Back at school I had friend who liked to say too much is never enough.
He’d say this regularly with increasing enthusiasm when he started drinking on a Saturday. He’d say it again with considerably less energy during his Sunday hangover with mounds of toast, bacon, eggs….
Every day you are offered pleasure. Advertisers will you offer pleasure, and I probably will too. You live in a forest of promised pleasures. Drink this, eat this, watch this, feel this…
They do not all satisfy us equally, but the people who sell them do not like to admit this.
When you pick the wrong pleasure for you it does not satisfy, however much you have.
One reason that its so easy to eat too much junk food is that provides calories, sugar, fat, taste but very little nutrition. Nutrition (which can include certain oils, protein trace elements, vitamins and perhaps something unquantifiable) is essential to real food, so you can eat as much junk food as you like without ever being truly satisfied.
I eat well, but I can watch Manga like some people eat nachos. As one episode ends in suspense I click on the link for the next one… again and again even if I know I need to sleep.
I’ve wondered why I do this. It starts with a desire to ret and relax, but the real hook for me is that I care for the characters. I want to know they’ll be ok. It’s not rational; I guess I’m a sucker for the big eyes.
Caring for cartoon characters is not truly satisfying, it’s not really care – they are no better off from my attention. But I carry a desire to care that the stories stimulate but that they cannot satisfy any more than chips satisfy the need for protein.
The way the brain works the more you practise something, whether eating junk food or watching manga the better you get at it. The stronger the physiological response the quicker the learning cycle. Food and sex cause strong physiological responses which is why chocolate cake and porn can both be so addictive.
The better you get at your habit the stranger it feels to stop…
So if you are going to offer yourself pleasure, and I recommend that you do, consider if that pleasure will be nourishing or not. Does it nourish what is important to you, what you value?
I value care which is integral to my work as a coach. Care is better nourished by spending a few minutes with the plants on my balcony, by cleaning a little part of the apartment, by writing a postcard, by calling a friend than hours in front of the computer watching big eyed cartoon characters even if they risk their lives for their friends. There are many ways I can express care that satisfy.
Some people create categories of desires or appetites that need satisfying. They may include health, fun, contribution, social connection, sex, creativity, expression, learning, income, adventure, exercise… This is fine and a standard coaching tool. A conscious overview of life is healthy and a useful tool in taking charge of direction.
I want to look at something smaller for now. Not a whole life but just a single unsatisfying habit.
If you pleasure yourself in ways that do not deeply satisfy, you are like most of the rest of our society who have been raised on aspirations that do not fit.
Take one of these unsatisfying pleasures. Don’t fight what you do, go deeper into it. Don't act on it or react to it. Feel the desire beneath the desire to spin your wheels in the ruts of habit. You already know where those ruts will take you, been there, done that, been left with a bad taste in your mouth. Do you want more of that or something else?
Go deeper than the desire. Feel the yearning before the habit, even if, especially if is so tender that it feels like your heart will break. If you can even begin to sit with that then you have started opening choice as to how you pleasure yourself and how you will find satisfaction. Sit with it patiently and listen until it tells you what you really want inside, a bigger, more powerful YES.
Find the smallest action that is really aligned with the deeper appetite and take it. It may not be rational, it may not be profitable, it may not be fashionable… when it's time do it anyway. You don’t even need my permission, just fucking enjoy it fully.
Start to make this your new habit. It may fit for a long time, or you may grow out if it quickly, what is important is whether it suits you now.
If you have any questions or comments about this article please share them – below or contact me privately
*no chocolate was actually harmed or killed in the writing of this article
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