A few years ago, I learned the word “dopamine”.
Turns out this pesky little neurotransmitter is a chemical in our brain that gets released during pleasurable activities. It has a lot to answer for.
It’s why I get a moment of pure ecstasy when I bite into the Snickers bar, knowing that I’ll pay for this later. I don’t care. Well, I do. But I usually defer the pain.
It’s why I always play to win, and why I stopped playing ultimate frisbee on the beach when they stopped keeping score.
It’s why I’m more likely to read the Sunday paper after the Springboks won.
It’s why I check my LinkedIn stats for engagements and likes.
It’s why I like to hike, cycle and walk the dog. A beautiful view, the sense of accomplishment from getting to the top... it all forms part of it.
I think it’s also what drives addiction. Whether the gaming industry, Facebook, Lindt or TOPS, and in a smaller population sample, Iron Man events, it has us overdo things to our detriment.
It also makes me reflect on my life. We have this practice called “Lifelines” in the Entrepreneurs' Organization, and it’s a great tool for both reflecting on the low and high points. Most people have a pretty erratic lifeline. Life is like that – low points and high points are part of the game.
The question is: Where’s the baseline? Is it just north of the happy meridian, or is it below? This is a whole other conversation, and as my buddy Alon Sachs so eloquently framed it in his talk on happiness, hacking happiness is hard work but worth it. And it’s a momentum game.
I can reflect that my life as a husband, father and business owner is very happy and still has plenty of dopamine hits attached. My baseline is considerably higher than it was in my often misspent youth, where I was supposed to be single but happy… but often, I wasn’t.
With a higher baseline, the extreme lows and highs have also evened out. I’m happy about the lack of deep, dark moments, but I must admit I sometimes miss the dopamine hits from summitting Kili, dancing in the streets in Brazil or tucking into ceviche in Peru. The newness and adventure and freedom – proxies for a life well lived - have now been replaced with familiar and predictable joys of “real” life. The dopamine hits are still there, they’re mostly attached to family moments, and they are wonderful. Parenting isn’t for sissies, either.
It's been a big year. I have this lekker reflection workbook that helps to make sense of it all, you can download it here. If you want some AI-generated podcasters to help guide you through how to use it, listen to that here.
Happy holidays!
PG’s Pro Tip:
Take a solid 4-5 hours to work through the workbook sometime in the next week. It will help you anchor in gratitude and clarity of what was, and shape what is to come.
Commentaires