I am just a floating, smiling face that has thought a lot about happiness and enjoyment. If you feel like you need to email me, you may do so at:
Earlier today the landscape of my day suddenly changed. What was once going to be a full work day with some more work at the end of it suddenly became very open. As I drove away from my workplace I noticed my ambient emotional state and how positively charged it was on account of this. Then I started thinking about this idea of ambient emotional state and how the “type” of day you’re having influences this. For me, waking up on a Mon-Fri workday has a very specific feeling to it; not only does this occur at an exact time of day which has its own sounds and lighting conditions, but I am already loaded with expectations on what type of day it’s going to be. The same thing happens on weekend days but when I wake up it is in different conditions with different expectations so that ambient state is different.
What was particularly interesting about what happened today, and what always happens in this kind of situation (half-days off from school as a child, rainy days, sudden plan changes, etc.) is just how positively charged I felt. Not that I don’t love my job, but knowing I suddenly had a day to do what I want made me feel really motivated and excited, and on a day that was not any different from any weekend day I’ve ever had! Something really powerful emerged from a mild emotional state brought on by a simple change in plans. This is what I’m referring to when I mention The Ambient Sense Of Opportunity.
I feel like there’s a really good internal challenge here. How can we generate that sense of opportunity on the type of heavily ritualized day we have most of the time? When I thought about how much lighting conditions had to do with this (here I am, driving my car around at 11am, which I NEVER do an account of my lifestyle – coupled with the realization that my day is free) I realized that shifting some aspects of your day around in arbitrary ways might be really energizing. Maybe we can get up a little earlier or later than we usually do. Maybe we can do the same thing with lunch. Maybe we can open or close the doors and windows when normally we wouldn’t. It doesn’t hurt that the seasons tend to shift our surroundings naturally. So let’s generate The Ambient Sense Of Opportunity simply by making some changes to our environment and aggressively reminding ourselves how interesting and varied our lives and work actually are. :)
I’m going to introduce a new term here. The Absolutionist (which is not to be confused with an absolutist, who practices absolutism, which is the principle of unbridled governmental power) is a certain type of person that we’ve all probably met at some point; they’re the type of person that believes the way they think and do things is the “correct” way to think and do things. They tend to enforce their understanding of the world on others simply because they have every reason to think they are correct. We’re going to call this type of person an Absolutionist, because of the way they so frequently speak in very inflexible absolutes. For obvious reasons, it can be very frustrating being around this type of person because their language can be invasive and it’s hard not to respond negatively.
The first thing you should do so that you can enjoy your life more is to bear in mind that until an Absolutionist is actually affecting your life, they don’t have any effect on your life. Quit responding to their egocentrism and move on. Like so much terrorism, bad psychedelic trips, and personal insecurities, they only have power over you once you’ve given it to them.
The second thing you should do is remember that there are a lot of people out there who seem like Absolutionists when they are, in fact, not. It seems like this sometime because of the way a lot of people deal with the inherent time constraints of language. For example, there are two ways to tell somehow how awesome X is. You can say “X is awesome!”, or you can say “I feel like X is awesome!”. The first one takes less time but is technically an absolute statement. The second one is much less invasive, but takes additional time to actually say. In this example it seems like an incredibly trivial amount of time, but like many things, that time adds up. Most people understand this and therefore defer to the quicker, more absolute way of saying things. If you’re the kind of person that cannot help getting upset upset in the presence of Absolutionists, then the least you can do is determine whether or not the person in question is an actual Absolutionist or not! Chances are very high that they are not, and they are simply trying to communicate a personal idea in the quickest amount of time. I realize that in an ideal world we would all have the time and energy to speak in the most non-invasive ways possible, but we simply don’t and the quicker we mitigate the frustration that emerges from this kind of language use, the smoother our days will be. :)
One of the many interesting things about those of us that have grown up in this big industrialized superworld is that we’ve been trained to cultivate and manage a personal identity. It’s a very strange idea since humans roots are incredibly animal and community identities are still prevalent in many parts of the world, but we’ve got it so we should be making the most of it! Unfortunately, a lot of us are using it against ourselves and against others in really negative ways. We’re oftentimes too scared to contradict or compromise this complex and precious identity mechanism we’ve spent our whole lives constructing so we use it to limit ourselves and our enjoyment suffers greatly. Luckily, it’s an easy thing to work around; you just need to know how it’s hurting you and then grow up a bit. Not too much! But enough to realize how much power you have over yourself so you can get back to enjoying the glory of life. Instead of elaborating too heavily on the idea itself, here are some major examples of how we frequently do this to ourselves.
- Think of the person that refuses to enjoy something because it has become culturally valued when originally it was not. This person felt unique enjoying this thing under the original circumstances, but once others began to enjoy it en masse the sensation of uniqueness faded and the enjoyment ceased. Their uniqueness is in fact safe and they need to grow up.
- Think of the person that refuses to enjoy something because it is associated with children and/or teenagers. This person feels that they will compromise the maturity they possess if they enjoy something that younger people (whom they most likely perceive as foolish) enjoy as well. Their maturity is in fact safe and they need to grow up.
- Think of the person who refuses to enjoy something because it was created in unfortunate circumstances. This person feels that if they enjoy something that was created in less-than-ideal circumstances that they are diminishing their own morality by promoting turmoil. This person does not realize or believe that if we denied ourselves everything that was created in turmoil that we would have almost nothing. Their ethical core is in fact safe and they need to grow up.
- Think of the person that refuses to enjoy something because they have spent too much time decrying it. This person feels that if they change their mind after so much commitment that they are flimsy, and that others will perceive them as such. Provided a mind change occurs in honesty and during lucidity, their integrity is in fact safe and they need to grow up.
- Think of the person that refuses to enjoy something because it is simpler as an object or idea than they perceive themselves to be as a human. This person feels that they reduce themselves by enjoying trivial entertainment, mindless distractions, and petty pleasures. Their complexity is in fact safe and they need to grow up.
- Think of the person that refuses to enjoy something because their enemies and competitors enjoy it as well. This person feels that if they bear any similarity to someone of contrasting beliefs, motivations, intent, or lifestyle that they are the same as those they oppose or work against. Not only does this person not realize that an “enemy” is an unnecessarily constraining concept and that competitors are actually good for us, but they also do not realize that we are only similar to those with whom we are actually similar and that the things we enjoy are only a part of who we are. Their loyalty to themselves and their people is in fact safe and they need to grow up.
The underlying idea here is that while the things we enjoy are gigantically powerful and have the ability to change our lives for the better, they do not actually define us! The components of your identity: your maturity, complexity, uniqueness, moral/ethical core, integrity, and loyalty are not in any danger from the things you end up enjoying and there is no reason in the world to refuse enjoyment! Again, natural rejection at the hands of your senses is completely okay, but if it’s not an authentic rejection then you are doing yourself an immense disservice, and this is what I implore you to manage. You deserve it. :)
There are so many things in this hugely beautiful world that possess the inherent ability to nourish, entertain, relax, and inspire us. Not only is there a vast offering of natural constructs such as beaches to run on, clear water to swim in, mountains to climb, skies to fly though, there is also an unimaginably large library of things created by other humans that were made solely to enhance other lives such as food, music, books, movies, games, and then some. Yet with all of these artifacts surrounding us, we are in a constant struggle with joy and that is incredibly frustrating! Enjoying all of this is not difficult, nor is it complicated, nor is it some kind of game with rules and theories and strategies. On the contrary, it’s so simple it’s baffling.
Just open up your senses and let them do what they were designed to do.
When the body receives stimulation, it goes to the brain carrying one of two very simple messages: either “I like this” or “I don’t like this”. I realize that sometimes we feel like it’s more complicated than that, but the truth is that it’s not and that there is actually just some kind of clutter in the channel between your sensual receptors (eyes, ears, mouth, nose, skin) and your brain. This clutter could be any intricate combination of emotional or societal or cultural factors, it really depends on the person. But the point is that this clutter is usually there. The good news is that it’s extremely manageable! A little exploration and a little spring cleaning can clear that right up for you so that you can better interpret the good things your body is trying to tell you while you move about the planet having experiences. Clear sensual channels open you up to the streams of infinite enjoyment that are always there and always available to you.
Now in all of the years I’ve spent exploring these channels and watching other people explore them as well I’ve made a strange realization, and it ties into the previously mentioned idea of identity in the industrialized parts of the world. We’ve developed this idea that the things we reject are a core part of who we are. It’s almost as if we can’t legitimately enjoy things if we’re not opposing things of differing (and sometimes not so differing, unfortunately) nature. In these cases there is too much sensual blockage and more often then not it’s because YOU put it there! It’s become a game, and it SHOULD NOT BE A GAME! The end result is that there are as many (if not more) things that we do not enjoy as there are things that we do. It’s completely ridiculous and utterly unfair. Somewhere between stimulation and processing, other ideas corrupt the message and we regularly end up in this debilitating space where our love of x is preventing us from appreciating y. Ultimately this only serves to make our lives duller, more negative, and less joyous. To all of you refusing to clean out the channels and experience epicurean flow (consciously or otherwise), I say grow up.
You don’t have a lot of time and you’re wasting a lot of it unfairly disliking things and having less enjoyable life experiences because of it. It doesn’t make you any less you to greatly increase the spectrum of things you enjoy. Now I’m not saying you should be liking everything you encounter, because sometimes our sensual receptors just don’t feel it. And that’s okay! But there needs to be a transparent distinction between things you don’t like because your body is not receptive to them and things you don’t like because you have asinine ideals on life experiences and whether or not these experiences are acceptable to you.
The problem is yours and it’s yours to address. Now quit wasting your time. :)
If I had just a few wishes, one of them would be that conversations between people were purer.
There are two primary issues with most of the conversations I’ve ever heard and/or been a part of. One of these problems is that sometimes we’re more concerned with expressing our feelings than we are with anything else. I suppose it’s the part of the brain that needs to talk about very meaningful things with others. The problem therein is that often times our overbearing emotional responses become the all-important center of the universe, if even momentarily. Speaking through a veil of emotion removes a lot of the inherent effectiveness of a conversation, and promotes information disconnected from the people involved. The other primary issue I frequently experience is that sometimes we’re just not very good at truly representing ourselves. There are a lot of different reasons for this; some people just don’t have the articulation they need to communicate effectively, some people don’t have the social capacity to explain themselves, and some people just don’t listen. Granted, both of these primary problems have a fair amount of overlap, but ultimately they are different and need to be addressed in their own ways.
This is relevant to the idea of EYLM because crappy conversations lead very quickly to frustration. Sometimes right away, sometimes down the road, and sometimes both. Without a certain mastery of self, frustration can and will suck the enjoyment out of anything you’re doing. And since conversation is one of the primary human methods of interpersonal communication, let’s address it!
Think about it for a bit and determine for yourself how often you are happy with the conversations you have with others. If you’re a real pro, you’ll try to determine for yourself how often others are happy with the conversations they have with you. I realize there’s no way to know for sure without asking others directly, but reflecting (not obsessing) on it internally can’t really hurt you. And besides, any chance to learn more about others and have (practice) good conversation is something you should be taking in stride on principle. Once you have the data, do something about it! If you’re unhappy with your conversations, it’s your responsibility to figure out why. Don’t be afraid of the reasons! The quicker you swallow and accept your deficiencies the quicker you can improve upon them. Personally, I’ve got quite an articulation problem; there are always stacks and stacks of unfocused thoughts drifting about in the ol’ brain soup and the more I rev up the stupider I get. Before I know it I’m not making any sense and I’m frustrating myself and others. I am at peace with this painful fact about myself and after meditating on it for a long time and consciously thinking about solutions my life improved. I simply don’t believe that anyone else can’t do the same. The obstacle is whether or not you’re really interested in addressing it.
Rule #5 is about mastery over one of our most significant tools. As with any tool, we must learn to wield it no matter how hard it is to do so. The beautiful thing about a tool is that eventually you control it and can use it to express yourself in ways you weren’t previously able to. In the context of conversation, this means that once you’ve found that elusive treasured ground between emotional expression and functional articulation, you can more effectively use it to to get the things you want and need! And when you’re in touch with the things you want and need, what goes up? :)
There are a lot of reasons we are able to experience the sensation of enjoyment. Part of it is evolutionary. Our brains have learned to properly reward us with pleasure when we’ve done something we need to do to keep living. Think about the different incentivizing sensations we experience for seemingly normal acts; putting food in our stomach feels great because we need it to power our bodies, sex feels great because we need it to keep our species alive, and exercise feels great because we have things to do and can’t do them if we’re not built to perform (it’s no coincidence that being hungry, horny, and overweight sucks). It’s pretty incredible, actually! There are parts of your brain specifically devoted to the monitoring of your activities and supplying you with endorphins; highly potent, purified, healthy, organic, home made drugs that gives you the happies. We exist under a tightly regulated pleasure protocol, and the way I see it, there is no reason whatsoever to not use it to our advantage.
Now we need to make the distinction between enjoyment and self-destruction, as they overlap with alarming frequency. Too often we do pleasurable things for the wrong reasons and instead of using them to supplement our lives, we end up using them to replace other parts and this compromises our physical and emotional well being. The distinction is so important to me because there are way too many of us that will liberally interpret the idea of “taking advantage of the pleasure protocol” as “drink, drug, hurt, and have sex until I can’t see straight”. Not that it’s my business, but that’s not what Rule #4 is all about.
Rule #4 is about the realization that your body contains deeply imbedded functionality in regards to enjoyment. You were born with it! It’s there! How dare you turn your back on it! Using your time to experience the sensation of enjoyment does not hurt you, provided you’re not neglecting the responsibilities you have as a person (and like I said before, there’s a magical area between doing the enjoyable things you want to do and fulfilling your obligations; find this ASAP). Those of you pointing to the last paragraph and insisting that sometimes enjoyment does indeed hurt, I must once again make it clear that enjoyment and pain are DIFFERENT and it’s your responsibility to filter the two out and be conscious of what you’re really doing to yourself. Remember! The scariest thing we can do is confuse the natural and healthy release of pleasure with the sensations we get from those other things we sometimes do…the ones that aren’t very good for us.
Anyway, my point stands. The pleasure protocol is there and it’s always on. Start using it. :)
Filed under: Impact
Someone recently said:
“The simple, pure, naive enthusiasm of EYLM is wicked infectious.”
This made me very happy for a number of reasons. First of all, it was a cool thing to say. Anything wicked infectious (that is not a disease) is merely a demonstration of human connectedness. Ideas only jump from person to person if they are meaningful for some reason. And anything that is pure and simple is most likely elegant, which is something I personally value. At the end of the day I would hope this school of thought is (and remains) elegant so the reinforcement is pleasant. But mostly, it got me thinking about the nature of naivete. We’ve got a strange cultural problem in that “naive” as an idea is typically used to denigrate people. I don’t think this is unreasonable; by definition it’s partially a reference to a lack of world experience and there are plenty of instances in which a lack of world experience is decidedly bad. But for one, I know for a fact that the person who made this comment did not possess a shred of malice when they made it, and it’s moot anyway because in the context of enjoyment there is nothing inherently wrong with naivete.
In fact, the very backbone of the EYLM concept is to mitigate the negative aspects of our world experience. As we get older and older, we start to understand more and more how much the world can suck. We start understanding pain and death and poverty and destruction for ourselves; people we care about get hurt and die, we lose our living spaces and our possessions, we learn firsthand how needlessly destructive other people can be…and then (most of us) eventually realize that it happens everywhere and in a lot of places it’s actually much worse! In addition to the more unfortunate realities of the human equation, our identities (as well as the truth about our overly powerful nature) are constantly under attack by our government, our culture, the other humans in our territory, and ourselves. These realizations are very disillusioning for obvious reasons, and it’s in our nature to shut down certain processes in order to cope with it.
All of the EYLM rules and ideas seek to manage this process. To improve it. And while I would never suggest that ones disregards their world experience, look at what has been discussed thus far: Rule #1 is about reversing some of that process with the sensation of gratitude. Rule #2 is about embracing your strengths. Rule #3 is about self-awareness. And while the rest of the rules have yet to be elaborated upon, they are all built upon the same, dark, little secret; being jaded kills. It is the absolute arch-nemesis of enjoyment and it needs to be dealt with. Not eliminated, but severely reprimanded for its devastating affect on our joy.
The far more positive sheen on the backbone of EYLM is the greatness of children, and the way they compose fun for themselves in their own incredible ways. The Twitter face of EYLM is all about this; a small act of purified fun can do wonders for a tired and malnourished sense of happiness. Again, I can’t stress enough that it’s not at all about disregarding the responsibilities we have as people. It’s about that beautiful space in between where simple, pure, naive enthusiasm will change your life for the better. :)
You (along with every last person in the world) has a specific cluster of attributes that ultimately determines who you are as a person and how you do things over time. It’s like a conceptual blueprint and it describes a lot of very important mechanisms: what you value, how you process information, how you handle trauma, and so on and so forth. As a human being, it’s your responsibility to explore this space! To map it! To know it! To really, truly understand it! I know that some of you reading this might think that’s common sense, but something about it is very difficult for a lot of us. The industrialized culture has stacked a lot of identity problems onto those that live within it, effectively making the inner exploration a little bit more complicated. Sometimes, people are just kind of scared of who they are because they’re worried they won’t like it. In any case, the practice applies to the non-industrialized parts of the world and even the tribal as well. People are people and in order to express ourselves when living our lives we must have a grasp on who we are, no matter how difficult it is to do that.
Think about how much your brain changes over the years. I’ve yet to meet a teenager or an adult who doesn’t recognize cognitive differences between who they are and who they were weeks, months, or years ago. This realization is most likely the result of the natural explorations we perform simply by trying to cope with life and have experiences. But what I am suggesting to you is that you can take this a step further and multiply the amount of personal knowledge you gain by consciously exploring yourself. Have more conversations! Have more experiences! Strengthen your inner dialogue with yourself! Being is that you do these things every day anyway, you shouldn’t find yourself terribly uncomfortable just doing them more. The key here is increasing the data; filling out the map, if you will. Now if you want to take this concept to the next level and get the REALLY great data, have weird conversations! Have weird experiences! Have weird inner dialogues! Doing the things you don’t normally do not only creates heaps of information, but it expands the boundaries of the map you’re constantly (hopefully) making.
Rule #3 is ultimately about self-clarity. There are always things you can be doing to increase your understanding of yourself, and the broader your understanding the better your decisions become. Why am I beating this home? Because the more in touch you are with you, the more in touch you become with the things you enjoy. And nothing would make me happier than knowing you are a potent enjoyer of life. :)
One of the most amazing things about people is their ability to essentially do whatever they want. Sure, some things are bit ambitious and may require some preparation, but it can and does happen. The proof is actually in the pudding. Humanity started out with nothing but instincts (which is an interesting parallel to an individual human life) and then went on to create civilization! It is in our nature to assess our environment and then build great things upon the gaps and fractures. Then when that’s done and we’ve identified new gaps and fractures it starts all over again. For better or worse, our incessant desire to improve things and to explore the unknown makes us endlessly incredible.
The problem therein is that a lot of us are taught (sometimes intentionally, sometimes not) that we do not actually possess the tools needed to affect our surroundings. It’s not terrifically unreasonable; as our lifestyles continue to gain momentum in the age of information we’ve inherited from ourselves it becomes much easier to assume we are but ants. This is not the case! As it turns out, all of the amazing men and women that have mapped the continents, dove into the oceans, flown into the sky, and shot themselves into space have the same parts everyone else has. The same brains, the same blood, the same lungs, the same bones, the same eyeballs, and so on.
Now I fully understand that one of the hardest things to do when it comes to people is reverse something that has been beaten into them their whole lives. But I must insist; you are like a god. Not an omnipotent Christian or Muslim god, not an immensely creative or destructive Hindu god, not a psychologically and spiritually enlightened Buddhist god, and certainly not a troublesome and manipulative Greek or Roman god. You are actually a combination of all of these things! You have a indescribable capacity to learn anything, you possess blazing tools of creation and destruction, your consciousness is supremely magnificent, and you are troublesome and manipulative (also known as FUN ;) )! Furthermore, you are your own amazing node within the great human organism, which is fully like a god. We cannot be stopped. If there is just two or three of us left anywhere, humanity will continue to grow and continue to carve planets.
As far as you are concerned, consider this. You have the ability to climb onto your roof, scan the horizon, pick a direction you like, and go. When you arrive, you can do anything you want. I promise you. Maybe you don’t want to and that’s okay. Some of us are, in fact, quite content. But a lot of you would love to do this but are naturally resisting the idea. Without fail, your stasis is a result of two things: fear and anchors. Fear is (hopefully) self-explanatory. It’s a natural response to change, uncertainty, and any other combination of the twisted reasons some of us have not to change our lives. Ultimately fear is conquerable. Anchors however, are a different beast altogether. Maybe you’ve got a family you can’t walk away from, or a job that you’re obligated to remain at. This is when you make me really happy by remembering Rule #1 and making the best out of what you have. There is almost always a middle ground between what you want to do and what you must do, and it’s your responsibility to explore that space and make yourself happy while fulfilling your obligations. Not ideal, sure. But there is always space for happiness and the sooner you realize that the better off you’ll be. :)
Think about that for a second. You actually exist. You are made of incredible matter; intricate human molecules that grow, change and die, which are then endlessly recreated by your enormously complex genetic index only to do it all again, effectively keeping you on your toes as an organism. You were born, you will create and cultivate new life, you will die, and every step you take casts a magnificent wake of influence that affects both the living and non-living things in your environment in many different ways.
You live on a planet that should, in all fairness, not really be what it is. For some inexplicable set of reasons, it was formed at just the right distance from the sun at just the right time. Close enough to be warm without being a boiling sphere of madness and far enough to be cold without being a merciless freezer. Over the course of billions of years of geological torment, it has ended being made out of the rock you need to stand on, covered in the water you need to drink, and wrapped up in the gases you need to breathe. And here you are, drinking it all in. Living, breathing, thinking, speaking, eating, changing, creating, destroying. What you have as a creature of Earth is a profound gift and you would do well not to ever forget that.
Now I am most certainly not trying to suggest that we live in a paradise of any sort; not by a long shot. Our species lives in turmoil far too often, and the soul crushing truth of the matter is that sometimes our best is just not good enough in the grand scheme of life. Hunger kills, famine kills, war kills, and for many people on the planet, pain is a way of life. What I find super interesting about this is that even those that live in turmoil still have values, and no matter how troubled the human, there will always be ways of identifying something we have that others don’t (and vice-versa). We all possess something wonderful that someone else in the world would do anything for, placing us all somewhere on an endless circle of fortune. The quicker we realize that every last human has wealth in some form, the sooner we can grow up.
The ultimate point of Rule #1 is to have gratitude. It’s about looking around you at any given point and accepting your enormous well-being as a living creature, and as a human. You yourself are a gift covered in gifts and surrounded by the gifts of other people. Now breathe in your immense opulence and be grateful, because no matter how bad you think you have it, it could always be worse. :)
