Success or Pleasure?

Do you live for pleasure, or do you live for success? Today Cindy talks about how in society, we're programmed to live for success. But what happens when we start living for pleasure? Watch today's video to hear Cindy's thoughts on this. 

Video Transcript: 

Hey, I'm back! I wanted to mention that I am still speaking to all of you out there as if you are my age. When I was talking about reverse ageism, I did it the whole time I was talking to you because I was saying, "Well, by our age," and "We have been toddlers," "We have been..." Well, I guess there's no toddlers listening to me, but young adults, etc., etc. I apologize. I will continue making that mistake and I will continue apologizing for it. Man, you know I've been conditioned for 61 years. Something to be aware of.

I also wanted to mention what I talked about last week in terms of wanting to feel the spectrum of emotions. You imagined yourself in a movie theater and everything you do and how deliberate you are about getting there and then forgetting that you were there so you can go on this crazy roller coaster ride of emotions. It's interesting, because if you don't get that effect from the movie you picked, you want your money back. You think it's a bad movie because it didn't work! More proof that we really want to take the whole ride.

Another quote that I really, really like is, "If you go for success, pleasure is 50-50. If you go for pleasure, success is guaranteed." Yeah. Think about that one. Try it out. It's amazing. It's amazing. Man, living your life according to what pleasures you, and it takes some discipline. Some real discipline, because we have been raised in a pain-oriented society. What does that mean exactly?

You can chat with a total stranger on a bus, a new neighbor, anybody anywhere at dinner about all the problems. The elections and the wars and all the horrible people in the world, and your crazy mother-in-law, and the flat tire you got last week, and that headache you have, and all the health problems, and on and on and on. Nobody bats an eye. In fact, they jump right in and start talking about the pain in their lives.

You can tell your boss, "I got really sick. I can't come to work today." "Somebody died. I can't come to work." They're like, "Oh, fine. No problem, no problem." Could you imagine calling up your boss and saying, "You know what? It is such a beautiful day today, I feel amazing. The sun is out and I'm going to go to the beach today instead of coming in and working." Not! You start talking about how good your life is. How happy you are. What an amazing time you had last night, and people will listen to a certain degree and then, if you go on too long, they get suspicious.

Pleasure is suspicious in our society. No wonder why we're not encouraged to live our lives according to what pleasures us. If you're a woman and you are aware, or honest with yourself, you were built for pleasure. You are a pleasure-oriented creature, and you were raised in a success-oriented society. Our society is still very patriarch, very male-oriented. Men are great, but men are goal oriented. Men are linear and we are random. We are pleasure oriented.

If it's our pleasure to be linear and go for the goal, we do it, but if we don't feel like it or if we change our minds, then that's our prerogative. We're judged pretty heavily, pretty negatively for being that way. It's tough. It's tough to go for pleasure every time out.

I'm sure you all have lots of stories about that from being in the boardroom with a bunch of men, from growing up with brothers, wanting to do a particular thing because it just felt good but it wasn't disciplined enough and it was kind of a cockamamie idea. You've got to be responsible and go for this and that and la-la-la. So that's pretty interesting. "Go for pleasure and success is guaranteed." Love that! All right, I think I'm done this Saturday. See 'ya next week!