Asif Rehmani

Imagine you put a baby in a diaper by a computer. What is she going to do? What do we expect her to do?

Probably just bang at the keyboard and produce gibberish. Uncontrollable exuberance resulting in incomprehensible output.

How is that different from what humans do with our minds which are no less than a super computer itself?

Are we able to control it or is it controlling us?

I think we all know the answer. In fact the stress and anxiety that our supercomputer produces is enough to drive most people insane. I would go as far as saying that if you reduce the power of the human brain, the reduction would linearly result in increase in happiness. Because then your brain is not hyperactive and bored all the time looking for “something to do”. Boredom is frequently the source of evil.

So why do we let our minds control us instead of us controlling it?

Well, the answer is simple. We don’t let it happen, it happens because we don’t know how to control our mind – much like that baby sitting on the computer. If we had a manual and knew how to control it, perhaps the output would be different. But we don’t.

Now consider the possibility that there was a way that we could turn things around and gain the ability to bend this super computer to our will. Imagine the magnitude of power and control we would have if we could control our own mind. Imagine the happiness we could produce at will.

There’s a concept of separating yourself from your mind and your body. The more space you create, the better you feel. When you first hear this concept, it just does not make sense or at least it did not make sense to me the first time I heard it. I could not imagine myself separate from my mind and body. I thought that my mind and body are “myself”. What’s the difference I thought? But the more I thought about it the more I realized that my mind and my body are items that I have accumulated since birth. My mind is made up of all the thoughts since birth and my body is the accumulation of everything that I ate and drank or was fed by my mother in the womb. “Myself” is different than these items that I usually identify with. Some can call it the soul, the noor, the force, particles of the universe… whatever you call it, that’s the thing I’m talking about. That is what’s truly “yourself”.

Let’s look at an analogy of what it’s like to separate yourself from your thoughts and your mind. Imagine you are sitting in traffic. It’s early in the morning, the sun is hot, traffic is jam packed, you are late to work, you forgot your coffee, people are honking their horns around you and everyone is frustrated. You are frustrated. This is similar to what happens in our minds all the time. Lots and lots of traffic and we are right in the middle of it all.

Now let’s say that you get out of your car, leave it where it is and you step into the carriage of a hot air balloon. It’s a nice big beautiful multicolored hot air balloon and the carriage is very comfortable. You get inside the carriage and it starts elevating. You get to 50 ft then 100 ft. You look down at the traffic. These cars and people that were around you are now below you. Everyone is still frustrated but now you are not in the middle of it. You are an observer from above. Your stress level drops a bit.

The hot air balloon keeps on rising and now you are at 500 ft and then 1,000 ft. Now the cars look even smaller from this distance. It’s hard for you to relate why these people below are frustrated. The whole scene starts looking a bit comical and beautiful at the same time. The balloon continues its rise and now you’re at 10,000 ft. Now you are literally seeing the big picture and wondering to yourself why you were ever frustrated to begin with? Your perception of reality has changed. Your thoughts of being late at work have evaporated. So what if you’re late. What does that all mean in the big scheme of things anyway?

This experience of you rising in the hot air balloon and separating yourself from the traffic is exactly what it would be like if you separated yourself from your thoughts. If you become an observer, a witness to what’s going on in your brain and separated yourself from your thoughts, you would become much more attuned with the processes in your brain since now you are observing them much more objectively rather than subjectively.

Of course all this said, none of this is easy to do otherwise we would have a lot more happy people around the world. But hey… let’s not stop trying. A conscious mind has a lot of potential. No need to numb our minds with excessive alcohol, drugs and other substances to temporarily slow down our supercomputer just because it’s hard to handle. Instead, let’s practice ways that will get us better equipped to control that power we have on hand. It will be worth the effort for sure 👍

I’m addicted to writing restaurant reviews for Google maps. When I go to a restaurant, whether I like it or don’t like it, I write a review either way.

You might ask: why do I do it? What’s in it for me?

There’s definitely no money in it of course. I have written hundreds of reviews but Google has not sent me a penny nor do I expect that they ever will.

Then why do it Asif you might ask..?

Not everything you do is going to have a payback in a monetary fashion. Sometimes the reward is the feeling you get when you know the impact you made.

For me in this case, I knew in my heart that I could help folks by writing honest, straightforward and concise reviews of places that I have been to so someone else who considers going there knows what to expect. That small impact makes me feel fulfilled. Just like writing this article makes me feel fulfilled because I’m sharing my thoughts with others who will eventually read it.

No matter how small of a contribution, you can always contribute to others and make your impact with what’s in your hands. Never forget that.

What do you really want in life? Do you want happiness that’s long-lasting or do you want momentary pleasure?

The answer is simple of course: Both right ☺️

Let’s talk about the sources of each – pleasure and happiness.

You get pleasure when endorphins are rushing through your brain and giving you that momentary feel of satisfaction. That type of satisfaction occurs when you just won a race, ate a piece of delicious cake, won the Lotto, had great sex, or a bunch of equivalent things which give you a feeling of satisfaction in the moment.

The challenge with most of us is that we confuse these spikes of pleasure with happiness.

Figure: The way I think about Pleasure vs Happiness

 

So what’s true happiness and how do you attain that? 

Happiness is harder to come by, requires more investment of time and energy and patience. Happiness also sometimes comes with momentary pain as you try to achieve that state of happiness.

Because of all these obstacles, many of us don’t even bother trying to work at it. It’s just too hard. And many times it’s not even guaranteed that you’ll achieve happiness at all that work. While pleasure, even though it’s momentary, it’s guaranteed.

So that begs the question… Is the pursuit of happiness worth it? 

Why not just have many spikes of pleasure along your life which is definitely much easier to attain rather than pursuing happiness which is harder and not always guaranteed?

That’s a very good question indeed.

Let’s look closely at the problem with pleasure.

Pleasure is temporary of course but the bigger problem is that once that sense of pleasure is gone, it drops you right back to the state where you started. Sometimes even lower because of the expectation you had that it was going to last. And when it doesn’t last that long and the euphoria fades away, you have that feeling of dissatisfaction which stays with you longer.

Happiness on the other hand is incremental and sometimes exponential depending on how much you invest in it. Happiness builds on top of the previous state you were in.

But once again, the challenge with happiness: it takes work and intention. And that’s the reason that most people opt for quick pleasure instead of pursuits of long-term happiness.

I personally think there’s room for both. Sometimes you just want a quick hit of pleasure and that’s okay. As long as we don’t get addicted to those spikes of pleasure.

I truly believe that if we want our lives to be worth it long term, we should incrementally be investing in our happiness. And sometimes that investment requires payment in the form of sacrifice of momentary pleasure.