Let The Good Times Go

Sometimes in life, we can have the most exquisite moments that can take our breath away. But are there any concerns for these moments that we have to be careful about when it comes to our overall joy and happiness throughout our lives? Come explore in the new talk.

Please note, this is a talk, not a guided meditation.

Transcript

Welcome to the Happiness Podcast.

I'm Dr.

Robert Puff.

During the course of our lives,

Sometimes we have these moments that are just exquisite,

Truly beautiful,

Wonderful moments that we just want to hang on to and remember for the rest of our lives.

They can be so many different things.

It could be the birth of our child.

It could be our wedding day.

It could be a vacation that we're on that was just magnificent.

We may,

If we are blessed,

Have them throughout our lives.

Sometimes they come out of something that we work towards,

Like working really hard at school and becoming valedictorian.

And when we're standing up on the podium,

Receiving our degree,

We may feel a rush of emotion that is just exquisite.

Or it may be a memory of someone that we deeply love or loved,

And that time that we spent the day with them,

And at the end of the day,

We made love with them.

And again,

It was the most memorable moment,

Something that we'll cherish for the rest of our lives.

Like you,

I've had many of them too.

But one of the first ones that I remember having was on my first summer trip to Europe after I had worked the previous summer very hard at a job and saved my money so that I could afford to go.

It was a very inexpensive trip,

But there were moments that were truly wonderful.

But the one I remember so strongly was I was traveling in Morocco,

And at the time I was traveling with a man from Turkey.

And the two of us were able to find a very inexpensive hotel in Tangier.

So that evening,

My friend and the owner of the hotel sat up for hours drinking mint tea and just talking,

And we just kept talking throughout the night.

And it was just an experience that I had never had.

I had grown up in Iowa,

And to be with someone from Turkey,

And having a conversation with another man from Morocco,

And sitting up and talking about life.

It was just such a beautiful memory that I remember cherishing for years to come.

And I even believe no matter how hard our lives are,

If we really reflect on our lives,

We've had memories like these,

Memories that we cherish and we hang on to,

And they are just truly the exquisite moments of life.

But in regards to finding happiness and peace in our lives,

There is a danger with these moments,

With these memories,

That can really impede our sense of well-being and saying,

Life is good now.

If you've been listening to this podcast for a while,

You know that one of the things that I teach to have happiness and peace in our lives is living in the present moment.

Well,

What can happen is,

When we have these exquisite moments,

Is that we want to hang on to them.

We want to recreate them.

We want them back.

And we can pair and contrast our present moment with these past moments,

And our present moment is going to lose,

Because these past moments were so wonderful.

One of the key elements of living a happy life is living in the present moment and finding something beautiful to be with now.

And if we make this our focus,

There really is always something beautiful to be with.

And whatever our minds focus on,

That's what affects the way we feel.

So if our efforts are really going towards finding something beautiful to be with now,

And we find it,

And we give that our attention,

We are going to find some peace and happiness in our lives right now.

But,

In this present moment,

If we compare and contrast our lives to these past exquisite moments,

Guess what?

These moments are going to lose,

And we're going to feel,

If not depressed,

Perhaps even horrible.

So let me use some extreme examples to illustrate this point.

I've always had a fascination with space exploration and astronomy,

And I remember reading many years ago about the astronauts who walked on the moon.

I mean,

Can you imagine?

What an amazing accomplishment!

Well,

I guess when they came back from the moon,

The one thing that many,

If perhaps all of them struggled with,

Was depression,

Because they had done this amazing accomplishment.

And when they came back,

They were asking themselves,

What do I do now?

They were comparing walking on the moon with the present moment,

And the present moment lost.

And another extreme example that I've heard through my work as a clinical psychologist is when I work with drug addicts,

They'll talk about the extreme high the first time they get when they use a drug like heroin.

And then they call it chasing the high,

Because that high is so intense that afterwards it isn't as intense,

So they keep trying different things to replace that incredible high the first time they did,

Say,

Heroin.

They may even quit heroin and go through incredible withdrawals so that they can have that first high again.

And obviously we know that heroin addicts or drug addicts have very challenging lives.

But it's about chasing that high,

Wanting to recreate that most exquisite drug moment.

Or another example that you may be able to research on your own or know your own examples of is young people that have extreme success in their life,

Early success.

Perhaps you can think of one,

A movie star as a youth that life was very hard later,

Or a young rock star who again had great success at a young age but clearly struggled later in their lives.

And these two examples,

That extreme sense of success that they get as a youth wants to be recreated because they like that feeling,

It's exciting,

It's wonderful.

And when life just unfolds as life does,

And it's more mundane,

They try to recreate that high,

Sometimes through drugs,

And then they become addicted,

And their lives are then very challenging.

Or even in our own lives,

We may know people that we grew up with that were extremely popular or successful in school.

For whatever reason,

Perhaps they're really good at sports,

Perhaps they were beautiful.

And later in life,

It's like they're stuck there.

They just can't let go of it,

Because that's when they were successful.

And the rest of their life hasn't recreated the extreme success they had as a youth.

Well,

Probably most of us haven't walked on the moon,

Or movie stars in our youth.

But like them,

We need to be careful,

Because the temptation to hang on to these exquisite moments can be very powerful.

And that attraction,

That sense of hanging on to these moments will cause suffering.

These peak experiences,

These moments of really intense,

Wonderful feelings come in life sometimes.

Sometimes they come often,

Sometimes we only have them a few times in our lives.

And we're thankful for them,

We're blessed by them.

But if we hang on to them,

We're going to suffer.

But why is that?

Why can't we just hang on to them?

Mostly because life changes.

And life really isn't able to maintain that level of ecstasy.

And if we try to chase it,

We're going to suffer.

And we suffer because the present moment often can't compete with these past exquisite moments.

It just can't.

And because it can't,

We think about and compare and contrast.

And once we compare and contrast,

Our present moment loses.

And if it loses,

Then we think about the bad things that are going on right now,

Instead of focusing on what is,

And finding things beautiful in the present moment.

For example,

As we all know,

When we get older,

Our bodies begin to change.

And when we're youthful,

We may be able to get up in the morning,

Go for long runs,

Do all kinds of things without even having to think about it.

But as we get older,

All that excess energy and long runs may be a thing of the past.

And we can adjust,

We can do well.

But if we compare and contrast,

Our bodies in their 60s cannot do the same things that our bodies could do in our 20s.

There's a huge difference.

And it doesn't have to be bad.

It just is different.

But if we compare and contrast,

We'll suffer.

And we're not here to suffer.

We're here to have beautiful lives.

So the path to having beautiful lives is not comparing and contrasting to these exquisite moments.

They are wonderful.

And we're blessed to have them.

Maybe we have them once in a while.

Maybe we've only had them a couple of times in our lives,

And we're thankful for them.

But if we hang on to them,

That's the path of suffering.

Here's a simple example of that.

Imagine one of the best meals you've ever had in your life.

Perhaps it was at a five star restaurant.

Perhaps it was a holiday with your family and friends.

And it was just exquisite.

I had one of those meals once.

I was on retreat and had a special dinner one night.

And I'm telling you,

The people that hosted the retreat went out of their way to make the most amazing meal I had ever had.

There were choices beyond belief.

And the food was,

Oh my goodness,

Just exquisite.

I mean,

Truly,

It was one of the best meals I've ever had in my life.

Well,

If I compared that meal to the normal meal that I eat,

My normal meal is gonna seem like,

Blah,

This is depressing.

So I don't,

Of course.

I'm thankful for that great meal.

But I don't compare and contrast.

Or here's another memory that I have.

I was once,

Years ago,

On a kayak trip up in Alaska.

And for about a week,

We didn't run into anyone at all.

We were kayaking through the misty fjords and all the food we had we were carrying with us.

Well,

As you can imagine,

After a week,

And after kayaking all day long,

Having meals that you added water to because they were powdered got a little old.

Well,

One day towards the end of our trip,

A biplane came by to check on us to see how we were doing.

And he brought with us a case of beers.

And I've really never been much of a drinker.

But I'm telling you,

After a week of kayaking all day long,

That was the best beer I've ever had in my life.

Now afterwards,

I wasn't craving beer,

I didn't want it again.

I was thankful for how good that beer was.

But I didn't keep craving it.

I let it go.

And I've never since that time,

Drinking much beer.

But at that time,

If I compared and contrast,

I might have become a beeraholic,

Because it was so good.

And I may have chosen to keep recreating it,

Which I didn't.

So in life,

We really do have exquisite moments.

And we're so thankful that we have them.

But the key of life is to let them go.

When we let them go,

Then we can just focus on being present with what is.

It's like again,

Having memories,

Going through our photos,

Getting online and checking through our photo app,

Our old pictures of our trip,

And it's fun to do that once in a while.

But if we compare that to what we're doing right now,

It may not be the same.

And if it's not the same,

Which is most likely,

Then we're going to get depressed.

And we're going to go into this hole that can be quite sad.

We may argue,

But Dr.

Puff,

What's wrong with chasing these wonderful highs?

They're great.

Well,

Let me explain a disorder that many people struggle with,

That is very challenging to help because they're so addicted to the highs.

It's called bipolar disorder or manic depression.

And what it is,

Is these people experience extreme highs,

Manic phases,

And then later it's followed by extreme lows,

Depression.

And the medical community has come up with different techniques that really help them manage their emotions.

And medication tends to be very helpful.

But what we've found is over the years,

Is that they really like the highs.

And because they're so in many ways addicted to the highs,

They won't get the treatment because even when the lows come,

And the lows are horrible,

Where sometimes they even wish their lives were over,

They won't get help or treatment or continue to take their medication because they just love the highs and they'd rather suffer with these highs and lows than get treatment.

That's the danger.

When we hang on to our past exquisite moments,

It will lead to comparing and contrasting to the present moment.

And the present moment's going to lose,

And so are we.

We don't have to suffer like that though.

What we need to do is let them go.

We're thankful for them.

We're blessed when they come again.

But we don't hang on to them.

Again,

It'd be like our exquisite meals.

Yes,

They're wonderful to have,

But we don't want to hang on to them.

We don't want to keep repeating them because that isn't realistic.

That isn't how life works.

Life brings us these peak experiences,

These exquisite moments,

And we're thankful for them.

But if we hang on to them,

We're going to suffer.

Because mostly life is mundane in the sense that it just repeats.

And that's okay.

There's so many beautiful things in the present moment.

That's really what this podcast is all about.

But what will keep us from learning how to live well in the present moment is when we compare and contrast to these peak experiences.

We need to let them go.

We can remember them.

We can share them.

But we don't hang on to them.

Instead,

If our goal is to find peace and happiness in our lives,

Then we look for it in the present moment right now.

Because as I so often say,

There really is always something beautiful to be with.

So our energy goes towards finding things right now that put peace in our hearts,

To put a smile on our face and be with that.

See,

That's what young children do.

There's so many fascinating things in life,

And they're present with them.

They're seeing them anew.

Our goal is continuing to see things anew with a childlike heart.

And if we do that by not comparing and contrasting to the past,

Then we're going to find that life can be beautiful.

Even with these exquisite moments,

They come,

And we're thankful for them,

And we let them go.

And then we get back to the here and now,

Living well in the present moment,

Free of comparing and contrasting,

And just learning that life always has something beautiful to be with.

Give our attention to that.

We don't ignore the things that are hard.

It's just that we say,

Okay,

I get it.

Life changes.

Life isn't always a peak experience,

But life can always be beautiful.

And we just need to find and keep seeing the beautiful moments in the here and now.

And if we keep practicing this and keep working on this,

Then what we'll find is even when we have these beautiful peak experiences,

We let them go for the next adventure that life's going to give us right now.

And then we take another breath,

And we see the next adventure that life's going to give us right now.

And even if it's just a simple little thing,

We still find beauty in that.

And when we put this all together,

When we take our last breath of life,

We'll say,

Thank you.

That was a good life.

Thank you for joining me on the happiness podcast.

Until next time,

Accept what is,

Love what is.

Reviews

Thanks for the wonderful perspective. I lead textile tours around the world and love the constant new exquisite adventures my travel brings. Obviously, the pandemic has put a temporary end to that life. But I realize that it has given me the gift of time to delve into my life at home for which I am grateful. Thank you for the reminder.

Stop chasing the dragons indeed. I think there are many more dragons in the modern world. I loved your story about your late night talk over tea in Turkey. I had a similar one with a stranger in a hotel lobby early one morning.
It made me realize that many of my best memories are of situations that were unexpected and I no expectations of. They just happened naturally and left the most wonderful impression behind.

Thank you Dr Puff. Your down to earth advice is always so great to hear especially when you share your personal experiences.