Imagine yourself getting paid to figure out what makes people really happy, and then writing and speaking about it. Sounds like a cushy gig, right?

There is no shortage of people who want to give you advice on how to live your life. Apparently, you don’t need any kind of credential. Sometimes people recycle ancient wisdom that should be common knowledge, but isn’t. Sometimes people fixate on what they see as one key to happiness, thinking it will unlock almost all life’s problems.

And then there’s Arthur C. Brooks. He’s been writing on the science of happiness for years now. Before that, he was the head of the American Enterprise Institute for 10 years. As a young man, he was a professional musician, playing the French horn for an orchestra in Spain. (He realized he was pretty good but would never be great, so he moved on.) He has taught public administration and economics and is currently teaching at the Harvard Business School.

He does not fit the expected profile for a self-help popular writer. He’s a devout Catholic who believes in capitalism. He has written books such as “The Conservative Heart,” “Love Your Enemies,” and, with co-author Oprah Winfrey, “Build the Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier.”

Brooks follows other academics, like Martin Seligman and Jonathan Haidt, who have studied the psychology of happiness. He is a popularizer who, though he can support his ideas with research studies, cuts to the point. The point is how to be happy, not to impress with his erudition.

Currently he writes columns for the Atlantic magazine, titled “How To Build a Life.” He has a free online newsletter. Next month will see the release of a new book, “The Happiness Files.” He describes it as follows: “Imagine if your life were a startup. How would you lead it and shape it to be most successful?”

He believes in the importance of faith, family, friendship and work as keys to building a happy life. He steers clear of polarizing culture war polemics.

His approach to happiness is what I call the “thickening” of one’s life. A thick life is one that is deeply enmeshed with the lives of others, in relationships of care, responsibility, and obligation. Many people today lead “thin” lives, focused on their own personal development, to the detriment of human relationships.

When life gets too “thick,” it can be stifling. When life is too “thin,” we fall into futile pursuits that let us down eventually. Our culture used to be a lot “thicker,” but many factors have led to the “thinning” of our societies and relationships, including family and the meaningfulness of work.

Just because the path is clear does not mean it’s easy. We face many obstacles, some of our own making, others beyond our control. Our families are not always kind or even good to us; we dread our work, or have trouble finding it. We may have troubles with friendships or romantic relationships due to our own personalities. We shouldn’t be judgmental of others’ failures or too proud of our own lives. People change; life circumstances do too.

Brooks also looks at four factors leading us away from happiness. You can call these vices or idols. In either case, they make promises and give rewards that look like happiness, but ultimately let us down.

The four vices that Brooks lists are money, power, pleasure, and fame. Recently in a podcast, he walked Andrew Sullivan through a self-assessment of which of these is most tempting. Brooks believes that all of us are tempted to follow these idols, and that one of them dominates our lives.

I think we can all come up with examples of how these idols have wrecked people who devoted themselves, perhaps quite successfully, to following these illusions of a good life.

He thinks we should identify our central temptation and manage to deal with it before it transforms us into people we really didn’t want or mean to be.

Some people think that if they were clever enough, they would be happy. They regard a conscious search for happiness as simplistic. A wise fellow once told me that when people started off spouting ideas that looked self-destructive, he would ask, “and how’s that working out for you?”

It’s always a fair question to ask if a person who offers you the keys to happiness is himself happy. From all I can tell, Arthur C. Brooks lives a good life. It all has to do with meaning and concern.

Many years ago I told my ex-communist ex-friend that I was a retail moralist. That means I focus on people, individually or in small batches, not on grand historical narratives or systemic social factors.

So far, that’s working out pretty well for me. Arthur Brooks is not saying things that I didn’t know, but he says them clearly, and has a much larger audience than I do. Check him out, and see how it works for you.

— Frank T. Pool is an award-winning columnist who grew up on Maple Street in Longview and graduated from Longview High School. He is a semi-retired teacher living in Austin. Contact him at FrankT.Pool@gmail.com. His Substack is Paco Pond.