It's a Pleasure

What's the difference between pleasure and happiness and what merits the most attention?

Transcript

Oprah Winfrey said in her book What I Know For Sure “I take my pleasures seriously!” Well, I know EXACTLY what she means. Everyone who knows me knows how deeply I enjoy a good romantic comedy, or Disney movie... and how many are my all-time favorites, If there’s a beautiful sunset I’ll make you run outside and look at with me, In this podcast alone how many times have I said about people that I simply couldn’t love more, or the sound effects that may or may not emerge when I’m consuming something scrumptious!!

Some of my family members love giving me a bad time about it, but I choose to believe that I’m striving to be present, and live life to the fullest. Somehow, for the majority of my life, I’ve seemed to be keenly aware of the pleasures around me.  If you’ve been with me, you know, that isn’t the case all the time, but much of the time, and it’s certainly something I’m trying to recapture. 

My mom and my sisters are laughing out loud right about now, I promise you. 

We had a darling young lady, Renee Campbell, in our ward give a talk on becoming more childlike.  No coincidence, she was the recently released Primary President, and she talked about observing this gift, and reminded us that Christ himself taught us in Matthew 18:3–4, that Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. She did a terrific job by the way and is the perfect example of someone who lives with a child-like wonder. 

As she spoke I thought of watching my beautiful grandbabies.  They skip, for example and it feels good, it seems to make them feel even better. Their smiles get bigger so they skip more.

You tickle them once and they feel the immense pleasure of giggling from their toes, and want to be tickled more.  Our 2-year-old Baker boy seems to learn about something, (right now, it’s dinosaurs) and that’s all he wants to see, hear, play and sleep with. Those tiny T-rex’s give him great pleasure. 

Pleasure refers to experiences that simply put, feel good!  It is the sheer enjoyment of something.  

When was the last time you skipped? While I haven’t skipped in a while, I did just recently chase my little Baker around the house until I caught him and tickled him.  The sound of his laughter grants immense pleasure to this Nana heart! And guess what?  He wanted more and more, and more.  I finally had to pass the baton, he tuckered me right out. But he was driven for more of the play that just made him feel wonderful.  That’s pleasure at it’s finest. 
When was the last time you felt the sheer enjoyment of something? 


Pleasure is usually caused by external stimuli, and most often engages one or more of the five senses. 
It’s getting in your comfiest jammies and cuddling under your electric throw on a cold evening after a long day’s work. 
It’s the deep satisfied sigh after the flavorful sensation of eating that warm, delicious slice of cake that you’ve been craving. 
It’s that feeling of lightness, or bounciness, or energy we get when we listen to our favorite music.

We derive pleasure from the beauties of nature and experience the smells of sagebrush, ripe tomatoes, sweaty horses or anything else that sparks a nice memory for us.  
Basically, we experience pleasure when we do, see or experience something we love doing, seeing or experiencing.
Pleasure often, does not last long, since soon the attention moves to other matters.
You may wonder where I’m going with all of this.. Certainly, you all know what it means and have regular occurrences of experiencing pleasure. 

I’ll try to expound. My goal with this episode was to motivate an increase in the things that I enjoy, those things that are pleasurable.  To identify, and observe in myself, the times and seasons that elicited the most joy, enjoyment and pleasure and then try to recreate them, thinking that somehow that would turn up the fun-factor in my life

But as I studied and researched some of the chemical things that took place in the brain when we experience pleasure, my objective made a shift as I all to clearly realized that too much of a good thing can turn into not a good thing, and that I may be trying to hang my hat on the wrong hook. 

This point brought on a whole new level of awareness, and shed light into some of the underlying struggles I’ve been working through, and I hope you’ll find it helpful. 

The University of Queensland Australia’s Faculty of Medicine had a blog post about How pleasure affects our brain. In April of 2018.  The Author James Kesby stated: 


“Pleasure itself – that good feeling you get in response to food, sex and drugs (among other things)– is driven by the release of a range of neurotransmitters (chemical messengers) in many parts of the brain. But dopamine release in the brain’s reward system is particularly important. Dopamine release tells the brain when to expect something rewarding, modulates how rewarding it will be and drives us to seek more rewarding things”.
He went on to explain that while Dopamine is also crucial for many other physical functions like voluntary movement and cognition, It’s easy to see the effects unbalanced dopamine can cause in the body.  Schizophrenia is a mental disorder where there is too much dopamine released, which causes psychotic symptoms. 
In neurodegenerative disorders like Parkinson’s disease, the dopamine cells that control motor skills and overall coordination die prematurely.
Most drug abuse is a result of dopamine released in excess, or a habitual need for more of this brain chemical which produces the overall feeling of pleasure.  I knew there was a reason I felt so addicted to chocolate. 
I also found it so fascinating that decreases in dopamine found in the pleasure or reward part of the brain can result in depression, overall feelings of sadness, loneliness, isolation, or a lack of pleasure or motivation. 
So how can we increase the release of these dopamine hits, so to speak, and experience pleasure in healthy appropriate ways, while maintaining what seems to be a kind of delicate balance. 
I think the first step is acknowledging that pleasure and happiness are not the same thing. 
There’s a book that was published in 2017 titled The Hacking of the American Mind, by Dr. Robert Lustig, and in reality, it’s a book about how sugar affects our bodies and our brains, which by the way is a lesson between pleasure and happiness of it’s own…. 
Quoting him from a 2017 interview with University of California TV, he describes many of the ways pleasure and happiness are different. 
“Pleasure is short-lived; happiness is long-lived.
Pleasure is visceral; happiness is ethereal.
Pleasure is taking; happiness is giving
Pleasure can be achieved with substances; happiness cannot be achieved with substances.
Pleasure is experienced alone; happiness is experienced in social groups.
The extremes of pleasure can lead to addiction, whether they be substances or behaviors. Yet there’s no such thing as being addicted to too much happiness.
Finally and most importantly, pleasure is tied to dopamine (the pleasure biochemical/neurotransmitter), and happiness is tied to serotonin (the happiness biochemical/neurotransmitter)”.
I just find this so fascinating!  
It helps me understand that in man’s search for happiness, that elusive quest may be misguided altogether.  Once again, I may be missing the mark entirely.

If pleasure is the immediate feel-good rush I get from my favorite donut, then happiness may look like the increased health and long-term satisfaction I get from living without it, or maybe just a small bite of it.  Moderation in all things, right?
If pleasure is seeing the smile on the face of a widowed sister I just visited, then happiness is the deep seeded hope that through my service, I am becoming more like my Savior.
If pleasure is the temporary thrill of being in the mountains, hearing the birds sing and feeling the wind wip through your hair, then happiness is knowing that this incredible world was created by a God who loves us and wanted us to experience everything this world had to offer, and that it is ours as long as we live on it. 
In a 2018 Ensign article titled Happiness: More than a mood by Maryssa Dennis and Charlotte Larcabal, they confirm my point perfectly by saying: 
“The world tells us that a worthwhile life must be filled with adventure, that your days should be a nonstop thrill ride down an easy, pleasure-filled road. But the truth is, you don’t need constant excitement in order to live “after the manner of happiness” (2 Nephi 5:27). Lasting happiness—what we might call true happiness—is more a quiet, steady sense of well-being rather than an obvious feeling of euphoria. Fun and pleasure fade, but true happiness isn’t a passing mood—it lasts much longer. If experiencing pleasure is raising your emotions above equilibrium, achieving true happiness is like raising the equilibrium itself.2


Hmmm. I guess there’s a reason God’s plan was never called the plan of pleasure. (Alma 42:8, 16). 2 Nephi 2:13; Helaman 13:38)  all explain better than I why it’s appropriately referred to as the great plan of Happiness. 


Ever since my grandchildren were old enough to express their likes and dislikes, I’ve taught them to play the thumbs up-thumbs down game, it makes determining what new foods they like obvious…thumbs up, which ones they don’t, thumbs down, and which ones they really like and want more of... Two thumbs up. 

In my two thumbs up category, you’ll find lots of things, but at the top of the list, is play time and snuggles with those grandbabies, time in the hot tub after a long day, standing in holy places, talk time with my kiddos and their sweet spouses, scripture study first thing in the morning with the sun from my biggest window just coming over the mountain, the big strong arms of my eternal boyfriend wrapped around me, a chocolate croissant warmed f or 10 seconds in the microwave, or string cheese, or my daughters brownies, or an apple turnover from Arby’s all warmed the exact same way.. Yes, I like Oprah take my pleasures seriously

Lots of things would fall into my one thumb up list, work, exercise, a big yard, that kids and dogs can run through till exhaustion, but that I have to weed, dishes: I’m grateful for the food that fills them, but don’t like to wash them. 

My thumbs down is considerably shorter, and two thumbs down would state just a few, Brussels sprouts and beets, sore shoulders, hot flashes, contention 

I can now identify clearly the finite and immediate pleasures and the more lasting, sometimes even eternal happiness’s. 

What if we each played that game with our spouses or our grandkids, or friends.  What would be on your 2-thumbs up list.  How many of those things qualify as happiness, as worth seeking more of, and recreating, and how many of those can we recognize as more fleeting, maybe just a pleasant dopamine hit, nice to experience, but if we choose to we can always opt for the higher, more meaningful like my example of the chocolate donut. 


This reminds me of Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorfs General Conference address titled Good, Better Best, maybe it’s time for a re-read on that one. 


I want to clarify that simple pleasures can be a joy. And Nephi taught that we are here to experience joy right? 
  I didn’t mean to cast a negative light on the pleasures we experience during this mortal existence and enjoy in these mortal bodies. I just wanted to point out that 1) too much of the dopamine induced pleasure can sometimes be a bad thing, and 2) there's something better than immediate pleasure

I think of the immediate pleasure I feel when my husband holds my hand, but now I can think past the instant, albeit happy feeling of love, to the fact that this love when nurtured and respected can last through the eternities. 

I think of the satiating pleasure that comes from a tasty morsel to the gratitude of this earthly temple, my body, and the lessons I can take with me as a result of my living in it. 

With each of life’s pleasures, my hope now is that I can translate the things I’ve learned this week into something with a broader reach.  That I can make a choice to level up and think about what I really want.  What will truly bring me joy.

Elder Ulisses Soares of the Presidency of the Seventy taught, “Happiness is determined by habits, behaviors, and thought patterns that we can directly address with intentional action.”  Let’s think about that this week. 

It’s been a pleasure being with you this week, 

And the progress, I’m trying to make personally and the insight I’m trying to share make me very happy.

If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands