Taewoo Danny Kim

This Holiday Season, Choose Enjoyment Over Pleasure It’s holiday party season, meaning you have a lot of temptations revolving around food and drink. This creates a puzzle for the happiness seeker, who must navigate between the twin perils of puritanism and indulgence. Fortunately, there is a better way to solve the puzzle: choose enjoyment over pleasure. What the science says: Pleasure happens to you; enjoyment is something that you create through your own effort. Pleasure is the lightheadedness you get from a bit of grain alcohol; enjoyment is the satisfaction of a good wine, properly understood. Enjoyment is better than pleasure because it is more conscious and permanent. As Csikszentmihalyi points out, everyone gets pleasure from eating when they’re hungry, but it takes some knowledge and cultivation to enjoy food. What I think: Pleasure and enjoyment do not even have to coincide. I enjoy going to the gym, because I know that my voluntary effort will improve my body and health. But it usually isn’t very pleasant, because it is strenuous and often even physically painful. If I sought only pleasure, I would stay on my couch and inadvertently deny myself enjoyment, settling for a comfort that is animal and evanescent. It is a bad trade. What you can do: There is no reason to shun pleasure—just remember that it is incomplete. The recipe for enjoyment, which brings true happiness, is: Enjoyment = pleasure + people + memory. Make sure your holiday celebration isn’t primarily about the holiday drinks and food. Make it primarily about the people you are celebrating with, and do so in a way that you can enjoy the fun for years to come in the form of happy memories.