The big question.

Do you want life to be a pleasure?

Or is life just hard, and there’s no getting away from it and you’re a deluded fool if you think otherwise?

I’m not prescribing. Just asking.

If you’re even vaguely interested in that part about pleasure …..follow me

The Pleasure Theory is a pleasure seeking project.

Not in a superficial, hedonistic, peel me a grape while I lounge on this chaise longue kind of a way, though if you have said furniture and grape peeling skills, do drop me a note.

No. This is serious pleasure. For the good of your health.

There are people working themselves sick in service of things that far from inspire them, actually do harm.

Do harm to the customers they’re pretending to be of service to.

Do harm to the staff who are working under incredible stress and pressure to achieve the harmful objectives

And/ or do harm to the suppliers who supply them

I’m in favour of the many ‘do no harm’ petitions springing up around the place, but I’d like that to be the minimum. After all how inspiring is it to go to work and at the end of the day come home satisfied having done no harm.

No! That will not do for us, my lovelies.

Let there be pleasure!

There are currently three parts to the project

Life’s a pleasure

Pleasure for everybody

So far, a nearly two years long research project focusing on what’s a pleasure throughout the year/s.

Reported in weekly blog posts to help you keep an eye on what’s a pleasure for you too.

Just keeping your eye on what’s a pleasure helps your endorphins keep you and your body happy.

There’s a getting it started post at the blog, titled The Year of Pleasure which describes the whole thing

And the weekly blog posts are all titled The Pleasure Report with their week number and a hint as to the highlight that week to tempt you.

For example The Pleasure Report Week 27. The everything changed edition

Work’s a pleasure

So far, nearly a year long research project looking at what’s a pleasure at work and what’s far from a pleasure.

Reported in a summary blog post A Year of Pleasure at Work

And a research paper to come.

Also, started Nov 2011, a series of interviews at the blog ‘When work’s far from a pleasure’.

The latest research states that 20% of people want to quit their jobs. They won’t tell you that they want to leave and they certainly won’t tell you why . They’re frightened, usually very stressed and they don’t have any examples of when asking for things to be different worked out well.

Even when they do leave, most won’t tell you the real reasons why at their exit interview as they don’t want to burn their bridges or have no faith that it will make any difference anyway.

But they will tell me. In fact there’s a queue waiting to tell me.

A large number of people are working themselves sick. That’s not ok with me

I want to know why people really want to leave.

Then the companies who want working for them to be a pleasure, can do something about it and keep a lot of people a lot happier.

And recruitment costs a lot lower.

For a lot of people that will require a completely new vision and to see that it can be done differently and that work could be a pleasure. The series of blog posts ‘when work’s far from a pleasure’ talks to people who have woken up and decided that they are not willing to go on the way they have been and make changes for themselves. Their stories inspire hope in those still struggling, that things can be different.