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

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/bookofthedaySee 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