The Pleasure Reports are notes on the pleasure I found in my life each week. This purposeful focus on pleasure began in 2010. I was working with countless managers who were working themselves sick, our aim was to establish new ways of working that would not make them sick. And then realising that whilst ‘not sick’ might have been a good aim to start with, it was a terrible one to stop at. How about ways of working that are a pleasure?! And so the study of pleasure began with The Pleasure Reports – a weekly record of -how many things were a pleasure -how many a pain and -what the pain to pleasure ratio was that week. I thought I’d do it for one year and ended up carrying on for three. You can read the whole story of how it began here and here.
Straight into this, week 8 in The Year of Pleasure
The Pleasure
Twenty seven points this week. Twenty four last week.
A selection of the pleasure
Balm useful again
Wherever my gentlemanfriend is, you can be sure it will be a better place because he is there.
The atmosphere will be good.
Ways of getting along and getting things done, despite the politics and personalities, will somehow surface.
He hasn’t learned diplomacy, he is diplomacy.
It’s not so much a conscious thing, it’s more like it just oozes out of his pores and everyone around him benefits.
And, as he emits and others receive this balm, he thrives.
A few months back he was made redundant, his world shrunk and whilst his spirits are good enough, the opportunities for thriving by emitting have been severely restricted.
This week, two viable opportunities have come up and there’s hope in the air again.
It’s so good to see.
And he wore his lucky pants* for the interview, so it’s in the bag now, wouldn’t you say.
*In the UK pants are underwear.
Cricket air
The air has the softness of spring for the first time this year.
And as we walk there’s a moment when we both notice and remark on it and enjoy the soft waft and my son says it has a smell too…
It takes him in a flashback to days playing cricket.
I love this. Not being in too much of a rush to notice the delicate strands of things.
And to share them is properly gorgeous.
The Pain
Eleven points this week. Four last week.
The well of appreciation ran dry.
The matter was domestic and my culinary efforts were not only not appreciated but were ignored and went cold in favour of sticking with an addiction x-box game.
The Pain I did something about.
Dinner’s in the dog
It wasn’t pretty.
There was very little of the nonviolent communication which is my preferred way of settling matters.
There were raised voices and little coherence but I made my point.
And it has been noted.
All in all
This (the year of pleasure) is proving to be a very reassuring exercise.
Effectively, each week I’m pointing out to myself all that there is in my life.
All the instances where there is beauty, love, growth, abundance, celebration, fun, closeness, sharing, encouragement, support and on and on it goes.
I’m finding it hard not to be spontaneously grateful and happy.
And the wisdom this week. Seeing all that there is in my life, makes me stop looking out to the future for some idealised fantasy version of these needs, out there somewhere in a better day, but to see I have them here and they look like this.
I feel safe and reassured and stronger.
It’s also showing me, much more clearly, the times when my needs are not met. It’s good to see those clearly and (mostly) without drama or tension. So I can apply the February miracle of letting them be met quite easily and certainly without struggle.
How about you?
I’d love to hear from you in the comments
Your pleasure, pain or pain you did something about?
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