Stop Trying to Become Someone New: Get Past Constant Comparison and Return to What Works For You | Sam Sanders
3/27/202654 min
What if the most meaningful thing you did for your mental health wasn't something new — but a return to what already brings you joy?
Dan recently sat down with journalist and broadcaster Sam Sanders on the Sam Sanders Show to explore exactly that idea. Sam has a concept he calls "modern scriptures": the movies, albums, and TV shows you return to again and again because they ground you, center you, and remind you what matters. Dan shares the pop culture that never fails to lift his spirits — and along the way, the two get into why beauty and art are actually central to human flourishing, why Ferris Bueller is more Buddhist than you might think, and what the research says about making resolutions stick — including the one upstream habit that makes everything else easier.
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsDan Harris· Host0:00
[upbeat music] This is the Ten Percent Happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. [upbeat music] Hey, hey. How we doing? I think quite commonly when we contemplate the various levers we could pull to upgrade our mental health to get happier, we consider things like sleep, exercise, meditation, et cetera. But there's a ton of evidence to suggest that aesthetic experiences, i.e. beauty, are also extremely powerful ways to boost your wellbeing. This could be nature, but also, of course, art. And not just fine art that you see in museums. I'm talking about movies, music, TV shows, the stuff that I personally love. So today we're gonna play you a conversation between me and my friend Sam, who I'll tell you about in a second, about which pieces of art reliably produce happiness and meaning for us. The friend in question is Sam Sanders, who is the host of The Sam Sanders Show. I should say that we initially recorded this conversation that you're about to hear for Sam's show back at around New Year's. But we're dropping it for you here because we think you'll like it and also because we think you might wanna check out Sam's show, which I highly recommend. He's awesome, as you'll hear. Sam has a term for the pieces of art, music, TV, or film that we return to again and again. He calls them modern