Chapter 21

Balance and Healthy Pleasures

Psychologists Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd (2008) have studied how our perspectives on time influence our lives. They found that happy people strike a healthy balance among the past, present, and future. Happy people tend to be at peace with their past and can recall memories with warmth and nostalgia. They’ve figured out how to settle and move beyond troubling memories. Perhaps therapy, writing about trauma (see chapter 8), and forgiving (see chapter 20) helped them. Keeping a scrapbook of mementos, expressing gratitude for positive memories, tracing one’s family tree, or celebrating the culture of one’s ancestors might also kindle fond connections to the past.

Happy people plan for a worthwhile future and are willing to work toward their goals (see Emmons 1986). They invest in their future but don’t obsess about it. Excessive focus on the future can lead to worry or anger when plans are frustrated. So they have a plan that is driven by their values, but they are not so goal driven that they can’t relax. Nor are they so rigid that they can’t accept obstacles in the road.

Regarding the present, happy people find pleasure in everyday experiences—without being unrealistic or demanding. They make plans to enjoy themselves, carry out those plans, and find enjoyment in what they’ve planned.

Let’s assume that you’ve made peace with the more troubling parts of your past and are making efforts to savor fond memories. Let’s further assume that you’ve set specific, achievable short- and long-term goals for the future and that your goals are balanced among the important areas of family, friends, learning, profession, physical and emotional health, spirituality, leisure, and legacy (something you’ll leave behind or do to better the world). Let’s turn now to a skill area that is especially important in our time-urgent culture—the skill of enjoying wholesome pleasures in the present moment.

Balancing Work with Pleasure

Nearly all of the resilient WWII survivors I interviewed were actively engaged in a wide range of interesting and pleasant activities over the course of their lives. It was not unusual to find these octogenarians still enthusiastically traveling, enjoying the arts, playing bridge, reading, being docents at museums, dancing, and even playing sports (Schiraldi 2007). Pleasant activities help to keep the brain sharp and the mood upbeat. They are also among those factors outside of the workplace—along with sleep, exercise, diet, and social bonds—that appear to improve work performance.

Psychologists Peter Lewinsohn and colleagues (1986) observed an interesting downward spiral in depressed people. First, they became stressed, as typically happens with those who are “crazy busy.” To save time, they stopped doing the pleasant things that had kept their mood up. As their mood became depressed, they pessimistically assumed that nothing could lift it again, so they stopped trying to engage in those mood-enhancing activities. Lewinsohn’s team developed the pleasant events schedule to help depressed people again engage in pleasant pastimes. Doing so, they found, measurably improved mood. A modified version of the schedule follows.

Activity: Pleasant Events Schedule

This activity (adapted with permission from Lewinsohn et al. 1986) helps people check the balance in their lives and make needed adjustments in order to optimize mood. This very effective activity is well worth the time it takes to complete it. In a very structured way, you will identify activities you’ve enjoyed in the past and then make a plan to enjoy activities that will likely lift your mood—remembering that what makes us happier makes us more resilient.

Step 1: The pleasant events schedule (Lewinsohn, Munoz, Youngren, and Zeiss 1986) lists a wide range of activities organized beneath main topics. In the first column (ignore the second column for now), check those activities that you enjoyed in the past. Then rate how pleasant each checked item was on a scale from 1 to 10 (a score of 1 reflects little pleasure, and 10 reflects great pleasure.) For example, if you moderately enjoyed being with happy people but didn’t enjoy being with friends or relatives, your first two items would look like this:

  • 2. Being with friends/relatives
Social Interactions

These events occur with others. They tend to make us feel accepted, appreciated, liked, or understood. (Please note that you may feel that an activity belongs in another group. The grouping is not important.)
Activities

These activities make us feel capable, loving, useful, strong, or adequate.
Step 2: Check the second column if you’ve done the event in the past thirty days.
Step 3: Circle the number of the events that you’d probably enjoy (on a good day).
Step 4: Compare the first and second columns. Are there many items you’ve enjoyed in the past that you are not doing very often?
Step 5: Using the completed pleasant events schedule for ideas, make a list of the twenty-five activities that you feel you’d most enjoy doing.
Step 6: Make a plan to do more pleasant activities. Start with the simplest ones and those you are most likely to enjoy. Do as many pleasant events as you reasonably can. Try doing at least one each day, perhaps more on weekends. Write your plan on a calendar, and carry it out for at least two weeks. Each time you do an activity, rate it on a scale from 1 to 5 for pleasure (1 being not pleasurable, and 5 being highly enjoyable). This tests the stress-induced distortion that nothing is enjoyable. This rating may also help you later replace less enjoyable activities with others. Here are a few tips to help you make and keep a plan:
  • Tune in to the physical world. Pay less attention to your thoughts; focus on your senses. Feel the wind, or the soapsuds as you wash the car. See and hear.
  • Before doing an event, set yourself up to enjoy it. Identify three things you will enjoy about it. For example, say, “I will enjoy the sunshine, I will enjoy the breeze, and I will enjoy talking with my brother.” Relax, and imagine yourself enjoying each aspect of the event as you repeat each statement.
  • Ask yourself, “What can I do to make the activity enjoyable?”
  • If you are concerned that you might not enjoy some activity that you’d like to try, break it into steps. Think small, so you can be satisfied in reaching your goal. For example, start by cleaning the house for only ten minutes, then stop. Reward yourself with a pat on the back.
  • Check your schedule for balance. Can you spread out the “need tos” to make room for some “want tos”?
  • Time is limited, so use it wisely. You needn’t do activities you don’t like just because they’re convenient.

Balancing Technology with Tranquility

In his book on happiness, psychologist Nick Baylis (2009) considers how we can gain freedom from the crippling bonds of technology. He quotes the brilliant scientist Albert Einstein regarding time-saving technology. Einstein said, “Why does this magnificent applied science, which saves work and makes life easier, bring us little happiness? The simple answer runs: because we have not yet learned to make sensible use of it” (254). Ponder the electronic devices in your life, such as computers and cell phones, and ask yourself whether they connect you to or isolate you from things that matter to you. Check the appropriate boxes below.

My Electronic Devices…

Connect Me To Isolate Me From

Other people (Consider the terms technoference and partner snub, which refer to the way electronic devices can interfere with relationships.)

Nature

Myself (what I feel and need, who I am)

Reflection and relaxation time

Being fully present in the moment

Simple pleasures

Hobbies or other pleasurable recreational pursuits

My creative side

Sleep, exercise, and good eating

Activity: Technology and Happiness

Please write your reactions to this reflection:

  • Virtual reality isn’t real. Spending hours using social media isn’t the same as sitting face to face with a friend for hours. Would the world end if we turned off our smartphones during dinner or at a restaurant? Do we really need to spend hours sending e-mails, perusing social media, texting, and video chatting, or might we choose to do only one or none? Is your technology a boon or an addiction? Is it energizing or creating a frenzied exhaustion? Could we better limit our technology time and expand our tranquility time? What would happen if you turned your electronics off for a period of the day, during which you took a walk in nature or gave loved ones the gift of your full presence? What would happen if you turned off the news and went to bed earlier tonight?

Conclusion

Zimbardo and Boyd (2008) noted that the time we save because of electronic devices is usually applied to working and accumulating wealth. The pursuit of wealth, however, can distract us from the deeper satisfactions that come from life’s simple, inexpensive pleasures. This chapter aimed to broaden your approach to happiness by challenging you to expand your wholesome pleasures and limit overreliance on technology. The skills that you’ve learned in the workbook thus far lay a strong foundation for part 3—“Thriving: Peak Functioning and Adaptive Coping.”