The Paceline

Mick Jagger says he can’t get any and implies that no one – or at least Rolling Stones fans – can get any. I disagree.

Last week I watched an exquisitely timed, virtual presentation from the SMU Tate Lecture Series. Arthur Brooks was the presenter. “Increasing Your Happiness (even in a pandemic)” was the topic. The timing was perfect since my viewing occurred just before the shopping orgies of Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

There are soooo many cool, new things available in 2020 with great discounts. We are ending month number nine in this once-in-a-lifetime pandemic. It is so easy and so safe to shop online. It will be good for the economy if I buy some stuff. It will be good for me (aka I will be happier) if I can just decide what I want.

The big question: What will SATISFY me?

And this is where Professor Brooks stepped in to save the day. He quoted the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, who said: “We need to learn how to want what we have, not have what we want in order to get steady and stable happiness.”

That is the rare combination of profound and simple as it stands in a sentence. Brooks made it even simpler. He turned it into an equation:

Satisfaction = Haves / Wants

He said that to raise your level of satisfaction, you need to raise your haves and lower your wants. For mathematicians, that means manage your denominator.

He referred to the bucket list as the worst concept in America. But a great way to manage that is to take one day a year – perhaps your birthday – and throw away a bunch of your wants.

How satisfying.