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The best things in life are free (or very cheap) and simple!

Life’s pleasures are the simplest, easiest and free-st. It may be trite, but that doesn’t make it less true.

Kissing, the first bite of a decadent dessert, laughter, compliments, etc. seem to rank quite highly on different lists for the top pleasures — and you guessed it, these are all super simple pleasures.

All great examples, which will help us get at the heart of what I am trying to do with this blog:

define and make it easy for you to enjoy the best things in life or what I call “simple pleasures” 

Photo by Lesly Juarez on Unsplash

To get there, lets break down these examples a bit further. Most pleasures listed on the different sources that I have read, or personally felt to be true , more or less align to the following four categories:

  1. Food pleasures: ice creams, favourite foods, desserts
  2. Social pleasures: people you love, a smile, a compliment
  3. Intellectual pleasures: a good book, an interesting television program
  4. Personal pleasures: napping, getting a massage, a full bowel movement

Do you detect a pattern here?

It seems like simple pleasures tend to be those that don’t involve money or materialistic pursuits. They tend to be cheap, easy, relaxing activities. Nothing that strains the mind, the body or the pocket too much. Everything that brings you joy and that can be achieved with minimal fuss anytime anywhere. So, the formula to get to simple pleasures is also quite simple:

Simple pleasures = Cheap + Easy + Relaxing + Brings joy + Possible anytime

I would recommend the interested reader to google and find the different lists that come up on “simple pleasures”. But the main message I want to convey in this blog is that:

The actual list of simple pleasures that you would find useful can never come externally— it will need to come from within you. You will need to create a personal list of simple pleasures for yourself

Do it now. Create this list now! Go!

Once you do this exercise, you will realize how futile every other activity can be. There would still be things like work and study, things that may not give you simple pleasures, but you can know more clearly now which activities there are that do bring you pleasure and how you can maximise that part of your life!

Note also that not all activities may be pleasurable immediately (eg it can take you sometime to learn a sport), but you need to find the joy in learning these if you want them to become pleasurable.

There may even be complex scenarios and conditions outside your control that affect the time you spend on simple pleasures. Fair enough. But this personal list that you just wrote will hopefully give you something to hold on to. Something to come back to that brings you joy, taking you away from pain. Something that you truly like even if it lasts just for a small moment, it brings deep satisfaction.

Maybe this list gives you a reality check about your life and to shift priorities in the right way. The examples on this new list are intuitive and most importantly personally designed for you, by you. Use them wisely!

Until next time

Sukhi


Exported from Medium 

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