Never Stop Asking

Here’s a great question that all of us should ask ourselves: What do I really want out of life?

If you seriously want to improve your life, spend some intense time thinking and meditating on what your life has been in the past and what you want it to be in the future. Doing so can, and will, lift your mind and body to a new and higher level. This will raise the success and satisfaction in your life over and above any material success or other success you derive from going after your goals.

Hinduism tells us that every human being wants four things:

1. Pleasure

2. Success.

3. Responsible discharge of duty.

4. Liberation.

It’s up to you to determine what each of these things means in your life, but you do want to ask yourself if you’re achieving some version of these in a way that adds to the happiness and quality of your life.

Regularly examining our life helps us keep on track and reevaluate what we’re presently doing. Here is a great list of questions that we all should all ask ourselves on a regular basis.

1. Do you want your life to be just another life?

2. Do you want to be average?

3. Do you want to make a difference in this world?

4. Does accomplishment mean a lot to you?

5. Do you want to become a better you, a better person?

6. Do you want to be in great physical and mental shape with ideal health your entire life?

7. Do you want to live a very long, active life?

8. Do you want to make a fortune—a million or ten million or even 100 million dollars?

9. Do you want your own fortune so you’d have more choices in your life?

10. Do you want to leave the world a better place than you found it?

11. Do you want to help others as you help yourself?

12. Do you want to travel and experience the entire world and its cultures?

13. Do you want to substantially raise your level of contentment and fulfillment?

Going over this list and thinking of all I could do if I just focused on what I truly wanted raised my mind and feelings to a new high level. I hope that it does the same for you!!

Pleasure and Production

Last week we talked about Authentic Happiness which is both a concept and the title of the great book written by Martin Seligman. In the book, the author continuously emphasizes how much of our happiness comes from inside our heads.

Most of us humans look at rich and famous people and think that they must be very, very happy and content because of all their fame and wealth. Well, guess what… if you look closely, you will find that many of these people are not particularly happy. I think a big reason is that most people think that once they attain great wealth and/or fame then it will automatically make them happy. Only it doesn’t. Then these folks, finding that their brains are not filled with great thoughts of happiness and contentment, start to wonder why. That doubt causes an internal dialog to start up which can work against them, quickly driving them and their mindset downhill. Also, money and fame don’t hold a candle to the kind of true and deep happiness we get from things like the love we give and receive from family and friends.

Although most of us are not rich and famous, we may still find ourselves falling into similar thought patterns. It is so very easy to let our internal self-talk persuade us that things are not going well which brings us down mentally.

There are lots of methods for overcoming this negative self-talk but one very big one is also a powerful antidote for depression – productive gratification. Striving for gratification is automatic but the way to use it so that it overcomes negativity and depression is through producing something truly meaningful to us and/or to others. What we accomplish when we produce meaningful things sends a powerful, purposeful message to our brains and makes us feel so very satisfied and happy.

Martin makes the very good point that “pleasure is a very powerful source of motivation but it does not produce change.” It also does not produce lasting authentic happiness. A simple example is the difference between the pleasure that we receive from watching a very entertaining television show versus the gratification, genuine happiness, and personal satisfaction that we receive from reading a particularly inspiring or informative book. Think back on how you felt after experiencing these two different activities yourself. The difference in how your attitude and your state of mind will probably be quite apparent.

The author suggests that if we really want true, deep and authentic happiness we should all create a list of activities, goals, and deep desires that produce for us, personally, a sense of gratification. Look for goals and things that you do that seem to make time stop and even has you thinking, “I don’t want this to ever end.”

Yes, it’s true that many pleasures take little or no effort to acquire and that the best kind of gratification takes a lot of work. But so be it. It is so well worth it, and I do think and hope you would agree!

 

The Difference Between Pleasure and Happiness

If what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi says in “Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience” is true, the key to happiness is being involved in every detail of our lives and taking action with intention. It all comes down to our focus, both in being mindful of what we do as well as keeping our attention on the condition of our life. This is never easy. As mentioned last week, we have built-in desires and tendencies that disrupt our focus and distract us from our intended actions.

Personally I think a huge part of this is that we mistake pleasure for happiness. Things that are pleasurable, that fulfill our immediate desires, do not necessarily bring happiness as they are really two different things.

Consider what you think of as ‘pleasurable’–food, relaxation, physical contact with others, etc.–then think about the things that actually make you happy and feel fulfilled–recognition for your hard work, winning a competition, learning something new, etc. An action can feel pleasurable, enough to continue doing it, but you may not enjoy it in the end (heavy drugs or alcohol use quite often result in this seemingly contradictive state). Yet you can do things that are painful but give you great contentment, like pushing yourself to finish a marathon or living frugally because you put all your money into your new business. What makes you happy, and breeds contentment, are those things that challenge you and add complexity to your life, not the sensations of a momentary pleasure.

If you understand this and can recognize the difference, the battle over “self” that I talked about last week will be much easier. If you let your mind be constantly diverted from your plans and intentions by activities that are fleetingly pleasurable such as excessive eating, television, recreational drug use, drinking too much alcohol, etc. you will not enjoy your life. They just can’t provide you with the lasting contentment that comes from facing difficult challenges and accomplishing long term plans.

Pleasurable, healthy diversions do not have to be a disruption. If you plan for them they can become part of the order and progress that your happiness is built on. That is how you achieve focus and flow, with intentions fulfilled and distractions under control. The key here is recognizing what is a distraction and what will, in the end, provide you with the happiness and contentment you are after.