This is one of the most powerful things we can remember: At our core we want to feel good.

This is at the root of all our yearning and striving.

But unfortunately, this wanting to feel good gets covered up with our mind’s idea of what feeling good is and how we are supposed to get it.

For example, our mind might think feeling good means being attractive and sexually desirable, because then people will want to engage in sexual activity with us—which has the potential to be very physically enjoyable.

The dots can be easily connected as to why we are motivated to do what we think we need to do.

However, somehow the actions in between get crazy.

Even though the end goal is to feel good, in the process we starve ourselves and spend more money then we have on the seemingly necessary looking-good accessories, such as clothes, make-up and even plastic surgery.

We do painful things in the name of being sexually desirable, with the idea that there will be pleasure at the end of these choices.

But why wait so long? Why not just engage in sexual pleasure from the start and skip all the crazy nonsense?

Sexual pleasure is possible for everyone—partner or not.

When we remember that we are all wired for pleasure and deserve to feel good, then we are able to go straight to choices that provide pleasure and skip the in-between shenanigans.

For some reason, we start to think that pleasure is hard to find. That we need to work hard to feel good.

This isn’t true.

To bring more pleasure into our lives we just need to stop and calm down and see that feeling good is always an opportunity right in front of us—if we would only choose to align with it.

Helping people is one of the most pleasurable experiences we can have. It activates regions of the brain associated with pleasure and releases endorphins.

Unfortunately, again we forget what our goal is. We stress ourselves out to no end trying to start a healing business, yoga studio, social enterprise or study program because we really want to help our fellow humans, animals and the earth.

Because it feels good to help.

Along the way, though, while getting our helping project up and running, we often end up feeling anything but pleasure. We feel stressed out and worried, and often exhausted and overwhelmed.

Again, we could feel pleasure right away. We could volunteer at the food bank, go to our local Senior’s Home or help a friend who is having a hard time. There is no lack of opportunities to be generous and give that could bring us pleasure right now instead of delaying this human need to feel good.

Over-eating is another great example of a misguided path to pleasure.

How often do we eat mindlessly? When we don’t notice the great pleasure that taste has to offer, we keep reaching for more food, trying to get the pleasure we so crave.

If we want out of the destructive, pleasure-seeking trap that many of us live in, we need to start experiencing more pleasure, instead of continuing to search for opportunities to work hard for possible pleasant sensations in the future.

There is so much pleasure in the mundane. So much color, texture, smell, sound and opportunity to engage in intimate connection—all the time.

If we are not soaking it up, we will go searching for it, and we might go broke, make ourselves crazy and become burnt out trying to find it.

Pleasure is here now, I promise.

Put on a favorite song and really listen. Give a hug to someone you care about. Go for a walk somewhere beautiful, and really look.

Eat a small piece of chocolate.

Walk into a bakery and just smell the aroma.

The mundane experiences of our everyday life are the only places pleasure can be found.

We don’t need to fly halfway around the world or fall in love or become a star to have pleasure; we just need to stop. Stop and look around and soak in what is right in front of us.

The sooner we do this, the less crazy we will have to get searching for the next pleasurable experience, because we will have become conscious that the only place we can experience pleasure is in the present moment.

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Relephant Read:

4 Ways to Slow Down & Enjoy Life.

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Author: Ruth Lera

Editor: Toby Israel

Photo: Aimanness Photography/Flickr // Thomas Leuthard/Flickr

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