmm. Give that some thought. That might be the way you
00:25:43want to take your vacation days. Number five. Okay. Here's the counterintuitive one. Take fewer
00:25:48pictures. I know, I know you want to take pictures so that you can remember this, but think about this.
00:25:53It's so, such a funny thing. Human beings are just time travelers. This amazing prefrontal cortex
00:25:59behind our foreheads, the super computer of our brains allows us to live in two or three time zones
00:26:05simultaneously. The past, the present, and the future. We're retrospective. We're mindful sometimes,
00:26:11and we're prospective, which is to say that we're, we're thinking about things to come.
00:26:15The, the, the, the trouble is that we're better at retrospection and prospection,
00:26:20the past and the future, than we are at being here now. That's why, you know, the great Vietnamese
00:26:25Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh wrote the miracle of mindfulness. That starts off by saying, when you're
00:26:30washing the dishes, you need to be fully present while you're washing the dishes. Because if you don't,
00:26:35you're missing your life. You're literally thinking about a time that's not now. And in so doing,
00:26:42by the time that, that, that now is over, well, it's gone because you weren't fully present. You were
00:26:50probably thinking about the future. The future, when, you know, at that particular time, when it comes,
00:26:56the things that you were thinking about will already be in the past. People live this way. And, and I live this way.
00:27:01And that's a problem, isn't it? That's what taking pictures on vacation kind of is. It's like, I'm
00:27:06going to take a picture of something so that, and I'm thinking about the future while I'm taking the
00:27:11picture, imagining myself in the future, remembering what is currently the present, but at which point
00:27:17it will be the past. And it wasn't fully alive in that moment. Okay. So you need some data to see
00:27:24whether or not that's a good argument, don't you? Hope so. I have got it. What you find is that when
00:27:29people are engaged in highly enjoyable activities, they have more fun when they don't take pictures.
00:27:36Some estimates say that between you, you decrement your enjoyment of something when you're taking
00:27:41pictures by 15 to 20%. And that's a lot. If this vacation is important to you, that comes from
00:27:46psychology and marketing. You distract yourself from having experience. It's impossible to savor something when
00:27:51you're thinking about yourself enjoying this in the past. So how do you do that? How do you deal with
00:27:57that? Now, one way to do that, if you're pretty Buddhist about this, is to say, "No pictures.
00:28:03This will be evanescent. This will be a thing that's a moment in time, never to be recreated."
00:28:09It's like making a snowman and waiting for it to melt. Okay. All right. Or you can simply say,
00:28:17yeah, we're going to want to memorialize this vacation with some pictures. So I'll tell you what,
00:28:23we're out here with our family of four. One person each day is assigned to taking pictures and the other
00:28:28three of us are prohibited from doing so. Just make a rule. That turns out to be a really, really good
00:28:33rule on vacation. So everybody enjoys it. And later you can all look back on it and say that was fun.
00:28:38And that seems like a pretty good compromise to me. Okay. Now, number six is an adjunct to number five.
00:28:47Don't post about your vacation. That one is really clear. That gets back to the prestige motive. You
00:28:53know, why am I taking my vacation? Because I want to be fancy. Well, what's the best way these days to be
00:28:59fancy on your vacation and get the benefit of showing what a fancy person you are with your
00:29:05vacation of Fiji or something? You put it online. And so other people can say, oh man, she's living,
00:29:12man. She's obviously making a lot of money and having a great time. And she's with, you know,
00:29:17some really, really handsome guy and the whole thing. But the truth is you're ruining your own
00:29:22experience when you're doing that because you're living your vacation for somebody else. You're trying to
00:29:28elicit envy, for example. Now, evolution is what's making you do this. This is not your fault. You're
00:29:34not a terrible person. You're not venal and weak. Evolution says that you live in a hierarchy and you
00:29:41want to rise in the hierarchy. Evolution doesn't care about your happiness at all. This is not something
00:29:46that's been, you know, that natural selection or sexual selection is based on happiness. It's based on
00:29:52fitness, on biological fitness. And that's exhibited in all sorts of different ways.
00:29:58It's based on happiness, including the extent to which we can afford a fancy vacation.
00:30:02So the reason that you want to put this stuff online is to show how fit you are, to show
00:30:07that you're somebody who has high status, is the way that that works. That's the prestige motive.
00:30:13And that, my friends, will lead you to enjoy your vacation less and to be less happy.
00:30:18That is real clear. Article from 2018 in the Journal of Consumer Research, "How the intention to share can
00:30:25undermine enjoyment, photo-taking goals, and the evaluation of experiences." It shows that
00:30:30pictures are bad enough, but taking pictures for the explicit motive of posting those pictures will
00:30:36basically suck the enjoyment out of your vacation. Number seven, a lot of people talk about taking a
00:30:42working vacation or just doing a little work when they're on vacation. Bad idea. Generally speaking,
00:30:48that's a bad idea. Vacation is super hard on workaholics because they're thinking about their
00:30:54work the whole time and they're stressed out because they're not doing their work and because their work
00:30:59is actually piling up. And so one way to cope for a lot of workaholics, trust me, I know, is to take
00:31:05along a little work. Like this way, look, my emails won't pile up and I'll have something to do after
00:31:11the kids go to sleep. Don't do it. This strategy won't just lower your satisfaction during the trip.
00:31:17It'll also give you a worse vacation hangover when you come back. Here's a really interesting finding
00:31:22from the Journal of Stress and Health. Researchers find that engaging in work-related activities
00:31:28lowers the positive effects of vacation one, three, and ten days after returning from work. In other
00:31:34words, the glow that you get, which is not permanent, not even super long-term, you won't get it if you
00:31:38work while you're on vacation. Plus, my friends, you'll have a spouse who's annoyed with you
00:31:44and you'll have kids who are like, "Dad, dad, dad, dad, dad." Sounds an awful lot like I know that
00:31:50soundtrack. If you want to busy yourself with something, pick up a book and learn something that you're not
00:31:57getting paid to learn. People have been asking me for years and years and years about my reading list,
00:32:02for example. And I have a reading list on my website. If you want to look at it,
00:32:05arthurbrooks.com/readinglist with a hyphen between reading and list. Let's go to the website,
00:32:10you'll find it. And you'll find something that, you know, many of these things I've actually read
00:32:14while I was on my vacations from work. It's not dumb beach reads. This stuff is serious stuff that will be
00:32:20generative that will be like Yosef Pieper's Good Leisure. This stuff will help you learn and that'll
00:32:26be fine. But it won't be your job, which is what you actually need a break from so you don't burn out.
00:32:32And vacation is supposed to be burnout insurance, among other things.
00:32:36Okay, number eight, come home early. Now, I don't mean cut your vacation in half, you know, get into a
00:32:42screaming argument with your spouse and leave. That's not what I'm talking about at all. I don't want that to
00:32:47happen. But what I am saying is come home a little bit earlier from your vacation than you have to
00:32:53so that you don't have to immediately jump right back into work. Researchers find that easing back
00:32:58into your work routine is better than traveling up to the very last second for enjoyment and for
00:33:02happiness. And it actually gives you something to look forward to, kind of like a second mini vacation.
00:33:08And so you finish your vacation and you get three days at home before you have to go back to work.
00:33:12You're actually going to really enjoy those days at home, it turns out. It's going to be kind of
00:33:16relaxing for you. You'll be able to do some things that you want to do that are not just your vacation.
00:33:22You should come home before the weekend rather than returning on Sunday night with a full work
00:33:28week ahead. For example, come back on Friday and give yourself a vacation from the vacation and you're
00:33:32going to actually like that better. Sort of related to this, there's a Leo Tolstoy quote that I've
00:33:38always liked where he said, "Happiness consists of living each day as if it were the first day of your
00:33:42honeymoon and the last day of your vacation." But the last day of your vacation should also,
00:33:48I think, be preceded by a nice little honeymoon after that. I like to do that and that's something
00:33:53that I've adopted and I've found really great results of that. Okay, number nine. We got one
00:33:58more to go. Brace yourself when you return and manage your feelings. And the reason for that is that
00:34:05one of the great benefits of vacation is the contrast with work, with a contrast with the day-to-day grind,
00:34:10the things that you don't like that you're actually able to get away from. That's really good.
00:34:13But there's contrast when you come back as well, which you're going back to the things that you're
00:34:17actually getting a break from. Now, again, if you're a super workaholic and vacation is just,
00:34:21"Oh, the worst!" Then you'll be looking... If you're a "Thank God it's Monday" kind of person,
00:34:26then who knows? Maybe you'll get the warm glow from actually having the thing that's over.
00:34:31You know, when you go back from work, "How was vacation?" You're like, "I got through it."
00:34:34Like you're just coming back from Vietnam or something. This is not for you. For most people
00:34:38who really do like their vacations, you've got to brace yourself and manage your feelings because
00:34:44if all goes well and you're successful at having a really good vacation, you'll have increased enjoyment
00:34:50and life satisfaction, which is good news. The bad news is that ordinary life might be,
00:34:55the contrast might be disappointing or frustrating to you. Like, you know, eating a carrot after a piece
00:35:00of candy. It's not that great. There's a way that that works. But the more that you know,
00:35:05the better off you're actually going to be. Don't be surprised by that. It's completely normal.
00:35:11I have a policy of paying attention to this and thinking about how I'm going to use my work
00:35:16when I come back in the most generative possible way. I also have a policy of not making significant
00:35:21life changes in the first week that I come back to work because I'm not really in the right frame
00:35:25of mind to do so. So think about it. And once again, once you know what's actually happening inside
00:35:31your brain and inside your heart, then you won't be surprised. And not being surprised is the essence of
00:35:36managing yourself so that your feelings don't manage you. Those are the big nine, my friends.
00:35:43You know what I'm going to do is, so that you can remember these things, I'm just going to go through
00:35:47the list one last time and we'll put them up on the screen at the same time. Number one, discern your
00:35:54motive for vacation. Why are you going on vacation? Once you know, you'll design the right kind of vacation.
00:35:59Number two, savor the anticipation of your vacation. Start thinking and studying it a while before you do it.
00:36:05Number three, manage your expectations about how great it's going to be and how long it's going to
00:36:12be that great. Number four, break your trip into smaller vacations, especially if you find that the
00:36:17one big one is not giving you what you seek. Number five, take fewer pictures or assign one person in
00:36:23your party to take all the pictures each day. Number six, don't post. Or if you do post, certainly don't
00:36:28post while you're on vacation. Nah, don't post. Number seven, leave your work at home. Actually get
00:36:35away from your work. And number eight, come home early. Get a little vacation after the vacation.
00:36:40Last but not least is brace yourself when you return. Manage your feelings so your feelings at work don't
00:36:46manage you. Hope this helps. You're not broken. You're meaning starved. I talk to people all the
00:36:54time who are, by any external measure, successful. They've built careers. They have families. They've
00:37:00checked the boxes. And yet something feels off. Life feels thin. Like you're going through the motions.
00:37:08Like you're watching yourself from the outside. And here's what I want you to know. That feeling
00:37:13is not a personal failing. It's not ingratitude. It's not something wrong with you. It's a meaning
00:37:20problem. And it's an epidemic. The modern world is extraordinary at giving us comfort, achievement,
00:37:27and distraction. It's terrible at giving us meaning. And no amount of success will fix that. I've seen it in
00:37:34my research. And I've seen it in my own life. That's exactly what we work on at MEA, the Modern Elder
00:37:40Academy, in a program I've developed called The Meaning of Your Life. It's not a lecture. It's not
00:37:47a quick fix. It's several days of real work in a small group on the questions that actually matter.
00:37:54If what I'm describing sounds familiar, I hope you'll come take a look.
00:38:02Let's finish up with a couple of questions. We got some good ones this week.
00:38:05This one's from, we have a duo of people asking this question. Patrick Grutter and Mario Bachmann
00:38:11wrote in to talk about music. And you know, there's an upcoming episode on why music makes
00:38:16you happier. We're planning that one out. And that one's really important to me because I love music.
00:38:21And I've studied actually on how it can make you happier, how it actually affects your emotions.
00:38:24And we're going to talk about that so that you can put together a playlist that enhances your
00:38:29happiness. Okay. So wait for that one. Here's Patrick and Mario's question.
00:38:35A friend and I were wondering how music plays into boredom in the sense of distraction.
00:38:40We understand how a content-rich podcast distracts the mind during a gym session. And I've talked about
00:38:44how it's important pretty regularly to work out without headphones so that the non-distraction will
00:38:50give you that shower sensation. When you're in the shower, you get your best ideas. You can actually get
00:38:55that in the gym as well. They're wondering if music is something they should avoid as well.
00:38:59Music feels less intrusive or distracting, making it harder for us to grasp if music distracts the mind
00:39:04from vital mental processes. Or maybe it helps. What type of music? What role does it play? Now,
00:39:10this really depends. I can't listen to music when I'm working out. And the reason is because I was a
00:39:15professional musician for 12 years. Really, for 22 years, if you count all my growing up, that was all
00:39:21I did was music. And so I think of myself as more of a musician literally than anything else. I know a lot
00:39:27more about behavioral science than I knew about classical music because I've done it longer.
00:39:30But still, it was my formative years. I think of myself as a French horn player. And so the result is
00:39:36I listen to music and I'm listening analytically. If you don't, if you're using the right hemisphere of
00:39:42your brain, the complex, the intuitive side of your brain when you listen to music, more power to you.
00:39:47That's great. It really depends on you. And you have to decide whether or not it's distracting
00:39:52or whether or not it's enhancing the other thing you're trying to do. Holly McCann writes in to the
00:39:58website. My friends say they were raised as iPad kids, having weird habits, like needing to be
00:40:07watching something in order to enjoy meals or being able to fall asleep. So Holly's friends believe
00:40:13that they can't enjoy meals or fall asleep unless they're watching something. How does that even
00:40:17happen? And what is living like this doing to them? The answer is it's just a simple habit. It's a simple
00:40:22habit. And so, you know, there's all kinds of things that you can do as a habit that you can't feel like
00:40:26you can go to sleep properly unless you're doing this weird thing because we're habituated. Our brains
00:40:30habituate to something. Those habits, like any other habits, are actually pretty easy to break. You
00:40:35just have to make a commitment and do it. And usually it takes, well, a bad habit like that will probably
00:40:40take about two weeks, maybe a little bit longer before you don't miss it anymore. And you actually
00:40:46not just don't miss it, you like it. Sleeping, for example, is very costly to your sleep
00:40:52architecture. You'll be looking at blue light as you go to sleep. If you look at the sleep architecture
00:40:57on a tracker like Whoop or even my Fitbit, you'll see bad sleep. Even if you slept for, you know, if
00:41:03you're in bed for eight hours, you're not going to like what it looks like. Plus, if you're actually,
00:41:07while you're eating, if you're watching something, like eating in front of the television, even if
00:41:12you're another person, you're not going to get the oxytocin exchange, the bonding that actually
00:41:16neurochemically is supposed to occur while you put stuff in your mouth while looking at each other in the
00:41:20the eyes and having a conversation. That's the reason people eat together. That's a really important
00:41:24thing to do. And so you're missing out on a lot when you do that. But again, it's a simple habit.
00:41:29This is not something that's set in stone. This is not some behavior that has wired the brains
00:41:33permanently. There's no evidence that that can't change even in a matter of weeks. It's a question
00:41:38of knowing the truth, following the science and improving your life. Thanks, Holly. Well, we're done.
00:41:44Let me know your thoughts at arthurbrooks.com, where you can find all of our resources. You can
00:41:50also write to us. Please like and subscribe on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, any place where you're
00:41:55watching or listening to this. Leave a comment. We love to read them. We're in continuous improvement
00:41:59to make this show what you want it to be. Follow me on socials, LinkedIn and Instagram most notably,
00:42:04but other platforms as well in order the meaning of your life to learn more. Hope you've enjoyed this.
00:42:09Happy vacationing. Happy setting up your vacation. I'm looking forward to talking to you next week.
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