Welcome to "The Examined Life"
Emily Esfahani Smith's newsletter about the art and science of well-being
Hi everyone!
Welcome to my newsletter, “The Examined Life.” If you signed up for my email list, this is probably the first or second time you’re hearing from me. I’m hoping to be in more regular contact moving forward. But I promise I won’t inundate your inbox with spam. My plan is to send two high quality posts to you per month on the science of well-being.
This newsletter is all about helping you lead a more meaningful life. I will draw on psychology research and storytelling to write about the human experience—why we are the way we are and how we can find grace and meaning in a world that is full of both suffering and joy. In my posts, I will write about the science of well-being, tell the stories of ordinary and extraordinary people, and draw on the wisdom of the humanities.
One last thing: I love hearing from my readers. If you have any topics or questions you’d like me to write about, respond to this email and let me know. I’ll do my best to address them.
I hope you like what you’ll find here! If you think your friends would like this newsletter, too, please send this e-mail along to them. If you want to learn more about me and my work, I have some information below my sign off in this email.
Yours,
Emily
About me:
I’m the author of the bestselling book The Power of Meaning. In 2017, I gave a TED talk based on my book called “There’s More to Life Than Being Happy,” which has been viewed over 10 million times.
I started writing about psychology in 2012. At the time, I was working full-time as a journalist while being enrolled in a master’s degree program in positive psychology, the science of well-being, at the University of Pennsylvania. I fell in love with the material I was learning at Penn and immediately began covering it for national publications. To my surprise, some of these articles went viral. My articles for The Atlantic “There’s More to Life Than Being Happy” and “Masters of Love,” for example, have reached over 30 million readers. I’ve also written for the New York Times about these themes. One article was about rethinking success, “You’ll Never Be Famous—And That’s OK,” and another was about protecting your mental health during the COVID pandemic, “On Coronavirus Lockdown? Search for Meaning, Not Happiness.”
On a more personal note, I live with my husband in Washington DC, where I’m currently a doctoral student in clinical psychology.
Hi! I'd love to interview you on the Unhustle Podcast if you can make the time. I wholeheartedly agree with your ideas. My website is unhustle.com. I also write on Substack. Milena Regos
Hi Emily, we've communicated in the past :) I just re-read TPOM cover-to-cover again for the first time since 2017, kind of as a holistic tune-up for my soul: the last couple of years have presented me with some really big health challenges, and sometimes it's felt like the whole world is becoming unglued and guided by fear. So glad I revisited the book ! Back in 2017 in some online forum (can't recall which one) you asked your audience which pillar resonates most to us, and I came back with transcendence. Just took the quiz again, and again it's transcendence. If anything, transcendence is even more important to me today than it was 4 years ago. The 4 pillars are encoded in my heart and in my mind now, thank you for presenting them in a way that really resonated with me.