Dear Friends,
In Joy on Demand, Chade-Meng Tan describes four sources of joy, two of which he says are short-lived, and two which are “very important and highly durable.”
The two that he describes as short-lived are the joy of novelty, and the joy of perceived agency. The joy of novelty is the excitement of experiencing something new, and the joy of perceived agency is “discovering that what you initially thought was totally beyond your control is something you can make some choices about.”
The joy of novelty quickly wears off because the new thing quickly becomes not so new any more (e.g. ask anyone who got a new smart phone a year ago). The joy of perceived agency dissipates because we get used to being able to do it.
As an example of these two types of short-lived joy, Meng told a story from when his daughter was about 3 months old. He had a little toy car, and he showed her how to push the car forward. She picked up the car and pushed it forward, and burst into laughter from being able to do this amazing feat! And a second time, and a third… But after a few minutes, the laughter died away as the fascination with this new skill faded.
In the Q&A session of the fourth talk in the Daily Life Practice Retreat, Andrea Fella describes a similar type of reaction that you might have noticed in the daily practices you picked. One of the participants commented that they noticed they initially were really mindful of their task, but felt that it went in and out after a while.
Her response (somewhat paraphrased by me):
You mentioned at first it worked well, and then it kind of dropped off. That is a very common pattern, and probably will happen for most of the participants this week. In the first couple days there will be a lot of juice, “oh here’s my tasks” and then there’s a little bit of “you can do it” – you might find yourself able to be with your activity.
But something about our minds – once we figured we figured something out, the interest drops. “Oh, I’ve got that. Check. Done.” And then we see the mindfulness fall away.
At that point, there needs to be a bit of a reminder – “oh, okay, I’m seeing this habit of mind to feel like I’ve figured it out and to let go of that interest”.
Sometimes the interest and incentive falls off too, when we see that there’s less reactivity or charge in a situation around the mindfulness. The motivation has been to reduce that reactivity somewhat, so when the reactivity reduces, we’re like, “oh, we don’t need to be mindful there anymore”.
So if you can, in those moments of seeing it fall off during the week, just see if you can reconnect with the intention. “Okay, I want to keep trying, keep engaging with this. There may be still more to learn here.” Maybe at that point, it’s not so much to force yourself to be mindful, but being more curious about why you’re not mindful. What is in the way?
You might start with some mindfulness, and then you see your mind drift off into thought. So getting curious about that as well.
What have you noticed with your tasks? Feel free to comment below, or if you’re shy, you can share with just me by email.
What’s that? You wanted to know what the two important and durable types of joy are? Well, you’ll have to check the blog tomorrow! 🙂
With best wishes,
Andrea
Here’s some of the things I’ve noticed… Being mindful with each sip of tea started off great – Monday, I felt I was generally aware of the sensations of the warmth of the cup, the steam rising, the fragrance, the flavor. Tuesday started off okay, but as I got more engaged with things I had to do at work, I found that I’d notice about half-way through the cup that “oh yeah, mindful!” Then I’d notice the (now cold) tea, the extra flavor from the tea having steeped a little longer, and the coolness of swallowing the tea. Wednesday, I was more distracted. My mind is much more interested in not paying attention to tea. When I do pay attention, the little critic likes to pop in and tell me all about how I could be doing this better, and who do I think I am telling people to be mindful of daily tasks when I can’t even sip a bit of tea…
Anyone else have a critic like that? 🙂
As for the longer task of feeding the dogs, I found that Tuesday went well, but on Wednesday, I was feeling more rushed – to get my dogs to daycare and myself to an appointment in the morning, and then getting the dogs and me fed before going to the Wednesday evening practice. When I was more rushed and feeling more pressure, I found my mind wanted to flit to many things – oh, I should straighten out that blanket, and put away that laundry, and close the blinds, and… oh wait – I’m trying to be mindful of feeding the dogs!! Right, let’s feed the dogs… But first…
I think that’s a good reminder for me to take an extra breath in those moments of feeling pressured. I don’t always remember to do that, but when I do take that breath, I notice the difference and feel better. (Cue – feeling pressured. Routine – take a deep breath. Reward – feel a bit more ease and ability to handle the pressure.)
I’d love to hear from you too! How’s it going? What have you noticed?
Hi Andrea,
I feel like today’s e-mail and theme could not have come at a better time…while I find myself overall being more mindful, I have noticed my mindfulness dropping off when I am washing my hands (my cue from earlier this week). I think it’s exactly what you brought up – it was novel, and then for a while I remembered to remember to be midful while I washed my hands, until all of a sudden I was not remembering anymore haha.
This is a great reminder to me that this is always a practice, and a practice is something that I can recommit to everytime I remember.
Karen
Ooh, I love this: “This is a great reminder to me that this is always a practice, and a practice is something that I can recommit to everytime I remember.”
Thanks for the encouragement!