I try to live my life according to the principle of pleasure. It’s difficult because my mind, just as most of ours, has something called the negativity bias. This means it looks for problems and threats, just because that used to be the reason humans would survive in the wild.

We don’t live in the wild anymore and most threats are made up in our minds, although our mind is not smart enough to realize when the threat is made up and when there’s an actual tiger in front of us. So we need to practice. Looking for pleasure instead of looking for pain.

No matter how many problems you have and what you’re struggling with right now, you are not obliged to constantly think about your pain points. It’s not responsible. Responsible is setting aside time for taking appropriate action towards solving your problem, feeling your feelings around the issue, asking for help, but just as much letting it go, staying with the present, giving it space and taking pleasure in life.

You know when you wake up in the morning and you actually feel fine but your mind goes on a hunt for the problem at hand. As if it’s the job of the mind to never lose track of it. Catch it before it finds it. Take charge by filling your mind with the beauty in your life, the moments of bliss, all the things you have to be grateful for. Pain will unfortunately find you, you don’t have to go looking for it.

With all my love,

Helena