Human beings are creatures that pursue enjoyment. There’s a reason why people always try to restrain themselves from overeating, surfing the web, and shopping. It’s completely normal to pursue these and other pleasures and even lead to serious problems and early death.
Although we are by nature pleasure mongers, we often overlook the greatest and most reliable source of pleasure, which is our ability to be happy. consciously Anyway, enjoy what happens. We barely even talk about it.
For example, you might sit on a chair or couch ten to fifteen times a day. You can easily enjoy these sit-down instances if you pay attention. It feels great to relax in any decent chair. But how many times have you sat down and had no taste at all?
The pleasure of relaxing in a chair is not as intense as the pleasure of chocolate hazelnuts or quick video memes. But it’s still well worth it, and it’s free. You don’t have to go out of your way to get this source of joy, and it won’t gradually kill you or bring you down. (I suspect it will have the opposite effect.)
As far as I know, if you can learn to enjoy things consciously and voluntarily, almost every moment can provide many such enjoyments. If you so choose, you can enjoy the dappled lights at the breakfast table, the tender embrace of socks on your feet, or the smooth rolling of your vehicle—any moment you find welcome, helpful, enjoyable, or beautiful.
Indulging in these pleasures requires no special sentimentality or the circumstances of your life to feel good overall. They just need a moment of voluntary appreciation of a good thing.
You already know how to do this: you know how to enjoy stretching, basking in the sun, and tasting the smell of fresh bread. But for some reason, we don’t make the most of this talent. I think our modern consumer brains think of happiness as something to be obtained and consumed, often without the need for conscious intention. Chocolate chip cookies, social media notifications, and scotch all have strong dopaminergic effects that dominate your attention once they enter your experience. The other 99 percent of life’s pleasures—the sparkling sky, the soft mattress, the hug of a scarf—must be consciously attended to, otherwise they often go unnoticed.
Sometimes, life’s more subtle pleasures do force you to focus in this way because of the circumstances. If you’re coming in from the cold and someone offers you a steaming cup of tea, it’s hard not to notice how good it is. Everything about it looks wonderful: the intense color, the scent of bergamot, the warm steam that hits your face when you take a sip.
A cup of tea always brings the same pleasure, but in most cases they don’t grab you by the collar like that. In this case, all it takes is a small but conscious intention looking for It has rich color and a warm feeling that blooms on your face. The gift of tea is already there, waiting for your attention.
This underlying pleasure is revealed when you slow down your consumption. I’ve said before how elastic band For example, the pleasure of food is this: If you eat at half the speed and pay more attention, you will get more enjoyment from the same amount of food.
Enjoyment always requires attention. It’s just that some pleasures force you to notice them, and most don’t. Reliance on these compulsive sources of pleasure leads to a preoccupation with more intense sources of pleasure, which are often sweet, intoxicating, soul-crushing, or otherwise costly.
Every moment is fun
When you learn to cultivate happiness voluntarily, you don’t need to be so dependent on those intense and expensive sources of happiness. That’s because virtually every moment offers a lot of sources of fun, if that’s what you’re looking for.
Pure sensual pleasure is a more obvious type – the warmth in a room, the caress of clothes, the bright sky, the heat of fresh coffee. But you can also appreciate the more subtle aspects of the present moment in the same way: the presence of someone you trust, the selection of books on your shelf, the bottle full of water you carry with you, your ability to read and write, the absence of pain in your back today. Although they are subtle, they are concrete experiences that can be noticed and enjoyed, and they are abundant at all times.
How to enjoy a whole day
This is a sure way to practice voluntary enjoyment. Here are the most popular exercises from the recent Raptitude Field Trip group:
At any time you can ask yourself: Is what is happening here and now pleasant, beautiful, or helpful?
Don’t just identify it. Find the experience itself—the actual sight, sound, or feeling—and consciously enjoy it.
This may sound like another boring gratitude exercise, but it’s not. You don’t just identify a “positive” thing and tell yourself you’re lucky to have it. You are seeking out the good feeling the present moment has to offer and enjoying it with purpose.
Again, you already know how to do this. You know how to let the sun massage your skin. You know how to enjoy having a blanket draped over your shoulders. You know how to appreciate the presence of a loved one.
You could do the same thing with a million other things: your ability to stand up without pain, a multi-monitor setup that makes working much easier, a wall to block the wind, your cat’s zen-like presence, your rolodex of an incredible group of smart coworkers, deep breaths, photos on the wall, a window into your sights, and countless other gifts.
I reiterate, it is not enough to discern these gifts. When you recognize one, you experience it consciously and enjoy it. You can really enjoy having a glass of water by your side. You can enjoy the clothes you wear. Be happy that you can text Jim anytime and he will try to help you.
Please note that your ability to appreciate these gifts does not depend on mood or any other factor. other Life conditions are favorable to you. You are always surrounded by countless favorable conditions, and you can still enjoy and enjoy them despite the existence of unfavorable conditions.
When you do this exercise, don’t try to appreciate every positive thing (you’ll never be able to). Just enjoy one or two of them and move on. This takes a few seconds.
But do it often. Become this more skillful enjoyer of what is going to happen no matter what. Don’t go to bed without fully enjoying the glorious pleasure of lying in bed under the covers. It was like this all day long.
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If you want to learn this and other Raptitude exercises, you can still take Raptitude Field Trip 2. The main group is done, but you can do it on your own. The forum is still open and some of us are always hanging out.
