PLAY PODCASTS
How To Build a Happy Life: When Virtues Become Vices
Season 3 · Episode 1

How To Build a Happy Life: When Virtues Become Vices

When addictive behaviors override our desires, it may be a sign to investigate the gap between what we crave and what’s really good for us.

How to Age Up · The Atlantic

October 10, 202231m 50s

Audio is streamed directly from the publisher (podtrac.com) as published in their RSS feed. Play Podcasts does not host this file. Rights-holders can request removal through the copyright & takedown page.

Show Notes

When the behaviors we thought would make us happy don’t, we’re forced to bridge the gap between where we are and where we want to be. But our happiness goals are often stifled by the disease of addiction—and its complex neurochemical influence on our desires. 

A conversation with psychiatrist Anna Lembke helps us understand the gap between the cravings that drive us and the happiness we seek. 

This episode was produced by Rebecca Rashid and is hosted by Arthur Brooks. Editing by A.C. Valdez and Claudine Ebeid. Fact-check by Ena Alvarado. Engineering by Matthew Simonson. 

Be a part of How to Build a Happy Life. Write to us at [email protected]. To support this podcast, and get unlimited access to all of The Atlantic’s journalism, become a subscriber

Music by the Flix (“Saturdays”), Mindme (“Anxiety”), Dylan Stills (“Queens”), and Yomoti (“Nebula”).

Click here to listen to more full-length episodes in The Atlantic’s How To series.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices