We live in a culture of pleasure.
We seek immediate gratification.
We need to feel good, and fast, so we can endure to the end.
We are promised happiness in a bottle of Coca-Cola and told we’ll be “Lovin’ it” if we eat at McDonald’s.
We are bombarded with images of perfect people who are happy because of the food they’re eating, the money they are making, or the thing that they are purchasing.
But is this happiness?
Is this gratification?
Do we really feel good?
I would answer no.
We may feel a surge of happiness when the Coke hits our tongue.
We may feel a sense of gratification when we buy that brand new handbag we’ve been eyeing.
But these feelings are temporary.
They are what I refer to as “false pleasure.”
It’s that artificial, concentrated hit of dopamine we get from something outside of us-sugar, spending money, getting likes on Instagram
posts.
Our brain gets temporary relief from negative emotion with that hit.
A buffer from feeling.
The problem is that as the dopamine recedes, the negative emotion is still there, and our brain signals us to seek that thing again, to get that relief…
and the cycle continues.
What if, instead of looping continuously through this vicious seeking/satisfying cycle…
where we never truly feel fulfilled,
we had the courage to feel the feelings driving us to use buffers.
If we were willing to feel those feelings, we wouldn’t need to buffer.
We would have the opportunity to get to know ourselves in a whole new way.
We would build the capability to truly take care of ourselves.
To fuel our bodies with food that nourishes.
To spend our money on things that we need and love.
To fill our cup, so that we can help to fill others.
When we do this, we learn the value of well-being.
Well-being is ongoing, sustainable pleasure, because it comes from within.
Those natural pleasures accumulated=HAPPINESS.
All if we’re just willing to feel.
It all begins with a thought!
