From & To Sathish #6 - Page 20

https://youtu.be/RCyxK64uo6Q?si=bTHIISmXikXk9F2u

WE GLORIFY SAINTS, but they live in remote lands.

We worship the angels, but their feet do not touch the ground.

We celebrate superheroes, but they’re not real.

But to be truly human, in this world, is what takes true courage.

It takes courage to be who you truly are in a world that is always trying to get you to be someone you are not.

It takes courage to speak up in a world that just wants us all to get along.

It takes courage to be in this life fully, with all its messes, its ups and downs, light and dark, sweetness and bitterness.

Perhaps this is why so many of us turn away from the call of truth. It’s easier to stay skeptical, be jaded, live in the mind, hide behind sarcasm, erect walls of defensiveness.

It’s easier to play small and protect ourselves from the disappointment of living full out, with all its risks. Kute Blackson

well, I am human and hence totally bonkers in my own way

I am human, ( sometimes I wonder about it and there have been countless times when my family has cast serious doubts about it )and so obviously belong to the human species and am married to one. Okay, I was born to them humans who were born to humans before me and I will stop with that. As with any species on this third planet from the sun, there are constant wars and battles fought between my species for resources although those are on a larger scale and take place in the borders of the respective nations.

But that is a zoomed-out Macro look and does not concern us folk who exist on the micro levels. So, zoom in and in and come down to that individual level of observation that is somewhat similar to a cell in a body. ( In case you did not know this, Scientists have concluded that the average human body contains approximately 37.2 trillion cells).

Each and every one of us and our families and our houses make up a cell of this ancient nation and along with billions of cells, we transform into India. But that is once again a zoomed-out level and I want you to go down and way past the micro level and down deep into the house that constitutes the cell of a nation.

You find that the house that I described as a cell is actually a tiny nation by itself. The cell has several components inside it, like molecules, macromolecules, atoms, proteins, and lipids. Each and every one of them are vital to the functioning of a cell and even if one is damaged the effect is felt by the whole cell.

In the same way, a healthy family functions ( I have no idea what healthy really means ) just like a healthy cell, and all of them are in sync and working at the same frequency as the other. Fat chance. An illusion at best. A magic spell in which you wander around in a daze cos you are addicted or rather dependent on the other components of the house and family.

Love, bonds, good sex, and good food are all okay but still, illusions for they all fade and eventually drop away or you voluntarily shed them when you realize that you, I, and us all humans were not meant just to eat, fart, crap, screw and get screwed but we were designed for more complicated stuff.

Designed? Oh f..k Satish, you madman, are you going to once again broach the topics of God, creation, and purpose?

No. I am not. But I am going to broach the topic of evolution and why we are what we are.

Man, humans have been walking this land for about 2.5 to 2.75 million years in this current avatar that is you and I. But this land, this planet Earth is more than 4.5 billion years old. Then as we step out of our Solar system we encounter our mother Galaxy that we know as the Milky Way. ( We humans are obsessed with milk and mothers) Our Milky Way Galaxy is nearly 11 billion years old. Stop fainting and hold on to your pants, humans, as we venture out into the cosmos that is outside our galaxy and travel farther into the universe.

Until the launch of the James Webb telescope, the universe was supposed to be 13.5 billion years old. But all that has changed for now the edge is moving away and rapidly.

We, humans, feel safe and content only when all the stupid questions that crop up in our stupid heads have been answered or at the least have a semblance of an answer.

ILLA. Naa Big Bang theory, Dark matter and Dark energy pathiyellam pesa matten.

I will pesufy only in my arivu lingo. Okayva.

Has anybody seen God?

Has anybody come back from death and being dead and have they told you what lies beyond if it all it lies beyond?

Has anybody dug themselves out of rigor mortis and decomposition after being buried six feet under the ground and have they imparted what death means?'

Have the ashes of recently cremated ones magically and through maybe some alchemy process come together again as a spirit and whispered heavenly secrets into your ears?

I am sorry but nothing like the above has happened to me.

So, ellaam nambikkai thaan. Mayama, manthirama, unmaiya, poiya theriyala.

I started with macro, micro, nation, single house, and family and cells and molecules and I want to end with this.

Each and everyone is a macro or micro part of something bigger. Each and every one of us is a strand of a mighty web that has been spun and is still being spun on a cosmic scale.

Not now and maybe not ever or maybe a few million years from now, the Human species might just begin to fathom what this existence is all about.

All I can tell you is be a cell, be a house but also be a nation by yourself. Be a star, be a galaxy but remember you are a part of this cosmic mystery and you are the cosmos yourself.

The whys, why nots, dos and don'ts and when and where are all questions and important questions. Answer them but enjoy answering them.

Life is not as simple as solving a Rubik's cube that has six sides. Six faces.

Life has infinite sides and it takes the shape of a circle that has infinite sides.

A circle always circles around and back and returns to where it all began.

The question is how big is the circle that you and I are on and what is the chance that we will meet again? Metaphorically speaking.

https://www.theweathernetwork.com/en/news/science/space/glass-z13-one-of-the-universes-first-galaxies-spotted-by-webb-telescope

https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/astrophysics/universe-27-billion-years-old/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-46806084

Your Body Believes Every Word You Say

Long ago, people recognized the interconnectedness of mind, body, and spirit and its relationship to health. For centuries it was taken for granted that people could "die of grief," that unrequited love could cause a person to "pine away," that fear could make one "deathly afraid," that anger could cause illness.

Then, in the nineteenth century, the germ theory of disease implicated bacteria in infections, which had been responsible for much illness and death throughout the centuries. Unfortunately, the discovery of the role of germs in causing disease impeded the previous understanding of the link between emotions and health.

Today medicine is adept at eliminating the effects of bacteria and some viruses through improved sanitation, vaccination and powerful drugs. Yet drugs do not heal or regrow damaged tissue. Furthermore, suppression of symptoms at times leads to problems of cell degeneration — problems often more serious than the original infection.

Even so, many mainstream medical practitioners (with the exception of psychiatrists) continue to ignore the role of the mind and emotions in causing and healing disease. Conventional, so-called allopathic medicine focuses on unwanted physical sensations or symptoms and their suppression or alteration. Mainstream doctors use drugs and surgery to suppress or remove symptoms. Alternative health care professionals such as Naturopaths, Homeopaths and Chiropractors might use food, herbs or bodily manipulations to relieve symptoms. Yet in many cases different symptoms replace the original ones. Removing a symptom doesn't necessarily lead to healing or a cure.

Why do some people suffer illnesses when exposed to viruses and bacteria while others, exposed to the same microorganisms, remain healthy? Even with the idea that fatigue, weakness, and prior illnesses lower one's resistance to infection, the germ theory provides only a partial explanation of illness. Traditionally, each symptom or set of symptoms is considered a separate disease entity, ignoring the emotional connections linking the new set of symptoms to a previous disease.

There is a language connection between mind, body and emotions. Recent research has shown that much illness is self-created largely through this language. Words are often the trigger (catalyst) that lead to the symptoms of disease: you are what you think, feel, and say about yourself. You are what you believe about you.

Language is a tangible link between the emotional reality and thoughts of the mind and the physical reality of the body. Emotions can be expressed mentally and physically. The language of the mind is expressed in words and pictures through talking, writing, dreaming, mental imagining, visualizing, and fantasizing. The language of the body is expressed through both unpleasant and pleasant physical sensations like itching, sweating, rashes, pain, pressure, tears, laughter, smiles, orgasms, energy, and exuberance. Even a sneeze is part of the language connection, a loud clearly expressed response arising from a bodily need. Gross reactions to strong emotions include cold feet, sweaty palms, and the flush of excitement, among others.

by Barbara Hoberman Levine

Avan, Aval Adhu 487

The bond between a mother and her baby borders on the sacred and transcends all other bonds. The reason for that is Mother Nature's need for procreation and the furthering of the species. hence it makes a mother over-protective of her offspring and this can go to any lengths.

I have personally seen dogs and cat mothers take on other animals twice, thrice their size, and chase them off. I touched on this topic about a mother and her child in my very first story " What If " many, many years ago when I wrote about how the Dead Aashritha's ghost protects her son Mani and in the end becomes the reason for his own death.

But even when in the womb, a baby has its own beating heart and functioning brain that can think for itself and also dream for itself. The moment the child comes out it also screams in hunger for it now has its own stomach to think of.

When it comes to the human species, all bets are off when it comes to food, love, and other individual needs and even the most sacred bonds of love can be broken when a person is in stress and under tremendous strain. The person in such duress then puts all his or her relationships in danger and sadly many houses crack and eventually break down because of one or more of a family member's problems.

The family courts witness a steady stream of couples who appear before them for a divorce and almost all of us know of people and have close friends who have experienced a divorce.

A divorce is an explosion and the result is that a lucky few are thrown apart and go their ways into the distance and far away from each other.

But what about marriages that don't end in a divorce? What about couples who unofficially divorce themselves and exist under one roof?

That my friends I call Implosion.

Explosion- a violent shattering or blowing apart of something, as is caused by a bomb. a sudden outburst of something such as violent emotion, especially anger.

Implosion- an instance of something collapsing violently inwards. a sudden failure or collapse of an organization or system

Quite simply, an implosion is the opposite of an explosion. In an explosion, the force acts outwards, but in an implosion, the force acts inwards.

But there is one object that can implode and explode at the same time. A star and that too a dying star and then you have that man-made instrument that promises to destroy mankind one day and it is called a Thermonuclear bomb.

A dying star can have its core implode into a neutron star or black hole at the same time that its outer layers explode as a supernova. Alternatively, in a thermonuclear bomb, the explosion of chemical explosives are used to implode a uranium or plutonium core which then explodes.

Ravi Kumar was in that state of a dying star that had imploded on itself and was now ready to explode and send shock waves that could end up destroying everything.

The two Chakravyuh Commandos spotted Ravi the moment he stepped out of the forest and into the lights of Kumarapalayam and the sniper who was positioned on top of the roof immediately alerted his boss, Major Param Singh who ran out of the gate and stood in shock with his mouth wide open.

The reason for that was that Ravi's shirt and veshti were totally stained in blood and even in the little light, Major Param Singh could see that it was fresh blood and he quickly ran towards Ravi screaming, ' Madhuji, where is Ma'am? What happened in there, masterji? '

Then he stopped running and stopped yelling the moment he saw Madhu step out of the darkness and began to walk in the light and into all their sights.

Ravi walked past Major Param and the others as if they did not exist and they in turn ran towards their primary subject and tried to talk to her. But she too walked past all of them totally oblivious to their panic and their attention.

The panic calls and the movements of the Chakravyuh team outside the house had alerted all those who were inside the house and all of them came rushing out and reacted exactly the same way as Major Param and his men had done.

Inspector Sargunam's training kicked in and he quickly ran down the steps and grabbing Ravi asked, ' Master, you are bleeding. Are you hurt, master? Where are you hurt? ' and began to examine him for visible injuries.

Ravi shook his head and mumbled, ' I am all right, Guna. I am not the one who was hurt.... ' and fell silent and this made Guna immediately look towards the gate through which Madhu was entering and who slowly walked towards all of them and then came to a halt a few feet behind her new husband.

Rasaathi Ammal like any mother, wailed loudly and ran towards her son and began to plead and enquire as to what had happened and what was happening.

Dharmalinga Thevar the senior most of them took control and went about calming his sister and once she had quietened down turned and looked at Ravi and Madhu who stood behind him and asked, ' Iyaa, master, enna aachu? What is the meaning of all this blood on your clothes? Whose blood is it, son?'

Ravi Kumar who stood staring at the ground as if he wanted a place deep inside its womb, now slowly raised his head and whispered, ' I am sorry, uncle. I was too late. I wish I had gone there sooner for maybe then I could have done something or at least tried to do something to save her. But, it was all too late and it was already over.'

Thamarai, his aunt and Dharamlinga Thevar's wife sensing that something terrible had happened pushed her husband aside and asked in a weak and quavering voice, ' Ravi, ennappa. What happened and who are you talking about, son?'

Ravi unable to take the stress anymore began to cry like a small child and he slowly sank to the ground and gently gripping her feet said, ' Meenakshi is dead. She was killed.'

He looked up and crying uncontrollably pointed to his shirt and said, ' This is her blood.'

Dharmalinga Thevar bent down and taking Ravi by his arms lifted him up like he was a little child and asked in a grim tone, ' Why is her blood on your clothes and why is my only child's blood on your cheeks and lips?'

Ravi looked at him sadly and said, ' Because I held her as she took her last breaths ' and looked at all of them, ' Poor thing, she must have been scared and yet she smiled braving the pain of her injury and smiled even though she knew she was going to die.'

Taking Dharmalinga Thevar's hands in his, ' I could not let my Meena die like that. I could not just stand by and watch someone whom I loved and cared so much for take her final breaths all on her own and in fear. That is why I gathered her in my arms and kissed her goodbye. What else could I do?'

Thamarai Dharmalingam stared at him for a few moments and then she took the pallu of her saree and wiped Ravi's face and said, ' You did more than anybody else would have done or not have done. You did what only angels are capable of doing.'

Dharmalinga Thevar gently cupped Ravi's face in his huge arms and said, ' Iyaa, you did more than what Meenakshi was not capable of doing when she murdered her own brother, my son Sundara Lingam by leaving him bleeding to death when she could have saved him if she had wanted to.'

' What? Whaat ? were the only words that escaped everyone's lips in various degrees of shock and horror.

The time has come to bring darkness into light and reveal secrets that have been dead and buried for decades.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wfn6q0AIAA8&t=958s

Problems are mandatory. But suffering is optional.

I love it. You will love it. That is why we all love Suki Sivam and other great speakers. I also love Pattimandrams and great minds like Bharathi Bhaskar, Solomon pappaiah, Raja and others.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzRXlL4-T1M

Build the life you want by Arthur C Brooks

The professor grinned from ear to ear as he addressed the packed auditorium at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh on a September evening in 2007. It was his last lecture there, and he was ebullient with joy as he looked back on his life’s work, on finding good in others, overcoming obstacles, and living with passion. He was so filled with energy and vigor that he could barely contain himself. At one point, he dropped to the floor and performed a set of one-armed push-ups.

The professor was Randy Pausch, a well-known computer scientist, beloved by his students and colleagues at Carnegie Mellon. You might think that his joy at his last lecture was because he was retiring to the Caribbean, or perhaps more likely (he was just forty-seven) moving to a plum post elsewhere. Neither of these things was true, though.

It was his last lecture because Professor Pausch had terminal pancreatic cancer, and had been given just a few months to live.

The audience came to hear him, not sure what to expect. Would it be a tragic reflection on the shortness of life? A list of should-haves? To be sure, there were a great deal of tears in the auditorium that night, but not from Randy. “If I don’t seem as depressed or morose as I should be,” he wisecracked, “sorry to disappoint you.” His speech was a celebration of life, full of love and joy, to be shared with friends, coworkers, his wife, and his three young children.

There was simply no denying that Randy was a man who enjoyed a huge amount of happiness. Even his grim diagnosis could not suppress that self-evident truth that September night. Over the next few months, as his health permitted, he enjoyed life to its fullest, inspiring others through the national media (including Oprah’s show) and posting to his personal web page the details of his health and treatments, as well as family milestones and many moments of personal joy.

On July 25, 2008, Randy Pausch died, surrounded by his family and friends.

In his final months, Randy had done something most of us would consider unthinkable: he had spent what would naturally be the hardest, gloomiest part of his life getting happier. How did he do that?

two myths about happiness

There’s nothing strange about wanting to be happy. “There is no one who does not wish to be happy,” the theologian and philosopher Augustine flatly declared in 426 CE, with absolutely no evidence necessary then or now. Find us someone who says, “I don’t care about being happy,” and we will show you someone either delusional or not telling the truth.

What do people mean when they say they “want to be happy”? Usually, two things: First, they are saying they want to achieve (and keep) certain feelings—joyfulness, cheerfulness, or something similar. Second, they are saying there is some obstacle to getting this feeling. “I want to be happy” is almost always followed by “but . . .”

Consider Claudia, an office manager in New York. At age thirty-five, she’s been living with her boyfriend for the past five years. They love each other, but he is not ready to make a permanent commitment. Claudia doesn’t feel that she can plan for the future—where she will live, whether she will have kids, how her career arc will go. This frustrates her and leaves her at loose ends, making her feel sad and angry. She wants to be happy, but doesn’t think she can be until her boyfriend makes up his mind.

Or consider Ryan. He thought that when he was in college he would make lifelong friends and set his career goals. Instead, he came out of school more confused about life than when he went in. Now, at age twenty-five, he’s thousands of dollars in debt, jumps from job to job, and feels aimless. He hopes he will be happy when the right opportunity comes along and makes his future clear.

Margaret is fifty. Ten years ago, she thought she had everything figured out—she worked part-time, her kids were in high school, and she was active in her community. But since her children left the nest, she’s felt restless and dissatisfied with everything. She browses houses on Zillow, thinking it might be helpful to move. She thinks a big change will bring happiness, but she doesn’t know what the necessary change is.

Finally, there’s Ted. Since he retired, he hasn’t had real friends. He’s lost touch with everyone from work. He’s been divorced for years, and his adult children are focused on their own families. Sometimes he reads, but he mostly watches television to pass the time. He thinks he would be happy if there were more people in his life, but he can’t seem to find them.

Claudia, Ryan, Margaret, and Ted are normal people with normal problems—nothing strange or scandalous. (They’re actually composites of people whom we have met and worked with many times.) Each is dealing with the ordinary difficulties that any of us could face in our lives, even without making big missteps or taking foolish risks. And their beliefs about happiness and life are normal—but mistaken.

Claudia, Ryan, Margaret, and Ted all are living in a state of “I want to be happy, but . . .” If you break that down, you’ll see that it’s predicated on two beliefs:

1. I can be happy . . .

2. . . . but my circumstances are keeping me stuck in unhappiness.

The truth is that both those beliefs, as persuasive as they sound, are false. You can’t be happy—though you can be happier. And your circumstances and your source of unhappiness don’t have to stop you.

Here’s what we mean when we say you can’t be happy. Searching for happiness is like searching for El Dorado, the fabled South American city of gold no one has ever found. When we search for happiness, we may get glimpses of what it might feel like, but it doesn’t last. People talk about it, and some claim to possess it, but the people who society says should be completely happy—the rich, the beautiful, the famous, the powerful—often seem to wind up in the news with their bankruptcies, personal scandals, and family troubles. Some people do have more happiness than others, but no one can master it consistently.

If the secret to total happiness existed, we would have all found it by now. It would be big business, sold on the internet, taught in every school, and probably provided by the government. But it isn’t. That’s kind of weird, isn’t it? The one thing we all want, since Homo sapiens appeared three hundred thousand years ago in Africa, has remained elusive to pretty much everybody. We’ve figured out how to make fire, the wheel, the lunar lander, and TikTok videos, but with all that human ingenuity, we have not mastered the art and science of getting and keeping the one thing we really want.

That’s because happiness is not a destination. Happiness is a direction. We won’t find complete happiness on this side of heaven, but no matter where each of us is in life, we can all be happier. And then happier, and then happier still.

The fact that complete happiness in this life is impossible might seem like disappointing news, but it isn’t. It’s the best news ever, actually. It means we all can finally stop looking for the lost city that doesn’t exist, once and for all. We can stop wondering what’s wrong with us because we can’t find or keep it.

We can also stop believing that our individual problems are the reasons we haven’t achieved happiness. No positive circumstance can give us the state of bliss we seek. But no negative circumstance can make getting happier impossible, either. Here is a fact: You can get happier, even if you have problems. You can even get happier in some cases because you have problems.

These two mistaken beliefs, and not what life throws at us, are the real reason so many people are stuck and miserable. They want something that doesn’t exist, and they think that any progress is impossible until all the barriers in life are cleared away. And these errors start with an incorrect answer to a very innocent-sounding question: What is happiness?

what is happiness?

Imagine you asked somebody to define a car. She thinks about your question, and then answers, “A car is . . . well, it’s the feeling I get when I am in a chair, but like a chair that I sit in when I want to get groceries.” You would assume she really doesn’t know what a car is. And you certainly won’t lend her the keys to yours.

Then, you ask her to define a boat. She thinks for a minute and says, “It’s not a car.”

This is an absurd scenario. And yet weirdly, these are the kinds of definitions we usually get when we ask someone to define happiness and unhappiness. Try it yourself. You’ll get something like, “Happiness is . . . well, I guess it’s a feeling . . . like when I’m with people I love or I’m doing something I enjoy.” And unhappiness? “It’s the lack of happiness.”

The biggest reason people don’t get happier is because they don’t even know what they are trying to increase. And the reason they feel stuck in their unhappiness is because they can’t define what it is. If this is your predicament, don’t feel too bad. Most people struggle with these definitions. They talk about feelings, or use bland metaphors, like “sunshine in my soul,” which an old Presbyterian hymn called happiness.

Even the ancient philosophers struggled to agree on the definition of happiness. For example, consider the battle between Epicurus and Epictetus.

Epicurus (341–270 BCE) led a school of thought named after himself—Epicureanism—that argued that a happy life requires two things: ataraxia (freedom from mental disturbance) and aponia (the absence of physical pain). His philosophy might be characterized as “If it is scary or painful, avoid it.” Epicureans saw discomfort as generally negative, and thus the elimination of threats and problems as the key to a happier life. Not that they were lazy or unmotivated. They didn’t see enduring fear and pain as inherently necessary or beneficial, and they focused instead on enjoying life.

Epictetus lived about three hundred years after Epicurus and was one of the most prominent Stoic philosophers. He believed happiness comes from finding life’s purpose, accepting one’s fate, and behaving morally regardless of the personal cost—and he didn’t think much of Epicurus’s feel-good beliefs. His philosophy could be summarized as “Grow a spine and do your duty.” People who followed a Stoic style saw happiness as something earned through a good deal of sacrifice. Not surprisingly, Stoics were generally hard workers who lived for the future and were willing to incur substantial personal cost to meet their life’s purpose (as they saw it) without much complaining. They saw the key to happiness as accepting pain and fear, not actively avoiding them.

Today, people still break down along Epicurean and Stoic lines—they look for happiness either in feeling good or in doing their duty. And the definitions only multiply from there, especially as we travel around the world. Take, for example, the differences scholars find between Western and Eastern cultures. In the West, happiness is usually defined in terms of excitement and achievement. Meanwhile, in Asia, happiness is most often defined in terms of calm and contentment.

Definitions of happiness even depend on the word for it. In Germanic languages, happiness is rooted in words related to fortune or positive fate. In fact, happiness comes from the Old Norse happ, which means “luck.” Meanwhile, in Latin-based languages, the term comes from felicitas, which referred in ancient Rome not just to good luck but also to growth, fertility, and prosperity. Other languages have special words just for the subject. Danes often describe happiness in terms of hygge, which is something like coziness and comfortable conviviality.

If happiness were really this subjective—or even worse, a matter of feelings at any given moment—there would be no way to study it. It would be like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall. This book would be two words long: good luck (or maybe good happ).

Fortunately, we can do a lot better than this today. It’s true that different cultures define happiness somewhat differently, which is why the happiness comparisons among countries you always see in the news are not very useful or convincing. It is also true that feelings are associated with happiness. Your emotions affect how happy you are, and how happy you are affects all your emotions. But this doesn’t mean that there are no constants across all people, or that happiness is a feeling.

A good way to define happiness is in terms of its component parts. If you had to define your Thanksgiving dinner, you might do so by listing the dishes—turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, and so on. Or you might list the ingredients, if you are a good cook. Or, if you are kind of a nutrition buff, you might say that dinner—all food, actually—is made of its three macronutrients: carbohydrates, protein, and fat. To make a good and healthy dinner, you need all three of these in proper balance.

The dinner would also have a delicious smell that fills the house. Yet you wouldn’t say that this smell is the dinner. Rather, the smell is evidence of the dinner. And similarly, happy feelings are not happiness; they are evidence of happiness. The happiness itself is the real phenomenon, and like the dinner, it can be defined as a combination of three “macronutrients,” which you need in balance and abundance in your life.

The macronutrients of happiness are enjoyment, satisfaction, and purpose.

The first is enjoyment. This might sound like pleasure—“feeling good.” However, this isn’t correct. Pleasure is animal; enjoyment is completely human. Pleasure emanates from parts of the brain dedicated to rewarding us for certain activities, like eating and sex, that in earlier times would help keep us alive and passing on our genes. (Today the things that bring pleasure—from substances to behaviors—are often maladapted and misused, leading to all sorts of problems.)

Enjoyment takes an urge for pleasure and adds two important things: communion and consciousness. For example, Thanksgiving dinner can bring pleasure when it tastes good and fills your belly, but it brings enjoyment when you eat with loved ones and make a warm memory together, employing the more conscious parts of your brain. Pleasure is easier than enjoyment, but it is a mistake to settle for it, because it is fleeting and solitary. All addictions involve pleasure, not enjoyment.

To be happier, you should never settle for pleasure, but rather make it into enjoyment. Of course, that involves a certain cost. Enjoyment requires an investment of time and effort. It means forgoing an easy, effortless thrill. It often means saying no to cravings and temptations. Sometimes, getting enjoyment is hard.

The second macronutrient of happiness is satisfaction. It’s that thrill from accomplishing a goal you worked for. It’s that feeling you have when you get an A in school or a promotion at work; when you finally buy a house or get married. It’s how you feel when you do something difficult—maybe even painful—that meets your life’s purpose as you see it.

Satisfaction is wonderful, but it doesn’t come without work and sacrifice. If you don’t suffer for something—at least a little—it doesn’t satisfy at all. If you study all week for a test and get a good grade, it gives you a lot of satisfaction. But if you cheat to get the same grade, in addition to doing the wrong thing, you probably get no satisfaction at all. This is one of the reasons why cutting corners in life is such a bad strategy—it ruins your ability to feel satisfied.

While satisfaction can bring a huge amount of joy, it is also extremely elusive: you think that meeting a goal will give you permanent satisfaction, but it is, of course, temporary. We all know the Rolling Stones’ 1965 megahit “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.” It’s actually not right: you can get satisfaction; you just can’t keep no satisfaction. It is incredibly frustrating—painful, even—that we strive like crazy, and as soon as we get that burst of joy, it’s ripped away. That’s why, as Jagger sings, we try, and we try, and we try to keep it, a behavior that psychologists call the hedonic treadmill, in which we adapt quickly to good things and have to keep running and running to keep feeling satisfaction.[9] This is especially true with worldly things like money, power, pleasure, and prestige (or fame).

The third macronutrient is the most important: purpose. We can make do without enjoyment for a while, and even without a lot of satisfaction. Without purpose, however, we are utterly lost, because we can’t deal with life’s inevitable puzzles and dilemmas. When we do have a sense of meaning and purpose, we can face life with hope and inner peace.

And yet, people who have a strong sense of meaning often find it in their suffering. That is the argument of psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl, whom we will meet in the next chapter. In his classic memoir, Man’s Search for Meaning, he writes, “The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity—even under the most difficult circumstances—to add a deeper meaning to his life.” The common strategy of trying to eliminate suffering from life to get happier is futile and mistaken; we must instead look for the why of life to make pain an opportunity for growth.