Episode Transcript
Intro
Hi everyone, welcome to how to live, a podcast that explores ways to live a good life. I am your host Sharad Lal.This is episode 20.
Topic
- Many of us enjoy the good things in life
- a cool car, or the latest bag or an exotic holiday
- We’ve worked hard, earned well - so why not enjoy these things life has to offer.
- However sometimes without realising the joy of consumerism gives way to stressful pursuit of more and more
- We need to have the latest iphone before anyone else
- Branded clothes, trending gadgets etc
- The more we have the, the more unsatisfied we become, and the more we want
- It’s a vicious cycle
- If we live in a 2 bedder, we want a 3 bedder
- If we have a 3 bedder, we want to penthouse and so on
- Most of us experience - some level of this vicious cycle of consumerism -which instead of making us grateful leaves us feeling inadequate
- Giving up materialism altogether - renunciation - isn’t appealing as well.
- So how do we enjoy the good things in life without getting consumed by them?
- In today’s podcast we look at
- Why pleasure from materialism can turn into a state of constant dissatisfaction.
- We talk about this both from a spiritual and neuroscience lens
- Then we outline approaches from both schools- spirituality and neuroscience- on how to find joy in material goods, without getting consumed by them.
Before getting into the episode
- Thank you to you listening for your generous support
- We are on the twentieth episode.
- It’s been quite a journey from when we started
- When we started out in November last year - our aim was to do at least 20 episodes.
- Fortunately we’ve been able to do so and are on our way to many more.
- Your support in sending us messages, rating and reviewing the show and spreading the word has kept us very motivated. Thank you very much.
- With your support, we were ranked 3 in Singapore (Business Category), and top 5% globally.
- We are listened to in over 60 countries, close to 500 cities.
- Thank you for making this happen
- Please do consider leaving us a rating on Spotify, Apple or wherever you are listening to this.
- Thank you in advance
Insatiable attitude
- Back to the episode
- We all know how consumerism has reached new heights or maybe lows over the past few decades.
- How the ecosystem of low cost manufacturing, global supply chains, powerful advertising,low pricing etc has led to an unprecedented explosion of consumption.
- Many of us associate our self worth with what we own
- We spend lavishly to be seen - to fit in.
- Often we don’t even use things we buy. They just lie unopened for months and years.
- Buying new things becomes automatic - without thinking.
- The more we have - the more we yearn for
- Now - This desire for more and more
- Is not new
- It may be amplified by today’s context but has always been there
- Over 2500 years back, Buddha saw this cycle of cravings and aversions inherent in human nature.
- Inherent in the material world
- With this wisdom, he arrived at the starting point of his teaching
- The central tenet of buddhism
- Life is suffering.
- Pursuit of things cannot satisfy us. Instead it creates a bigger sense of dis-satisfaction than before.
- Buddha discovered that whenever we are exposed to desires
- A physical sensation gets created in our body.
- This sensation makes us crave for the desirable object.
- Once we acquire the object
- We do get some pleasure
- But this good feeling disappears quickly
- Because everything in the material world is impermanent and fleeting
- Its loss gives rise to a bigger craving
- Then we search for the next bigger object
- And the cycle continues
- Each time the cravings get bigger and the pleasure gets smaller
- We keep trying to grasp things, cling on to them
- Accumulate more and more to satisfy our cravings
- But cravings are like a bottomless pit
- They can never be satisfied.
- This path causes fear, anxiety and suffering.
Why does this happen - Nueroscience
- For those of us who are not spiritually inclined - neuroscience has come to the same conclusion that the great Buddha came to 2500 years back
- They discovered a molecule called dopamine
- Dopamine has been described as the molecule of pleasure, the molecule of more.
- Dopamine has 2 key characteristics
- It’s focussed on the future.
- Second - it desires things we don’t have
- It doesn't get any satisfaction from objects here and now with us.
- Instead it’s turned on by future possibilities.
- Dopamine gets triggered by longings, desires, things out of reach,
- Whether its glamour, movie stars, a future cooler image of ourselves etc
- So it diverts all our energy towards these desires
- The latest sports car, or a limited edition watch
- And when we get any of this
- It doesn't sit back to celebrate and enjoy the object we’ve just gotten.
- Because it has no interest in the present or in anything we possess
- It goes chasing other things in the future.
- A dopamine hit is the short burst of pleasure we get on acquiring something new.
- Similar to buddhist cravings - this pleasure passes soon and dopamine looks for the next object of pleasure
- Each time the pleasure gets lower and lower and desire for more gets bigger and bigger.
- This is referred to as a dopamine loop
- It cultivates perpetual dissatisfaction
- It’s been compared to a drug -
- It can be addictive and compulsive.
Recap -
- Net whichever way we look at it - bottomline
- Material pursuits lead to some form of addictive behaviour
- This need not manifest in all of us becoming shopping addicts -
- But they create in us a need for periodic hits of pleasure to satisfy our cravings
- Ironically the more we satisfy our cravings the bigger they become leading to a state of constant dis-satisfaciton.
- While this may not be the best way to live
- The other approach seems even worse to many of us
- Complete renunciation
- Giving up on pleasure and material things altogether
- Great people like the Buddha were able to transcend materialism to reach a state of equanimity and happiness that most of us may not be able to
- So how do we enjoy things in moderation?
- How can we control ourselves not to pursue more after a certain point?
Self control
- Many of us turn to self control or willpower as the solution to this problem
- However willpower is a muscle - it gets fatigued with use
- We can say no once, maybe twice, maybe even 20 times
- But the 21st time - and there will be a 21st time - with all the advertisements, influencers, social media etc urging us to glam up
- We will give in
- In a famous willpower experiment
- Participants were told to skip a meal and take part in a food tasting survey.
- Two trays were laid out - one of delicious brownies and the other of radishes
- Everyone looked at the two trays and were then assigned one of the meals
- The researchers left the room and asked everyone to honestly eat the meal they were assigned.
- The radish folks resisted the temptation of eating brownies and just ate the radish
- Five minutes later both groups were given unrelated problems to solve
- The brownie group spent 19 mins solving the problem. The radish group gave up after 8 mins - spending less than half the time.
- After exercising willpower in not eating the brownies - their willpower ran out and could not be used for other things.
- Willpower is limited
- The more we resist pleasure - the lower our willpower becomes - thereby making it difficult to carry on resisting pleasure.
- So if willpower does not work - how do we solve this?
- We’ll look at 3 ways to do this
Combining Here and now to dopamine
- We’d spoken about dopamine earlier.
- How it provides fleeting pleasure
- However dopamine isn’t all bad
- It plays a very critical role in most of our bodily functions.
- One very important characteristic of dopamine is that it provides motivation for us to take risks and bring new things into our lives
- That’s how we grow, learn and have evolved as a species.
- So we need dopamine to go after novelty - new objects, new experiences, people etc. but we want to avoid the fleetingness of dopamine’s pleasure
- The trick to doing this is using dopamine to acquire an object
- And then transitioning to other hormones that are not obsessed by the future - Instead they are present oriented
- This makes happiness more permanent.
- Oxytocin, Serotonin, Endorphins
- are these hormones
- They’ve been referred to by acclaimed author Daniel Lieberman as the here and now molecules
- Their key characteristics as the name suggests are
- They find joy in what “in the here” - in what we already possess - not things we chase.
- They provide us enjoyment in the now - the present moment - not the future
- These are the hormones that give us the warm fuzzy feeling of love, physical touch, cuddles or the happy energy after exercising, or joy from serving others.
- So from a neuroscience standpoint, the ideal brain model that maximises happiness looks like this
- Dopamine gets attracted to something we don’t have
- It goes all out to get it
- Once that happens, we need to suppress the dopamine transmitters and activate the Here and now transmitters
- With this - we stay present with what we have and enjoy it.
- Happiness lasts longer.
- A practical example is the concept of “companionate love’ that anthropologist Helen Fisher came up with
- According to the theory - romantic love gets triggered by dopamine
- We get attracted by desire, novelty, mystery etc.
- This lasts on average for 12-18 months
- After that the novelty wears off.
- The dopamine induced pleasures subside
- To build a lasting relationship, we need to transition from the dopamine exhilaration to the warm fuzzy feeling of oxytocin.
- From being head over heels in love to companionship
- With oxytocin we enjoy each other’s company, we’re deeply connected, and we feel content in each other’s presence.
- If this transition does not happen - the relationship often withers away.
- Its dopamine that gets us into a relationship - But oxytocin that keeps us in the relationship
- So how does this relate to consumerism and material goods
- This is why minimalism is a good way to consume things
- In minimalism we chose to live with fewer material objects
- Since we’re only allowed limited objects
- We have to build a deeper relationship with every object beyond the initial dopamine hit
- We consciously decide what to buy vs the dopamine induced compulsive buying of shiny objects, hugely discounted goods, the latest fads etc
- We find joy vs fleeting pleasure
- This is different from self control because it’s based on an aspirational philosophy of finding joy and not a negative control mechanism of curtailing pleasure.
Open to desire
- Now let’s look at this from a buddhist angle
- Mark Epstien has done some fascinating work on interpreting Buddha’s teachings in his book Open to Desire
- Desire is not the problem.
- Nor is experiencing desire or enjoying the pleasure of a material good.
- The real problem is clinging to material objects
- This creates the craving cycle which we talked about earlier leading us on a downward path.
- So why do we cling to things so much?
- The reason is that we don’t just enjoy an object for what it is. Instead we project our desires onto it
- We want it to be a certain way,
- We want it to increase our self esteem,
- elevate our social status
- And so on
- But the object is what it is
- The disparity between what we want things to be and how they really are is the root of struggle.
- When desire comes from a place of lacking - it can only fall short - it leads to Dis-satisfaction.
- So how do we manage it?
- The solution does not lie in stopping this projection of our desires onto things
- Instead it’s about becoming curious about our projections
- Where do they come from? What’s the underlying need? What does it feel like? Etc
- By seeing ourselves clinging, understanding it and acknowledging it
- Its grip starts to soften power
- We start to see objects for what they really are
- We are able to let the experience of the object unravel without any expectations
- This way we can be present and truly enjoy the object
- Net, it’s about experiencing the object without attaching our ego or projections to it.
- If you find this too theoretical, here’s a powerful visual that might help
- Clinging is equivalent to taking an object and clenching it tightly in our fist
- We don’t want to let it go. We’re using all our might to hold on to it.
- In reality we are not even enjoying it because our energy is focussed on holding it.
- In contrast - imagine holding an object with our palm open.
- We can still enjoy the object
- It might fly away after some time - that’s fine. But as long as we have it we enjoy it.
- Without wasting energy or fear in clinging - we can develop an intimate connection with the object.
- This is what open to desire looks like.
- Enjoying material objects without expectations or attachments
- There is a third way to think about material objects
- It’s how the Stoics did it
- Negative Visualisation
- It’s based on the premise that instead of desiring things we don’t have why don’t we desire things we already have
- To create this desire for things we already have, let’s imagine we don’t have them.
- They are taken away from us.
- What would our life look like without that object
- For example - imagine life without that beautiful house you live in
- What does your life look like?
- What do you miss about your house?
- What cosy corners will no longer be there? What feeling of safety and comfort will go away and so on?
- Keep going in this way.
- Fully immerse yourself in this line of thinking
- Once done - you can open your eyes.
- Your house is still there. You’ve got it back.
- Now you can value every bit of it.
- The Stoics used this exercise very effectively for gratitude and valuing what they had.
- In the context of materialism I think this is a powerful exercise that uses dopamine or cravings to desire something and here and now hormones to develop a deeper relationship with our prized possessions.
Action Steps
- If any of this resonated, here are a few action steps you could consider
- Minimalism
- You could consider incorporating some form of minimalism into your life
- Maybe it’s restricting your wardrobe or luxury purchases or anything you like
- You can create your own rules around it - like you’ll only buy a new shirt if you dispose an old one or anything that works for you.
- Try it for 6 months and see what it does to you.
- You could consider incorporating some form of minimalism into your life
- Another exercise you could consider is checking in to see are you compulsively buying or hoarding any objects
- What’s driving it?
- Are you projecting anything on those objects
- What does it tell you about yourself?
- See if this exercise does anything for you.
- There are more in the episode you could explore.
- I wish you all the best.
- Minimalism
End
- That’s all for today’s episode
- Wish all of you a wonderful day ahead.
- Bye bye
Intro
Hi everyone, welcome to how to live, a podcast that explores ways to live a good life. I am your host Sharad Lal.This is episode 20.
Topic
- Many of us enjoy the good things in life
- a cool car, or the latest bag or an exotic holiday
- We’ve worked hard, earned well - so why not enjoy these things life has to offer.
- However sometimes without realising the joy of consumerism gives way to stressful pursuit of more and more
- We need to have the latest iphone before anyone else
- Branded clothes, trending gadgets etc
- The more we have the, the more unsatisfied we become, and the more we want
- It’s a vicious cycle
- If we live in a 2 bedder, we want a 3 bedder
- If we have a 3 bedder, we want to penthouse and so on
- Most of us experience - some level of this vicious cycle of consumerism -which instead of making us grateful leaves us feeling inadequate
- Giving up materialism altogether - renunciation - isn’t appealing as well.
- So how do we enjoy the good things in life without getting consumed by them?
- In today’s podcast we look at
- Why pleasure from materialism can turn into a state of constant dissatisfaction.
- We talk about this both from a spiritual and neuroscience lens
- Then we outline approaches from both schools- spirituality and neuroscience- on how to find joy in material goods, without getting consumed by them.
Before getting into the episode
- Thank you to you listening for your generous support
- We are on the twentieth episode.
- It’s been quite a journey from when we started
- When we started out in November last year - our aim was to do at least 20 episodes.
- Fortunately we’ve been able to do so and are on our way to many more.
- Your support in sending us messages, rating and reviewing the show and spreading the word has kept us very motivated. Thank you very much.
- With your support, we were ranked 3 in Singapore (Business Category), and top 5% globally.
- We are listened to in over 60 countries, close to 500 cities.
- Thank you for making this happen
- Please do consider leaving us a rating on Spotify, Apple or wherever you are listening to this.
- Thank you in advance
Insatiable attitude
- Back to the episode
- We all know how consumerism has reached new heights or maybe lows over the past few decades.
- How the ecosystem of low cost manufacturing, global supply chains, powerful advertising,low pricing etc has led to an unprecedented explosion of consumption.
- Many of us associate our self worth with what we own
- We spend lavishly to be seen - to fit in.
- Often we don’t even use things we buy. They just lie unopened for months and years.
- Buying new things becomes automatic - without thinking.
- The more we have - the more we yearn for
- Now - This desire for more and more
- Is not new
- It may be amplified by today’s context but has always been there
- Over 2500 years back, Buddha saw this cycle of cravings and aversions inherent in human nature.
- Inherent in the material world
- With this wisdom, he arrived at the starting point of his teaching
- The central tenet of buddhism
- Life is suffering.
- Pursuit of things cannot satisfy us. Instead it creates a bigger sense of dis-satisfaction than before.
- Buddha discovered that whenever we are exposed to desires
- A physical sensation gets created in our body.
- This sensation makes us crave for the desirable object.
- Once we acquire the object
- We do get some pleasure
- But this good feeling disappears quickly
- Because everything in the material world is impermanent and fleeting
- Its loss gives rise to a bigger craving
- Then we search for the next bigger object
- And the cycle continues
- Each time the cravings get bigger and the pleasure gets smaller
- We keep trying to grasp things, cling on to them
- Accumulate more and more to satisfy our cravings
- But cravings are like a bottomless pit
- They can never be satisfied.
- This path causes fear, anxiety and suffering.
Why does this happen - Nueroscience
- For those of us who are not spiritually inclined - neuroscience has come to the same conclusion that the great Buddha came to 2500 years back
- They discovered a molecule called dopamine
- Dopamine has been described as the molecule of pleasure, the molecule of more.
- Dopamine has 2 key characteristics
- It’s focussed on the future.
- Second - it desires things we don’t have
- It doesn't get any satisfaction from objects here and now with us.
- Instead it’s turned on by future possibilities.
- Dopamine gets triggered by longings, desires, things out of reach,
- Whether its glamour, movie stars, a future cooler image of ourselves etc
- So it diverts all our energy towards these desires
- The latest sports car, or a limited edition watch
- And when we get any of this
- It doesn't sit back to celebrate and enjoy the object we’ve just gotten.
- Because it has no interest in the present or in anything we possess
- It goes chasing other things in the future.
- A dopamine hit is the short burst of pleasure we get on acquiring something new.
- Similar to buddhist cravings - this pleasure passes soon and dopamine looks for the next object of pleasure
- Each time the pleasure gets lower and lower and desire for more gets bigger and bigger.
- This is referred to as a dopamine loop
- It cultivates perpetual dissatisfaction
- It’s been compared to a drug -
- It can be addictive and compulsive.
Recap -
- Net whichever way we look at it - bottomline
- Material pursuits lead to some form of addictive behaviour
- This need not manifest in all of us becoming shopping addicts -
- But they create in us a need for periodic hits of pleasure to satisfy our cravings
- Ironically the more we satisfy our cravings the bigger they become leading to a state of constant dis-satisfaciton.
- While this may not be the best way to live
- The other approach seems even worse to many of us
- Complete renunciation
- Giving up on pleasure and material things altogether
- Great people like the Buddha were able to transcend materialism to reach a state of equanimity and happiness that most of us may not be able to
- So how do we enjoy things in moderation?
- How can we control ourselves not to pursue more after a certain point?
Self control
- Many of us turn to self control or willpower as the solution to this problem
- However willpower is a muscle - it gets fatigued with use
- We can say no once, maybe twice, maybe even 20 times
- But the 21st time - and there will be a 21st time - with all the advertisements, influencers, social media etc urging us to glam up
- We will give in
- In a famous willpower experiment
- Participants were told to skip a meal and take part in a food tasting survey.
- Two trays were laid out - one of delicious brownies and the other of radishes
- Everyone looked at the two trays and were then assigned one of the meals
- The researchers left the room and asked everyone to honestly eat the meal they were assigned.
- The radish folks resisted the temptation of eating brownies and just ate the radish
- Five minutes later both groups were given unrelated problems to solve
- The brownie group spent 19 mins solving the problem. The radish group gave up after 8 mins - spending less than half the time.
- After exercising willpower in not eating the brownies - their willpower ran out and could not be used for other things.
- Willpower is limited
- The more we resist pleasure - the lower our willpower becomes - thereby making it difficult to carry on resisting pleasure.
- So if willpower does not work - how do we solve this?
- We’ll look at 3 ways to do this
Combining Here and now to dopamine
- We’d spoken about dopamine earlier.
- How it provides fleeting pleasure
- However dopamine isn’t all bad
- It plays a very critical role in most of our bodily functions.
- One very important characteristic of dopamine is that it provides motivation for us to take risks and bring new things into our lives
- That’s how we grow, learn and have evolved as a species.
- So we need dopamine to go after novelty - new objects, new experiences, people etc. but we want to avoid the fleetingness of dopamine’s pleasure
- The trick to doing this is using dopamine to acquire an object
- And then transitioning to other hormones that are not obsessed by the future - Instead they are present oriented
- This makes happiness more permanent.
- Oxytocin, Serotonin, Endorphins
- are these hormones
- They’ve been referred to by acclaimed author Daniel Lieberman as the here and now molecules
- Their key characteristics as the name suggests are
- They find joy in what “in the here” - in what we already possess - not things we chase.
- They provide us enjoyment in the now - the present moment - not the future
- These are the hormones that give us the warm fuzzy feeling of love, physical touch, cuddles or the happy energy after exercising, or joy from serving others.
- So from a neuroscience standpoint, the ideal brain model that maximises happiness looks like this
- Dopamine gets attracted to something we don’t have
- It goes all out to get it
- Once that happens, we need to suppress the dopamine transmitters and activate the Here and now transmitters
- With this - we stay present with what we have and enjoy it.
- Happiness lasts longer.
- A practical example is the concept of “companionate love’ that anthropologist Helen Fisher came up with
- According to the theory - romantic love gets triggered by dopamine
- We get attracted by desire, novelty, mystery etc.
- This lasts on average for 12-18 months
- After that the novelty wears off.
- The dopamine induced pleasures subside
- To build a lasting relationship, we need to transition from the dopamine exhilaration to the warm fuzzy feeling of oxytocin.
- From being head over heels in love to companionship
- With oxytocin we enjoy each other’s company, we’re deeply connected, and we feel content in each other’s presence.
- If this transition does not happen - the relationship often withers away.
- Its dopamine that gets us into a relationship - But oxytocin that keeps us in the relationship
- So how does this relate to consumerism and material goods
- This is why minimalism is a good way to consume things
- In minimalism we chose to live with fewer material objects
- Since we’re only allowed limited objects
- We have to build a deeper relationship with every object beyond the initial dopamine hit
- We consciously decide what to buy vs the dopamine induced compulsive buying of shiny objects, hugely discounted goods, the latest fads etc
- We find joy vs fleeting pleasure
- This is different from self control because it’s based on an aspirational philosophy of finding joy and not a negative control mechanism of curtailing pleasure.
Open to desire
- Now let’s look at this from a buddhist angle
- Mark Epstien has done some fascinating work on interpreting Buddha’s teachings in his book Open to Desire
- Desire is not the problem.
- Nor is experiencing desire or enjoying the pleasure of a material good.
- The real problem is clinging to material objects
- This creates the craving cycle which we talked about earlier leading us on a downward path.
- So why do we cling to things so much?
- The reason is that we don’t just enjoy an object for what it is. Instead we project our desires onto it
- We want it to be a certain way,
- We want it to increase our self esteem,
- elevate our social status
- And so on
- But the object is what it is
- The disparity between what we want things to be and how they really are is the root of struggle.
- When desire comes from a place of lacking - it can only fall short - it leads to Dis-satisfaction.
- So how do we manage it?
- The solution does not lie in stopping this projection of our desires onto things
- Instead it’s about becoming curious about our projections
- Where do they come from? What’s the underlying need? What does it feel like? Etc
- By seeing ourselves clinging, understanding it and acknowledging it
- Its grip starts to soften power
- We start to see objects for what they really are
- We are able to let the experience of the object unravel without any expectations
- This way we can be present and truly enjoy the object
- Net, it’s about experiencing the object without attaching our ego or projections to it.
- If you find this too theoretical, here’s a powerful visual that might help
- Clinging is equivalent to taking an object and clenching it tightly in our fist
- We don’t want to let it go. We’re using all our might to hold on to it.
- In reality we are not even enjoying it because our energy is focussed on holding it.
- In contrast - imagine holding an object with our palm open.
- We can still enjoy the object
- It might fly away after some time - that’s fine. But as long as we have it we enjoy it.
- Without wasting energy or fear in clinging - we can develop an intimate connection with the object.
- This is what open to desire looks like.
- Enjoying material objects without expectations or attachments
- There is a third way to think about material objects
- It’s how the Stoics did it
- Negative Visualisation
- It’s based on the premise that instead of desiring things we don’t have why don’t we desire things we already have
- To create this desire for things we already have, let’s imagine we don’t have them.
- They are taken away from us.
- What would our life look like without that object
- For example - imagine life without that beautiful house you live in
- What does your life look like?
- What do you miss about your house?
- What cosy corners will no longer be there? What feeling of safety and comfort will go away and so on?
- Keep going in this way.
- Fully immerse yourself in this line of thinking
- Once done - you can open your eyes.
- Your house is still there. You’ve got it back.
- Now you can value every bit of it.
- The Stoics used this exercise very effectively for gratitude and valuing what they had.
- In the context of materialism I think this is a powerful exercise that uses dopamine or cravings to desire something and here and now hormones to develop a deeper relationship with our prized possessions.
Action Steps
- If any of this resonated, here are a few action steps you could consider
- Minimalism
- You could consider incorporating some form of minimalism into your life
- Maybe it’s restricting your wardrobe or luxury purchases or anything you like
- You can create your own rules around it - like you’ll only buy a new shirt if you dispose an old one or anything that works for you.
- Try it for 6 months and see what it does to you.
- You could consider incorporating some form of minimalism into your life
- Another exercise you could consider is checking in to see are you compulsively buying or hoarding any objects
- What’s driving it?
- Are you projecting anything on those objects
- What does it tell you about yourself?
- See if this exercise does anything for you.
- There are more in the episode you could explore.
- I wish you all the best.
- Minimalism
End
- That’s all for today’s episode
- Wish all of you a wonderful day ahead.
- Bye bye