The Road to Lasting Satisfaction ...

This is a column called “Hey Jeff”, where I share a meditation in response to someone’s unique situation or challenge or curiosity.

In this month’s installment, I respond to Patrick’s question about feeling like life is blah, plus the difficulty of choosing long-term satisfaction over short-term gratification. Below is his note, shared with permission.

Jeff

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Patrick’s Note: I’m 54 and feeling disappointed in this grand life experiment these days. Why do we choose to do things we know aren’t good for us? Choosing not to move and exercise, not to eat a salad instead of a cheeseburger, choosing to binge Netflix instead of work on a painting. We’re so geared toward the things that take the least effort. You choose those things enough and realize that you are not really feeding the things that bring you more sustainable joy, more peace.

I know that when I am able to stop, notice, feel the moment and make the more soul-satisfying choice, it is often the meditation that has enabled me to be more mindful and see the long-term satisfaction over the short-term gratification. My inner critic still beats me up for the times I grab some Ben and Jerry’s and watch TV more that it congratulates me for taking a nice walk around the neighborhood and honestly, I wish that guy would shut up some days.

I am reminding myself that I am enough. Your meditations, your writing, the CEC, have all been so helpful in my journey so please accept my heartfelt thank you for what you do!

I mentioned my painting. I attached some of my recent work here. I just wanted to pass them along because they bring me joy and I know you appreciate art, and hopefully they can bring you a little joy as well.

-Patrick S.

Painting by Home Base community member Patrick Stella

Hi Patrick – 

I appreciate your note, and I love your paintings! Thank you. 

It seems like you’re talking about two things: First, the feeling of being in the middle of life and wondering … is this it? And second, the challenge of choosing long-term satisfaction over short-term gratification. I can relate to both. I also sometimes get bummed about both. So: compassion, and self-compassion.

And I think those two things are connected.

Let’s start with short-term gratification. It happened to me last night (ok, it happens to me 6 nights a week). Wiped after a day of work and child care, I knew I could meditate, cause that always makes me feel more grounded and centered and sane. But instead I doom-scrolled YouTube, watched a long movie fight scene compilation, a young man dancing like a robot, and short interviews with Kurt Vonnegut and … Harry Belafonte? (YouTube algorithm, thy dost truly know me!)

The problem of course with instant gratification is the dopamine fades fast. It also leads to ever-diminishing returns. We have to keep upping the novelty to get the same reward, and eventually we’re left holding an empty party-sized bag of potato chips, with a queasy stomach and a vague sense of existential meaninglessness. 

As you’ve noted, meditation is basically the opposite. Often quite boring at first, yet the more we do it, the more it can leave us feeling oddly satisfied with simple things. That can happen in the moment — and it can also happen as an increasing tendency over time. 

Here’s a rigorously mathematical napkin sketch about exactly this, from my book with

Dan Harris

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From Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics, illustration by my pal Kevin Lacroix 

In life, we chase the highs and avoid the lows. All that grabbing and pushing actually makes our personal roller coasters more exaggerated. With all our attention riveted to the ups and downs, it’s like living in only two dimensions. 

Meditation and other spiritual practices shift our attention sideways, into life’s width dimension. Aka, “The Z Axis” (except no one calls it that):

From Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics, illustration by my pal Kevin Lacroix 

As practitioners, our attention obviously still gets hijacked by the specifics of our respective conditions. But we also develop – more and more – the capacity to live into a third dimension of experience, which my old teacher Shinzen Young calls “happiness independent of conditions.” Life gets wider and richer, regardless of whether we’re up, down, or somewhere in between. 

So that’s the idea. Is it actually true in practice?