Happiness: Unlocked
Balancing Pleasure & Purpose
My guest on the podcast this week, Lenae Reeves, got me thinking about the subject of happiness. She emanates joy. From working up a sweat line dancing to building a business empire (not the evil kind), she seems to have unlocked the key to happiness, and it’s infectious.
If you haven’t listened yet, I promise it’s an instant shot of serotonin.
One of my favourite books is Happiness by Design. In it, the author talks about how defining what happiness is can be really tough, but a good place to start would be to look at Pleasure and Purpose.
Happiness, he argues, has its roots in Pleasure and Purpose. Some people get more from pleasurable activities, while others find joy in time spent doing purposeful things.
He suggests that, to bring more happiness into your life, you should try to do find a balance between the two.
Lenae has both in abundance, but ‘balance’ is not in my vocabulary. Equilibrium isn’t a concept I understand. My attitude is all or nothing, and I’m firmly on the side of deriving my happiness from purpose.
I break out in cold sweats at the thought of spontaneous fun. I don’t really know how to relax. It might look like I’m kicking back, having fun with friends without a care in the world, but these are the time when my brain is actually the loudest.
Peace, and therefore happiness, comes when I’m immersed in something difficult and hard and purposeful. Which is why I’ve found my happy place when doing marathons, or ultramarathons, or other equally silly endurance sports. Or, when it’s 4am and the sky is starting to turn blue and I’ve been up all-night writing. Those are my moments of bliss. I’m doing things that have meaning, with a look of grim determination on my face. I’m doing things that matter, to me.
And that’s all great, but if I’m always keeping because sitting quietly with myself is terrifying, then I probably need to do something to address that.
Finding myself waking up this morning in France, drinking tea in a quiet garden as the dog potters around, and all I can hear is the coo of wood pigeons and the gentle patter of a water fountain, is a bit disconcerting.
I’ve been firing on all cylinders for months now. I’ve been hustling, grinding, working hard. And that brings me happiness. But I know from bitter experience that bur out will inevitably follow if I don’t slow down a bit, relax, spend time with loved ones, stop working so much.
If I’m to design my happiness, I need to bring more pleasure into my life and focus less on the purpose.
But it’s hard work for me to do that. It doesn’t come naturally.
So, to convince my brain that it’s not so hard to have fun, I’m going to make pleasure my goal for the next month. Pleasure will become the purposeful activity, and in doing so, I’ll trick my brain into focusing on doing nothing, or at least doing nothing specific.
Because if happiness is the goal, there are worse ways to get there than kicking back and enjoying my summer break in France.
Of course, while ‘doing nothing’ in the garden, I wrote this. But then, I’ve come to accept that I’ll always be just a work-in-progress.
Which side do you fall on? More pleasure-focused or more purpose-driven? And what have you done to try and add more of the other into your life? I know so many people who are always on the go, always achieving, who hate the idea of sitting still. Let me know in the comments if you relate.
I’ll update you all on how this little experiment goes.
Angie