What If Pleasure Wasn't The Last Thing On Your To-Do List?

My parents recently adopted a rescue dog.

And this dog has clearly been through a lot.

A. Lot.

She's so traumatised that, from what I've observed, she seems to have only two states of being.

One is hypervigilance.

She's 150% on. Constantly scanning her surroundings, jumping at the slightest noise or movement, always expecting the next threat. Her whole system seems to be bracing for whatever might happen next.

And the other?

Exhaustion.

Sleeping. Completely knocked out from being so relentlessly activated.

And what struck me was what seemed to be missing between those two states.

No relaxed curiosity. No playfulness. No simply enjoying being alive.

And I thought:

Fuck. That's How A Lot Of People Live.

Constantly oscillating between being tense, braced, on high alert - and being so overwhelmed and exhausted that all they want to do is shut down, sleep, and not hear or see anything anymore.

And somewhere between those two states, we've forgotten about pleasure.

About being in our bodies.

About playing. Enjoying. Connecting to ourselves and to other people.

About the sheer pleasure of being alive.

We've Got The Whole Thing Backwards.

Look at how our society is set up.

Productivity. Output. Performance.

How much did you get done today? What did you achieve? What's next?

Somewhere along the way, we've started treating productivity as a measure of our worth.

And then there's the constant stream of bad news. Wars. Crises. The next terrible thing happening somewhere in the world.

Always something else to worry about.

I sometimes wonder how much of our current societal setup actually depends on keeping people in precisely those two states.

Either activated, tense, bracing for the next thing.

Or overwhelmed, exhausted, and too depleted to do much of anything.

Because people who are constantly busy surviving, performing, consuming, or recovering from their exhaustion have very little room left to question how they're actually living.

And pleasure?

Pleasure Gets Squeezed In Somewhere At The End.

When the work is done. When the emails are answered. When the house is clean. When the children are asleep.

When we finally have the time, energy, and headspace.

Take sex, for example.

You're in a partnership. Both of you spend your days oscillating between being tense and overwhelmed. And then, at some point, you remember:

Oh yeah. We're in a relationship. We should probably have sex.

So you squeeze it in.

Another thing to do. Another thing to get done.

And perhaps you're both so disconnected from your bodies, from your own pleasure, and from each other that the whole thing ends up feeling rather shallow and unfulfilling.

Not because there's necessarily anything wrong with your relationship.

But because you've made pleasure another task.

And here's the irony: even when we decide to prioritise pleasure, we can turn that into another productivity project.

Schedule the self-care. Optimise the relaxation. Make sure we're getting the most out of our pleasure.

And suddenly we're performing at enjoying ourselves.

I think we've gotten the whole thing backwards.

Everything Starts And Ends With Pleasure.

And when I say pleasure, I don't necessarily mean sex.

I don't mean having orgasms all day.

I mean revelling in existence.

Actually taking in, enjoying, and celebrating what's right in front of you.

Rather than merely consuming it.

Because there's a difference.

And I see that difference in the smallest things.

The other day, I went out for dinner.

And I could have treated it as just another meal.

Sit down. Order. Eat. Look at my phone. Pay. Leave.

Done. Fed. Next.

But why would I?

I had this lovely meal in front of me. Someone else had prepared it. I didn't have to cook or clean up afterwards. And I had the money to enjoy that experience.

That's Something Worth Celebrating.

So I took in the sight of my food.

I leaned in to smell it. Let the scent land in my body.

And then I enjoyed every bite.

The flavours. The textures. The little details.

Not just eating.

Revelling.

And I felt grateful.

For the food. For the people who prepared it. For being able to sit there and enjoy it. Even for having the money to spend on it.

Because isn't that lovely?

You get to have money. And you get to spend some of it on something that gives you pleasure.

Suddenly, the whole experience becomes something very different from simply feeding yourself.

You're not just consuming.

You're celebrating.

Have You Ever Really Eaten An Ice Cream?

I have a few favourite ice cream places in Amsterdam.

And sometimes I go there on my own.

Now, when you're sitting somewhere alone with an ice cream, it's tempting to pull out your phone.

Scroll a little. Read something. Distract yourself.

But I don't want to distract myself from the ice cream.

I want to have the ice cream.

I want to look at it.

Smell it.

Taste it.

Feel the coldness on my tongue. The texture. The flavour.

Watch how it almost poetically melts.

And savour every bit of it.

Not wolf it down while looking at something on a screen.

Because then I've eaten an ice cream, sure.

But how much of that ice cream have I actually experienced?

You Can Take Something Completely Ordinary And Make It Extraordinary. Simply By How You Meet It.

I think that's a huge part of what Tantra is about.

Not necessarily elaborate rituals, exotic practices, or extraordinary experiences.

But how much of what's already here are you actually taking in?

You Don't Need A Lot Of Money To Live Pleasurably.

I can already hear someone saying:

Yeah, well, that's easy to say when you have a lot of money. When you're not in survival mode. When you have the luxury of time.

And of course, having enough money and not having to worry about your basic needs makes a difference.

I'm not suggesting that one magical ice cream is going to solve financial insecurity.

But pleasure itself doesn't have to be expensive.

It doesn't even have to cost anything.

You can go outside and delight in nature.

You can take pleasure in your own body.

In the way the sun feels on your skin.

In a flower.

In the scent of something beautiful.

In your lover's body.

In something you've eaten a thousand times before but never really paid attention to.

One of my daily pleasures is freshly squeezed grapefruit juice with water.

And I serve it in a celebratory glass.

Not because it's a special occasion.

Because You Don't Need A Special Occasion To Celebrate Being Alive.

Whenever I'm home in Amsterdam, I also buy myself a lily for my altar.

One of those big, gloriously fragrant ones.

And I absolutely love it.

I smell it in the morning. In the evening. Whenever I pass by.

Sometimes I deliberately stop just to take it in.

It's one flower.

And it adds so much pleasure to my everyday life.

These aren't big, extravagant things.

They're small acts that make everyday life magical.

What Happens When Pleasure Comes First?

Most people seem to approach pleasure as something they'll allow themselves once everything else has been taken care of.

When I've finished my work, I'll relax.

When I have more money, I'll enjoy life.

When I have the headspace, I'll make time for pleasure.

But what if it's the other way around?

What if pleasure isn't the reward for having lived your life productively?

What If Pleasure Is Where You Begin?

Because I notice something very different in myself when my pleasure cup is full.

When I'm taking pleasure in the little things. When I'm celebrating what I already have. When I'm connected to my body and enjoying e - ver - y bit of my existence.

I see the world differently.

I notice more beautiful things.

I feel more grateful.

I'm more playful. More open. More curious.

And I seem to encounter more things to take pleasure in.

Call it an energetic signature, an energetic baseline, or simply the way your attention shapes what you notice and how you meet the world.

The difference is very real to me.

When you're constantly depleted, bracing for what's next, and looking at everything that's missing or going wrong, it's incredibly difficult to access pleasure.

And because you're not taking much pleasure in your life, you remain depleted.

It's a miserable little cycle.

But when you start deliberately filling your pleasure cup, even in the smallest ways, something begins to shift.

Not because all your problems magically disappear.

But because you're no longer waiting for your life to become different before you allow yourself to enjoy it.

You start enjoying the life that's already here.

And perhaps that changes what you have the capacity to meet, create, and receive next.

Pleasure As An Act Of Resistance.

In a world that constantly asks us to produce, perform, consume, keep up, and worry about the next thing, there's something rather radical about deliberately taking pleasure in being alive.

About deciding that your worth isn't determined by how productive you've been today.

That you don't need to earn the right to enjoy yourself.

That pleasure isn't something you squeeze in when everything else is done.

And that an ordinary Tuesday is as good a day as any to get out the beautiful glasses.

To buy yourself flowers.

To enjoy your food as if it were the most delicious thing you've ever tasted.

To touch your lover as if you see them for the first time.

To be playful.

To be here.

Stop Merely Consuming Your Existence And Start Taking Pleasure In It.

Because this is your life.

Not the thing that happens after you've finished your to-do list.

This.

Right here.

And I, for one, intend to enjoy the fuck out of it.

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