{"id":27107,"date":"2025-05-03T09:00:58","date_gmt":"2025-05-03T09:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=27107"},"modified":"2025-05-03T09:26:15","modified_gmt":"2025-05-03T09:26:15","slug":"our-idea-of-happiness-has-gotten-shallow-heres-how-to-deepen-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=27107","title":{"rendered":"Our Idea of Happiness Has Gotten Shallow. Here\u2019s How to Deepen It."},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n
\n
\n

\u201cGetting what you want in life \u2014 that\u2019s happiness, bro,\u201d Saxon Ratliff tells his younger brother in the latest season of \u201cThe White Lotus\u201d on HBO. Helpfully, he lists his essentials: sex, money, freedom, respect (in that order). A jacked dude-bro, constantly slamming foul-tasting protein shakes, Saxon is determined to steer his brother away from their sister Piper\u2019s budding interest in Buddhism. It\u2019s a creed for people afraid of life, he scoffs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n

Listen to this article, read by January LaVoy<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption>
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n

Piper, meanwhile, is demurely rebelling against a life that\u2019s all privilege, no purpose. \u201cLately, it\u2019s felt like everything is pointless,\u201d she tells the head monk at a Buddhist monastery near the lavish Thai resort where the Ratliffs are staying. \u201cAnd the things my family cares about, I just don\u2019t care about.\u201d When she tries to explain this existential ache to her mother \u2014 a woman seemingly made out of exfoliating serum and oblivious narcissism \u2014 Piper puts it as simply as she can: \u201cI need to figure out what makes me happy, OK?\u201d<\/p>\n

So each sibling is chasing happiness, but in opposite directions: Saxon through acquisition; Piper through renunciation. And neither fully understands the cost of those choices. In fact, the season unfolds like a sly symposium on the many meanings of happiness in an age of TED Talks, best-selling manifestoes and podcasts that chirp endlessly about self-optimization and the elusive \u201cbest life.\u201d Happiness, it turns out, is more Rorschach than road map. Is it found in the ultraluxe wellness center or the austere monastery? Does it come from getting what you want or wanting less?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\n
\n

These aren\u2019t merely personal questions but philosophical ones, and they\u2019ve been asked \u2014 and answered differently \u2014 throughout history. Once, happiness was understood as a communal project tied to justice and shared flourishing. But over time, it evolved from an expansive ideal into something individual and small. Now the challenge seems clear: to reclaim a deeper, more demanding vision of what it means to live well in a fractured world \u2014 and restore happiness to its proper scale.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.<\/p>\n

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into<\/a>\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe<\/a>\u00a0for all of The Times.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.<\/p>\n

Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cGetting what you want in life \u2014 that\u2019s happiness, bro,\u201d Saxon Ratliff tells his younger brother in the latest season of \u201cThe White Lotus\u201d on HBO. Helpfully, he lists his essentials: sex, money, freedom, respect (in that order). A jacked dude-bro, constantly slamming foul-tasting protein shakes, Saxon is determined to steer his brother away from their sister Piper\u2019s budding interest in Buddhism. It\u2019s a creed for people afraid of life, he scoffs.Listen to this article, read by January LaVoyPiper, meanwhile, is demurely rebelling against a life that\u2019s all privilege, no purpose. \u201cLately, it\u2019s felt like everything is pointless,\u201d she tells the head monk at a Buddhist monastery near the lavish Thai resort where the Ratliffs are staying. \u201cAnd the things my family cares about, I just don\u2019t care about.\u201d When she tries to explain this existential ache to her mother \u2014 a woman seemingly made out of exfoliating serum and oblivious narcissism \u2014 Piper puts it as simply as she can: \u201cI need to figure out what makes me happy, OK?\u201dSo each sibling is chasing happiness, but in opposite directions: Saxon through acquisition; Piper through renunciation. And neither fully understands the cost of those choices. In fact, the season unfolds like a sly symposium on the many meanings of happiness in an age of TED Talks, best-selling manifestoes and podcasts that chirp endlessly about self-optimization and the elusive \u201cbest life.\u201d Happiness, it turns out, is more Rorschach than road map. Is it found in the ultraluxe wellness center or the austere monastery? Does it come from getting what you want or wanting less?These aren\u2019t merely personal questions but philosophical ones, and they\u2019ve been asked \u2014 and answered differently \u2014 throughout history. Once, happiness was understood as a communal project tied to justice and shared flourishing. But over time, it evolved from an expansive ideal into something individual and small. Now the challenge seems clear: to reclaim a deeper, more demanding vision of what it means to live well in a fractured world \u2014 and restore happiness to its proper scale.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27109,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27107"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27110,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27107\/revisions\/27110"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}