M.A.P to Happiness
Finding meaning and pleasure on the road to wholeness.
Have you ever wondered what you could do to increase your happiness?
My answer is to follow your M.A.P. which is an acronym for:
M=Meaning A=and P=Pleasure. Since meaning is meaningful and pleasure is pleasurable, people are often confused about balancing these two extremes.
They wonder how to incorporate both meaning AND pleasure into their daily lives.
Too much pleasure is called hedonism, and even though there’s a certain amount of short-term enjoyment, there’s usually a lot of pain involved. This enjoyment provides no lasting fulfillment because pleasure is about the present moment; and is often narcissistic.
On the other hand, the meaning is about the future, making a difference, and contributing something.
It’s meaningful to spend time with your mom or contribute your time and money to help others. However, suppose our lives are only spent dutifully contributing to others, even in meaningful ways. In that case, we become resentful of living a dull and sterile life, void of any pleasure or excitement.
Take our relationship with food, for example.
