Macronutrients of Happiness

Welcome to the Anturas newsletter, where I provide actionable ideas to help you think, learn, and grow. If you enjoy it, please feel free to forward along to friends. Quote of the Week: "Feel the feel, then take the wheel" - Oprah Winfrey Content of the Week: Build the Life You Want by Arthur C. Brooks and Oprah Winfrey I just started this book and I need to share a few initial takeaways. The book focuses on the science of happiness and how we can use this science to build a happier life. While traditional definitions of happiness range from excitement and achievement to calm and contentment, Arthur defines happiness as a combination of three "macronutrients:"

1. Enjoyment: Pleasure plus communion and consciousness

2. Satisfaction: Accomplishing a goal you have worked hard for

3. Purpose: Having a sense of meaning to tackle life's dilemmas and challenges

Here's what I love about these three macronutrients, each one has some hardship involved. Enjoyment requires forgoing the easy pleasure, satisfaction requires work, and a purposeful life includes suffering. This means you actually need hardship to have happiness. In other words, happiness is not the exclusion of hardship or unhappiness, instead they coexist. So if our definition of happiness involves excluding unhappiness then we will be constantly chasing an unattainable goal.

Challenge of the Week: Switch a "pleasure" for "enjoyment" this week. Pleasure = an easy thrill (e.g., eating, watching T.V, 5pm alcoholic drink) Enjoyment = takes an urge for pleasure and adds communion and consciousness (e.g., eating around a table, having a conversation around a fire)

Photo of the Week: Since I haven't been able to fly fish on the East Coast, I'm picking up a new hobby, acoustic guitar! So far I can kind of play a C and F Chord. I'll keep you posted on my progress. Till next week, be kind, be curious and work hard. Tanner