Happiness Vs Pleasure (Why Thrills Don’t Work)

Happiness isn't about seeking thrills and pleasure. Instead, creating a happy life is about living well every day, every moment of our lives. We can accomplish this by living in the present moments and focusing on the beautiful gifts of life all around us now. (Please note, this is a talk, not a guided meditation.)

Transcript

Welcome to the Happiness Podcast.

I'm Dr.

Robert Puff.

I believe we all want to be happy.

And I also think this is a good thing that we want.

It's a good goal to work towards.

Finding happiness,

Finding joy in our lives throughout the day is a wonderful thing to work towards.

And it sounds so easy.

Just work towards being happy.

And yet if we're truthful,

There probably are a lot of people that we know,

Maybe even ourselves,

That aren't very happy.

Or at least aren't consistently happy doing well in life.

The ups and downs of life really wear them out or wear us out.

But why is that?

Why can't we just be happy?

What happens?

Well,

The number one thing is differentiating between happiness and pleasures or thrills.

In life we can have some wonderful experiences,

Ones that we just revel in and think,

Wow,

That was amazing.

Think about two people who meet.

They fall in love.

They decide to get married and they have a beautiful wedding.

There are some bumps during the wedding.

But for most people who get married,

It's usually a good day,

A good memory.

And then they go on their honeymoon.

And it's even better because now it's just the two of them.

They're often at a beautiful place with wonderful experiences,

Getting time to fall in love,

To be more deeply in love with each other.

And it's wonderful.

And then they come home and then life begins.

And the thrills and the pleasures of their wedding and their honeymoon are in the past.

And now they're just living the daily life.

And sometimes that pleasure,

That thrill that they had just isn't there anymore.

And some people begin to question,

Did I marry the right person?

Am I on the right path?

Maybe I need to find something different,

Something better,

Someone else that could make me happy and try it again.

And there are a few people that get involved in very intense activities like climbing the highest mountains in the world or being able to ski the most dangerous slopes at the various ski resorts around the world or someone who gets into fast cars,

Fast motorcycles,

Things that take them at high speeds and allow them to feel the thrills,

The excitement of these pleasures.

The first year I went to university,

There was an airport not far from my campus that offered skydiving lessons and I wanted to try it.

So I went out there for the day,

Took lessons.

And I remember climbing out on the wing of the plane,

Ready to let go.

And I didn't want to let go.

So finally they kept yelling at me,

Let go,

Let go.

And I jumped and it was horrifying.

But thankfully the parachute opened right away and I floated down and it was very thrilling.

It was a very pleasurable experience,

But I only did it once because that was enough for me.

Now these are more extreme examples.

A different form of pleasure,

A thrill could be working a long week or even just a long day.

And we think about throughout the day,

I just want to come home and have that chocolate cake that's waiting for me in the fridge.

It sounds so good.

I just can't wait to have it.

And when we get home,

It is good.

It's incredibly pleasurable.

And yet it only lasts for what,

Maybe five minutes?

And then that thrill,

That pleasure has passed.

So then we may ask ourselves,

Well,

Why don't I just find something that makes me feel good all the time?

Wouldn't I then be happy if I found something that was just so pleasurable that would make me feel good no matter what was going on?

And you know,

We have things out there that do that.

They're called drugs.

Believe it or not,

Drugs are very good at making us feel good regardless of what's happening in our lives.

We could be sleeping in the gutter with filth all over our bodies,

Having no connection with any of our family,

And be utterly alone.

But as long as we're able to get our heroin every day,

We're okay.

And once in a while,

Our heroin gives us that thrill,

That intense pleasure that will sacrifice almost everything to get that.

So even though drugs work,

They really don't work.

And we all know that because even the high that we get from drugs when people take them is fleeting.

It usually lasts the first time.

And then they call it chasing the high,

Meaning the person tries to recreate that high for the rest of their lives,

Or at least until they can get treatment and get better.

So I think most of us know that's the way of the dark side.

We don't want to go down that way because it's a very dark,

Dangerous path.

But what gets us is we may not do drugs,

Of course.

And some people I know do struggle with addictions,

Alcohol,

Pot,

Food.

And they're also dangerous.

But I think people know that.

But what's tricky is when we're just trying to seek pleasures or thrills to feel good.

And yet these pleasures,

These thrills don't last.

For example,

Here in the United States,

When people get their first job and they start working,

They usually get two weeks off a year for vacation.

It's not very much,

But they'll work those 50 weeks really hard so that they can take a two-week trip to Hawaii,

Or maybe to the Rocky Mountains,

Or maybe even to Europe.

So we're working 50 weeks for two weeks of pleasure.

I know this is an extreme example,

And not everyone does that.

But it does show how tricky it is when it comes to pleasures and thrills.

It's amazing what we do sacrifice for these pleasures.

But these pleasures often have consequences that go with them.

I mean,

Think of a pleasurable affair.

Yes,

We're getting the intimacy with another person.

We're getting to spend time with them and feel the pleasure of that sexual encounter.

But then comes the potential divorce,

Child support,

Alimony,

Not seeing our kids.

Because often,

When we seek pleasures,

They do come with consequences.

Again,

The extreme example would be a heroin addict that I started talking about earlier.

But let's use another example.

I bet most of us have seen the movie Hangover.

It's a comedy about four men going to Vegas for a bachelor party and getting involved with incredible experiences that were thrilling,

But potentially incredibly threatening.

And people laugh at the movie because it ends up well.

It has a happy ending.

And we think life should be that way.

We should be able to do our thrills,

And we should get away with it and live happily ever after.

But the truth is,

If people did the things in the movie in real life,

Which people do in Vegas,

In reality,

What would have happened when we seek thrills like this is that someone may have died,

Someone may have gone to prison,

Someone may have gotten a venereal disease,

Someone may have lost tons of money,

Someone may have lost their professional license,

Someone may have lost the love of their life because of what happened in Vegas.

The pleasures and the thrills we seek are so often fleeting,

And they come with huge consequences.

We're not even aware what we'll sacrifice for these pleasures,

Realizing that perhaps 99% of the time that we're seeking these pleasures,

We're miserable.

I remember coming home late one night.

It was a weeknight,

And we have casinos here in Los Angeles.

And I'd driven by it many times,

And I always saw cars there.

I thought,

What do people do there?

It's a weeknight.

I decided to go in,

And it was later.

I remember walking through the entire casino,

Just looking at people.

And there were hundreds of people there.

I didn't see one person smiling.

I didn't see one person laughing.

I just saw very unhappy people playing cards,

Doing gambling.

It was sad for me.

But I'm not sure if they were aware of the thrills that they were seeking,

Of how little pleasure it brought them.

Because often,

The things we seek that are thrills give us so little back.

So let's talk now about what is happiness if it isn't thrills,

If it isn't pleasure.

Because if we seek pleasures in life,

We will find them.

But they're fleeting,

They're transitory.

And sometimes,

They come with a very high price.

So what do we do instead?

Well,

We start with acknowledging we need to stop being a thrill seeker,

A pleasure seeker.

It's not that we can't enjoy things.

Of course we can.

It's not that we can't try to be comfortable.

Of course we can.

But seeking to make changes,

Or seeking to have the thrills,

These fleeting thrills that we know are very minuscule in comparison to what we pay for them,

We realize that that isn't the path of happiness.

Happiness is about whatever is happening right now.

Finding peace in our hearts and saying,

You know,

I can do this and not only that,

I can make this work.

I don't need it to be different.

I don't need to be feeling good all the time.

I don't need to be waiting for those two weeks every year to find pleasure in life.

I'm going to find happiness in the 50 weeks,

Even when I am waiting for those two weeks.

It's like I have 52 weeks of happiness,

Not just two.

And we do that by stop having expectations to need to feel good all the time.

We do that by being present,

Not in the past,

What used to be good,

Not in the future,

What we want to be different.

But right here,

Right now,

Even when we're just doing the daily grind.

Because what keeps us from being happy right now is all the things that are flowing through our head,

Wishing things were different,

Dreaming about that chocolate cake when we come home,

Fighting what's happening instead of flowing with what's happening.

When we learn to flow with life,

We find that life is good.

So think of it this way.

We are a mountain climber and we want to climb Mount Everest.

It's a lot to go.

It's a big goal.

But as we are taking our step-by-step approach toward the summit of Mount Everest,

We look around and we see the beauty around us.

We stop and we breathe the fresh air in our lungs.

We have conversations with the people that we're traveling with.

We even savor the pain in our joints as we climb because it's feeling.

It's feeling something.

We're alive.

We realize even that pain has pleasure in it.

And if we get 90% of the way there and we have to turn around,

We don't even mind.

We're a little saddened.

But mostly we say,

Okay,

I had such a good time getting this far and I'm going to have a good time going back down because I'm not so focused on the goals and the thrills that come with that.

I'm focused on the journey of enjoying the journey of life.

And when we do that,

We find that,

Oh yeah,

There's still thrills.

We have them.

But a lot of life is just life.

And without wishing it would be different,

Without focusing in on having the thrills,

We find that when we quiet our minds and we're present,

There's a peacefulness.

A peacefulness that's always there.

We just have to be still.

We just have to be present.

And in that presence,

Life is good.

All is well.

We can have such beautiful lives,

But we just have to be careful about being a pleasure seeker,

About being a thrill seeker.

This can be very addictive and it will definitely not lead to happiness.

It will lead to thrills,

But it will not lead to happiness.

With happiness comes peace.

And with peace comes joy.

May we all find happiness,

Joy,

And peace during our journey through life.

Thank you for joining me on the Happiness Podcast.

Until next time,

Accept what is,

Love what is.

Reviews

Thank you, great insights as always, and I enjoyed the new background music. Love and blessings 💜 x

Thank you 🙏