How to Stop Going Toward Pleasure and Instead Go Toward Happiness with Lucia Giovannini

Do you have personal decision making framework? How do you reason between the option you know is good for you, and the option that you want? For most of us, it is a very conscious process to suppress the urge to indulge in pleasure. Let’s think about how that decision relates to our overall happiness. Lucia Giovannini, an Italian spiritual teacher, transformational coach, and now best-selling author for the book “A Whole New Life”, shares her relationship with pleasure and happiness.

“How to stop being driven by pleasure and instead go towards happiness. There are so many people who have a house, a family, a job and yet are deeply frustrated, dissatisfied. There was a period in my life where I was feeling like that. I think the problem is that in our society we tend to confuse pleasure with happiness.  Real happiness emerges when what we do makes our lives and the world around  us better.  Happiness is found by doing the right things, by making investments that allow us to accumulate emotional and mental wealth helping us to grow, to develop quality. Pleasure has other characteristics, it is a short term reward. When we taste pleasure we are consuming something.  We come across this kind of choice every day, even in the simplest of things. When we get home from work, do we invest our time in reading a stimulating book, in volunteering, or do we sink in front of the TV? In the long run, which choice will give the most reward?”

To summarize, be conscious of your small choices because they have downstream effects. Make a habit of making choices that lead you to happiness.