9. Why it's Hard to be Happy

The reason it's difficult to be happy is because our brain is programmed to listen to the Motivational Triad:

• seek pleasure
• avoid pain
• conserve energy

Learn how our primitive brain affects our decisions in today's modern world.

Here's the book we mention in this episode; The Pleasure Trap by Doug Lisle.

Lani: Caregiving Philosophy
Melissa: Wandering Missy - Start Living the Life You Want. How to find Joy + Purpose in your Life.

Transcript

Why it's Hard to be Happy (The Motivational Triad)

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

brain, people, pleasure, avoid, pain, buffering, happy, thinking, triad, job, goal, happiness, examples, book, excursions, drinking, primitive brain, override,  retrain

Melissa  0:07  
Welcome to Happy Life Story, I'm Melissa.

Lani  0:10  
And I'm Lani. We're discussing how to create your better life story. 

Are you ready? Are you ready to talk about why it's so hard to be happy?

Melissa  0:36  
I'm always ready for that topic.

Lani  0:40  
I read this really cool book. It's called The Pleasure Trap. And it's all about the motivational triad, which is seek pleasure, avoid pain, and conserve energy. And it's really, really good. It's for plant based people. I learned about it when I was getting into Whole Food Plant Based eating. It tells a lot about the way our brains are wired and why we do certain things.

Melissa  1:08  
Sounds fascinating. Do you remember the author or we can look that up and, my favorite line, put it in the show notes.

Lani  1:16 
I only remember his first name is Doug. I don't think that's going to do anything! 
I'm sure we can look it up.

One thing that was interesting in the book, is that he says, happiness is the result of the feedback system telling you you're making progress towards your worthwhile goals. It's not the goal itself. A lot of people think reaching the goal, I'm going to be happy when I finally reached the goal. That's not when you get happy. Your happiness is your feedback system; Oh, I made progress. That's when you should be taking in your happiness. I'm moving forward. People confuse a lot of times pleasure and happiness. Pleasure is not the same thing. Pleasure just comes in short bursts. Like I opened this birthday present, and I'm so happy. I ate this piece of cake. That's not happiness. That's just pleasure. You can actually be happy for long stretches of time. Like when you're working towards a goal. Have you ever felt like oh, two hours went by and I was working on this thing. And I accomplished so much. That is the happiness. It's not like, Woohoo. It's, I did something.

Melissa  2:39  
Yeah, one example, there's so many more serious examples that I can come up with than this, but planning a vacation kind of falls into the way you're describing this. Because it's  so exciting picking out the city or place you're going to go to, hotels, deciding on excursions, what you're going to pack. I'm not saying when you get there, it's not a letdown, that's not what I mean. But it's like, it's the build up. And then oh, now we're here. I'm sure that's true of goals, like earning a certain amount of money, or I'm taking it away from where he was discussing now.

Lani  3:21  
No. I was thinking of that, too. I've been planning my trip to Colombia. I'm going to Colombia next week. And it's been so happy for me. I've started packing my suitcase a week ago. And I'm thinking, what do we need? What were the excursions are we going on? It's so exciting thinking of what's going to be happening and stretch out the anticipation, right? So fun, just like before Christmas or before your birthday.

Melissa  3:54  
Like kids on Christmas morning, not that they're not appreciative of their gifts or whatever, but it's like a crescendo and then.

Lani  4:03  
Not nearly as long lasting as the actual getting to the goal.

Melissa  4:11  
Lead up to, again, maybe I'm picking more shallow examples.

Lani  4:18  
But people for some reason discount their little progresses. They say not good enough, or I'm not to the goal. So don't discount that you need to celebrate those little wins along the way.

Melissa  4:32  
Absolutely, that's key. It's almost like, not a conveyor belt but something that's ratcheting up a little bit or even a staircase. I can't get to the top of the stairs without hitting each stairway or you can skip a few but you have to hit the majority of them to get to the top. So, I think it's a good example of taking steps and doing things little by little.

Lani  5:02  
Right, one thing people always do that is say, I'll be happy when I lose 20 pounds, but they don't celebrate when they lost a pound here a pound there. They're not celebrating along the way.

Melissa  5:17  
For example, I'll use me moving to France again. I don't change as a person because I moved here. Anything I bring with me would be the same in Phoenix or in France. If I'm an unhappy person, I'm gonna bring that unhappy. France, the country, isn't going to make me a happy person.

Lani  5:37  
Exactly.

Melissa  5:37  
A vacation, losing 20 pounds, whatever it is that can't change you. You may hit that goal, and there could even be a disappointment in getting to that spot.

Lani  5:50  
Right, you bring your brain along. You definitely bring your brain along to France.

Melissa  5:56  
Sure. It's like people think that just changing space or changing a job will make a difference. But, if you don't work on yourself, before you do these things, you know, a job is a job. So just changing a job if you haven't addressed the underlying issues of why you might not be happy with the first job,  you're going to bring that same discontent with you perhaps.

Lani  6:18  
Right. I had a friend who was in that situation. They're like, the coworkers are so mean in this job, I can't wait to get out. I can't wait to go to this different job. I hate this. And then when they got to the new job, for some reason, the co workers were a problem there too. So you've got to see what exactly the problem is, which is usually your way of thinking about it.

Melissa  6:39  
And again, there's so many examples to say it's usually you. You're not the one talking about other people. But you're the one that's either letting it bother you or can't move past it. However you're allowing your thoughts to interfere.

Lani  6:56  
There's always people around that you can let bother you at any job. Okay, let's go on to the first part of the motivational triad, seek pleasure. So our natural instinct is the way our brains are programmed. Our brains are programmed and evolved to be like the caveman. So right now our world doesn't match up to the way our brains work. Because we have so much concentrated intense pleasure that we get kind of hooked. We get grabbed by the pleasure of super rich foods when we used to have to scavenge for berries or something. So part of the seek pleasure part in our brain is like, Oh, get as much food, get as much stuff as we can get. Get as much pleasure as we can get while we can. That leads to doing all sorts of stuff like shopping, over shopping, over this over that.

Melissa  7:51  
Over drinking, drugs, I'm sure. And also, the more you do something, so if I drink a glass of wine, and then I drink two, and then months later, I'm drinking three every night. Eventually, you have to replace whatever you're doing with more and more and more. When it comes to food same thing, like where's that dopamine hit, or whatever you're getting from the fries. And then you need more food, more of the same bad food.

Lani  8:19  
Exactly. If you're used to drinking two glasses of wine every night, that just becomes your new normal. And then you need more than that to have more pleasure on top.

Melissa  8:29  
And I guess that also could be your Netflix addiction.

Lani  8:33  
Social media scrolling for sure.

Melissa  8:36  
Buffering, buffering, buffering. And I don't know if buffering exactly fits into what we're talking about.

Lani  8:42  
Tell people what buffering is. 

Melissa  8:43  
Buffering is, I won't get the exact definition right, but when you use something to replace something. If I'm drinking wine every night to avoid something, my emotions or maybe some reluctance to do something, some productivity or something that I'm trying to avoid. And I use something like alcohol or Netflix, I'm trying to avoid maybe work that I need to do and the definition of buffering I don't know the exact definition, but using something to pretty much replace the emotion.

Lani  9:19  
I think of it just like what you were saying, I think you use it to buffer, to stall, the feeling of pain. The second part of the motivational triad is to avoid pain. Our brain doesn't want to have pain. It's already obviously built in and we don't want pain but a lot of times we don't want mental pain either. So we try to dull that pain by using other means, like you said buffering by using drinking, gambling, porn. You can even use work for buffering.

Melissa  9:57  
Oh my goodness yes, workaholics they're avoiding all sorts of things. Buffering by maybe not wanting to come home to an unhappy family life or just getting their self worth through working.

Lani  10:18  
I think people are avoiding pain with those things even more than they are trying to seek pleasure. But it's both.

Melissa  10:24  
And again, pain can sound like a very harsh word, or it could be pain can be just like a small discomfort, you know, of something you just don't want to do. Like, I don't want to go to the dentist. So, I avoid their phone calls or their postcards that come in the mail, because I know I may have a cavity. So the pain is showing up at the dentist and  kind of being held accountable for not brushing your teeth or whatever. Whatever small example you want to give. It doesn't have to be some massive pain.  Just something you're avoiding that you don't want to face.

Lani  10:59  
Right. Another pain that people try to get through is when they compare themselves to other people, and they try to fit in, and they want to somehow avoid the pain of, I don't feel like I'm fitting in. I don't feel like I'm good enough.

Melissa  11:18  
Yeah, then you have the lifestyle envy. But when people try to keep up with other people, I guess maybe the pain that they're trying to avoid is just reflecting on themselves. Unfortunately, they care so much about the judgment or what other people are thinking about them. So yeah, this is a big, big topic. Definitely. avoiding pain is a wide subject.

Lani  11:43  
A huge bunch of emotional pain.

Melissa  11:47  
And anxiety and fear. Anger.

Lani  11:55  
People get kind of caught up in what society says I should be doing like I should be getting married. When am I having baby? Am I getting a better job? 

Melissa  12:05  
The social checklist that people have for one another that you should be doing this by a certain age.

Lani  12:13  
Or you're a failure right now.

Melissa  12:16  
Exactly. And also people do that to other people to make themselves feel better about something they're lacking. And they're projecting it out at somebody else. So yeah, this is definitely a big subject.

Lani  12:28  
So how would we avoid pain? Well, we have to think about things in a different way. We'd have to think, so what if society is saying we should do this?

Melissa  12:42  
I think that's where your thoughts come in, like, who cares? You know, you need to be very strong to overcome. But it also could be something that you just change the way you think about it. I was 35, and didn't have a kid and I kept hearing, when am I going to have a grandchild, you know, blah, blah, blah. And that, I guess, my mother would have been being judged, or my grandmother would have been being judged by her friends,  why my granddaughter wasn't married and didn't have kids. Therefore, that must be a parenting failure, per se. You know? It's, I guess, the judgment that's happening behind the scenes,  so then it's projected on to others. I don't know, I don't know if that's a good example. 

Lani  13:22  
Yeah, definitely good. And I would say people get feedback from other people and they think, Oh, I must be doing something wrong, or I'm not good enough, because I am not living up to people.

Melissa  13:35  
Yeah. The society's checklist of what you're supposed to be doing.

Lani  13:39  
Exactly. You have to know that you're your own person and you have the right to make your own decisions about your own life.

Melissa  13:47  
And don't make what someone else says mean something more than it really is. It's just their thought and they have to deal with it. Unfortunately, we tend to internalize those sorts of things. We can I'm sure I'll think of 100 different examples where other people's opinions get to us and we feel like we have to change the way we act or what we're doing in order to fit in or to appease people or to do that but at the end of the day, I guess you have to be strong.

Lani  14:16  
Yeah, the more you practice living for your own values and not somebody else's the the easier it gets. It's just kind of a habit. To me you get better and better. It's definitely freeing. Let's go on to the third part of the motivational triad, conserve energy. Everybody has trouble waking up in the morning, getting to your exercise and getting to do your business. We don't want to do this stuff. We like staying the same.

Melissa  14:54  
That's where your different brains kick in, right? And then the brain that's responsible for getting you up and getting to the gym in the morning is going to be overridden by, oh yeah, it's so warm in this bed.

Lani  15:10  
Exactly right. So, the motivational triad is more like the primitive brain that we came with and that evolved, our caveman brain. That makes us definitely not want to do anything, stay in the bed, stay in the cave. But our more rational brain or more evolved brain, the prefrontal cortex is what you need to switch over to that side of your thinking to get motivated to keep on going.

Melissa  15:37  
But it's pretty amazing how they can work side by side.

Lani  15:42  
They can definitely.

Melissa  15:44  
As you're laying there, you're thinking I don't want to go the gym. The other side saying yes, of course, you have to go. Right now it's the new year you made a resolution. The other side, but it's 40 degrees out and I don't want to blah, blah, blah, and it's 10 minutes away, I'll go tomorrow, then all the excuses start, start flowing in. And then you end up angry at yourself that you didn't go and you didn't live up to your word.

Lani  16:12  
Like you said, one side our primitive brain is going to come up with every excuse in the book, not to move us forward, because it likes to stay safe and likes to conserve energy. But sometimes we have to just basically talk back to our brain and say, Okay, I heard you, but I'm going to do this thing anyway, I'm going to move forward anyway, even if it's hard, even if I don't want to.

Melissa  16:34  
And that is hard. And that's hard until you get to that point where you can, where you're strong enough to override to hit the override button. I'm not gonna listen to you brain.

Lani  16:46  
No, I'm not gonna listen to that.

Melissa  16:50  
Again, there's 1000s of examples, you're stuck in the same dead end job for 30 years that you just can't move from, because oh, I'm safe. At least I have a paycheck. Things could be worse if I leave. That brain talks to you from both sides. It could be jumping out of an airplane, one brain side is telling, No, you might get hurt. The other says, It's going to be fun. So these constant inner battles.

Lani  17:14  
Speaking of that, my daughter wants to jump out of a plane. I have. I said I'll do it again with her this year. So it might be jumping out of a plane again. 

Melissa  17:28  
Something to look forward to. That sounds fun. Take a video.

Lani  17:32  
Yeah, I'm so sad I didn't buy the very expensive video that they want to sell you at the end of jumping out of a plane. But I wish I hadn't now. I bought the pictures. You can buy the pictures for $20. You can buy the video for $20. Everything is separate little add ons.

Melissa  18:00  
So what went on in your brain that day? Did you have any doubts?

Lani  18:07  
No, no, I wanted to.  That was my midlife crisis where I just wanted to do everything.
We'll talk about my midlife crisis one time.

Melissa  18:28  
We've got a lot to talk about. We can both chime in on that.

Lani  18:35  
Okay, so why is it so hard to be happy? Our brain wants to work against us, our primitive brain, by seeking pleasure, avoiding pain and conserving energy. We just have to override that side with our prefrontal cortex.

Melissa  18:51  
Retrain your thinking. Make new neural pathways that are entrenched and create the new responses. So you can get past these doubts or fears or not wanting to go to the gym.

Lani  19:08  
We can definitely retrain our brain.

Melissa  19:11  
Absolutely. And again, we just really touched the surface of this. So I think recommending that book that you mentioned for anyone who wants to do a little bit more research on this. I think they'll find it fascinating.

Lani  19:26  
It's called The Pleasure Trap by Doug Lisle. Now I'm remembering.

Melissa  19:28  
Okay. Perfect. I'll definitely make note of that. Yeah, actually, I would like to read it as well. 

Lani  19:36  
I think everybody can get information from it.

Melissa  19:40  
Okay, well, great subject and I don't think it's the last we will have heard of this either. I think it's going to pop up.

Lani  19:45  
Our brain's coming along with us everywhere.

Melissa  19:53  
Everywhere you go, yeah. Okay, I'll see you later. Take care.

Lani  19:58  
Bye.