Many of us have a number of roles and activities to fulfill, and achieving them becomes a real challenge. We are so immersed in the day-to-day that very few of us pause to assess whether everything we do makes sense, or if they are distractions that prevent us from being and doing what is really important. As one of the authors I enjoy the most, Robin Sharma, would say, it's about being busy.
Today I want to invite you to take that pause, to take a few minutes to review what you are doing and if what you are doing is taking you in the direction you want to go. The point is that our minds and our model of reality tend to lay some traps for us that easily lead us astray from the proper direction and mislead us as to what we think will make us happy in the future. Indeed, today I want to share 3 of them:
1. Most of the things we want, because we think they will make us happy, do not arise from a real need of ours, but from advertising, patterns, and comparisons with other people.
Advertising comes to us in order to generate a need that is often not real. It is a business! If you stop to make an evaluation of much of what you buy, you will realize that you did not even need it. Most likely, you would not have purchased it if they had not shown it to you and it was not so easy to do it with a simple click on your computer or cell phone. So, the suggestion is not to let yourself be manipulated, filter the information you receive and identify and buy those things that you really need.
On the other hand, it is very common that our desires are based on social patterns and comparisons, with other people in the environment or that we observe through TV, the internet, or networks. In this sense, scientific studies reveal that a person may feel the need to buy a new car simply because his neighbor bought it and parks it in front of or next to his house every day. Once again, I want to confirm that each human being is unique and unrepeatable, as well as their circumstances and lifestyle. There is no point in comparing yourself to someone else or believing that the way the other lives brings you more happiness or makes his life better than yours.
Happiness can be generated here and now very effectively, no matter what the circumstances. I invite you to make the decision to eliminate the social comparisons that affect your emotional well-being and start concentrating on what is really important.
2. Most of the time we think that the impact that a positive or negative experience will have on us or our lives will be greater than it really is.
In other words, we always have the perception that our positive experiences and achievements, such as buying a late-model car or winning the lottery, will totally change our lives and make us extremely happy. Or that our negative experiences, like losing a job or ending a relationship, will radically change our lives and make us deeply unhappy.
Scientific studies show that, under normal conditions, people celebrate, but soon we get used to the positive events that happen to us. Likewise, in the face of a negative event, we suffer the impact, and then we adapt because according to the study by psychologists Dan Gilbert of the University of Harvard and Timothy Wilson of the University of Virginia, presented in 2001, people have a psychological immune system. That means that we are stronger and more resilient than we think, we face and overcome our challenges and emerge stronger from them. So, experiencing fulfillment does not depend on our circumstances or achievements, but on our attitude towards life.
3. When we achieve or buy something, a dopamine release is produced that generates a sensation of immediate pleasure. But pretty soon, we get used to feeling empty and dissatisfied again and we need a new stimulus to feel that instant gratification again. That is called Hedonic Adaptation.
Psychologists Shane Frederick and George Loewenstein studied and came up with the name hedonic adaptation. To explain it, they used the example of lottery winners. At the moment they win the lottery, people feel that they will be able to live as they had dreamed, but after a short time, they adapt and return to the same level of well-being or happiness that they experienced before winning it. If you believe that any positive or negative experience will radically change your life, to the point of making you a happy or unhappy person, science and experience remind us that it will not be.
So, if we dream of living fully, we must keep in mind the difference between instant gratification and happiness, to work towards achieving the latter.
We already know that there is no point in assuming that you are not happy because something is missing. Devoting your life, time, and effort to trying to look like a magazine model, earn a lot of money, accumulate material goods, watches, clothes from expensive firms, cars, properties, yachts, or planes; just like having a partner or any other circumstance or thing that is outside of you, it will only generate instant gratification to which you will soon get used to, you will feel empty and you will need more.
On the contrary, live and savor your present, identify the blessings you enjoy, live in gratitude, look within, meditate, connect with your intuition, do what you are passionate about, take care of your health, dedicate time to your personal growth, enjoy of the connection with the planet, the people and everything that is in it, as well as being kind, identifying your purpose, fulfilling it and leaving a positive mark on the world will contribute to making you feel fulfilled in a sustained way over time.
In our next articles, we will delve into each of these wellness habits.
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