Journalist Jodi Kantor and happiness expert Arthur Brooks on how to find purpose

About this episode

Journalist Jodi Kantor and happiness expert Arthur Brooks discuss their new books on finding purpose and meaning in life.

Journalist Jodi Kantor and Harvard happiness expert Arthur Brooks are both out with new books about identifying and cultivating meaning in one’s life. Brooks says he wanted to write The Meaning of Your Life after observing an explosion in depression and anxiety among young people beginning around 2008. In today’s episode, he chats with Here & Now ’s Indira Lakshmanan about how neglecting right-brain activity has led us astray. Then, Kantor tells NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly about the daunting commencement speech invitation that led to her book How to Start , which focuses on cultivating one’s life work through ideas like “craft” and “need.” To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookoftheday See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy

People in this episode

Host: Indira Lakshmanan

Guests: Jodi Kantor, Arthur Brooks

Topics covered

• happiness
• purpose
• mental health
• meaning in life
• journalism
• self-help

Keywords

• happiness
• purpose
• meaning
• depression
• anxiety
• self-help
• journalism
• craft

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Harvard

Books & works: The Meaning of Your Life, How to Start

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