Arthur Brooks: observation

Transcript context

…What’s the deepest theory you have as to why younger people so often reject happiness advice, even when it comes from happy people? Yes. One of the reasons is because it’s inconvenient. It’s one of the same reasons that people will not take all kinds of good advice. It’s funny. Alcoholics, they’re the only group of people where you can say, “Hey, there’s door number one and door number two. Behind door number one, there’s prison, there’s death, there is institutionalization. Door number two is freedom and happiness and good relationships.” An alcoholic will say, “I got to get back to you on that. ” The reason is because they’re living in a particular way, and they’re path dependent, and they might be addicted, and they don’t have very much experience. It’s not just young people. It’s all kinds of people who they reject what is manifestly good advice all the time because good advice is often incredibly inconvenient. It’s a discount rate issue?…

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