What is a pleasure addict, you ask? A pleasure addict is a person who is always looking for short-term happiness, to feel good. A pleasure addict would choose junk food over good health, casual sex over a committed relationship, and impulsive spending over long-term savings. A pleasure addict wants to feel good most of the time and looks outside of himself to provide those good feelings.
Look at these three questions to see if you would be considered a pleasure addict:
- Do you find yourself making long-term goals and then sabotaging them by not taking the necessary steps to achieve them? An example would be deciding you want to pay off your credit cards on an accelerated plan but keep buying things you don’t need and make substantially lower payments than you planned. Another example could be that you have a diet plan that includes only eating when you are hungry. However, you often find yourself making plans with friends to go out to eat and find yourself snacking when you are bored, lonely or anxious or as a treat for yourself.
- Do you often need to reward yourself to feel good about yourself? Do you often do things that you have told yourself you would not do? For example, do you reward yourself with a new weight-loss outfit when you promised yourself you’d wait until you drop two sizes instead of one? Do you reward yourself with a hot fudge sundae when you’ve lost a certain amount of weight?
- Do you often find yourself seeking pleasure in things outside of yourself? Do you look to people, places, things, and accomplishments to make yourself truly happy? Are you waiting for the right relationship, your children to grow up, your advanced degree, your house to be paid off, or your retirement to be happy? Do you drag yourself through the week looking forward to the pleasures of the weekend?
People who seek to be truly happy have to complete the work from the inside out. Authentic happiness does not come from people, things and achievements. Happiness comes from how you are in the world. Happiness is generated from your essence when you live in the moment being fully present, you are grateful for what you have and you have the desire and the ability to find the gift or the lesson in all things. That is the key to being truly happy.
You will never achieve true happiness by being a pleasure addict. Let’s look at each behavior individually.
- Live the moment: There is a lot of talk about living in the moment, but how do you really do it? You must become aware, protect yourself from thoughts of the past or future, and constantly return to the present moment, which is all there really is of reality anyway. Most of us waste our “now” moments regretting or reminiscing about the past or worrying or planning for the future. When you engage in those activities, you miss out on the only real moment you have: right now.
- live in gratitude: No matter what is going on in your life, living in gratitude is possible. As my friend says: “Any day on the surface is a good day.” As long as you’re here, you can find things to be thankful for. Start by being grateful for the air you breathe, the sunlight on your face, the rain that nurtures growth, your shelter that protects you from the elements. Once you start with the little things, you can easily build to the bigger things. Instead of being upset about the money you owe, be grateful to have a line of credit available to you. Instead of being mad at a friend, be grateful to have friends in your life. Instead of wishing for a better job, be grateful for what you have.
- Find the lesson or the gift: No matter what happens to you in life, if you have the mind to look for it, you can find a lesson or a gift. Growth comes from bread. What terrible thing has happened to you in your life and what was the positive gain you received from it? My husband died at the age of 37 but I had the gift of being able to say goodbye and my children had the gift of his time after he stopped working. You can find the positive in all situations if you have the mind to look for it.
To find true happiness from the inside out, you must be willing to avoid some moments of pleasure. You need to monitor yourself to make sure you are living in the moment, living in gratitude, and finding the lesson or the gift. Recognize that happiness is not elusive at all. It lives within you and you can access it whenever you want. You just have to accept that it is there. The Empowerment Inside Out process can show you how.