Pleasure vs. Happiness

All happiness stems from just two sources: pleasure and true happiness. Pleasures like cake or Coke provide fleeting spikes of joy, while true happiness found through personal growth provides snowballing bliss.

The problem is, pleasures today are so potent and addictive that we fill our free time with endless beers, burritos and Netflix, hopping between happiness highs while our true, underlying happiness wanes.

So let’s enjoy pleasures like we enjoy junk food – in moderation, without the expectation of enduring happiness. In turn, let’s enrich our diets with true happiness through volunteering, exercising, traveling, learning, practicing passions, socializing and staying fit.

– Chris Butsch, The Millennial’s Guide to Making Happiness