The Mind’s GPS: The Desires to Avoid Pain and to Seek Pleasure

Now, the great architect that designed our minds knew that in order to ensure that we remain fully focused on the mission of survival, our destination, if you will, we needed some sort of guidance system. This guidance system would tell us if we were on the right course or if we were off course for our purpose of survival. Now, for survival, while this was and is literally true, we can also substitute in for survival, happiness or a fulfilling life. So our current environment allows for that. As we're going to see, it used to just be about surviving. And that is literally what our programming is still set for. Now, this guidance system, the mind is constantly asking, is what we're doing or seeking bringing us closer to survival or closer to death? This GPS system would need a feedback signaling mechanism that told us if we were going off course towards death, if you will, or. Or if we're going in the right direction towards survival, happiness, right, fulfillment. This dual feedback system or signaling system are the signals of pain and pleasure. We are literally programmed to seek pleasure and avoid pain. Now, pain means that you're off course or veering off course. The message when you feel pain is get back on course quickly. Otherwise you'll continue to feel pain and perhaps even more pain and more intensely because you need to get the message that whatever you're doing is not taking you down the best path for survival. Get back on course. Now, pleasure means you're either on course or at least heading in the right direction for the purpose of survival. That's our mission. The message here is to keep doing what you're doing. Good job, you're surviving. That's the message of pleasure. There are two types of pain and pleasure guidance systems. There are physiological signals, meaning physical pain and pleasure signals. And then there are psychological signals, meaning mental pain and pleasure signals. An example of a physiological pain signal is what happens when you put your hand on a burning hot stove, right? It's hot, and you feel the pain. The signal is to remove it as soon as possible. What would happen if you left your hand there? It would burn a hole in your hand and you would bleed out. This would not be good for survival. So this pain signal is very clear, these physical pain signals, very clear. Now, an example of a physiological pleasure signal is the taste of food. We feel nourished. Hmm. This is obviously good for survival, provided, of course, we ate something that is healthy for us. So examples of psychological pain and pleasure signals are emotions. Emotions themselves are just signals of whether we're on the right path or not for the purpose, again, of survival. Now we have negative Motions that tell us we're on the wrong path. For instance, fear tells us that something is about to harm us and we need to prepare to fight or run flight right to get us back on the right path. Now we have positive motions that tell us we're on the right path in terms of our survival. For example, when we get a new job, we're happy because we now provide food for our family amongst other necessities for our survival. For our purposes, since we're discussing the mind, we're going to focus more on the psychological, which are emotions and feelings for the short term and moods for the long term. These physical signals are much easier and tangible to figure out anyway. The physical signals are. You get to actually experience them through the senses so they're more real. Emotions, feelings and moods are a bit more challenging to figure out. But who doesn't love a challenge? So this is interesting. Our guidance system operates by drugging us. It drugs our body to motivate us to do what's in our best interest in terms of survival. We're literally being drugged by our own body with substances that cause us to feel pleasure when we're on the right path and substances that cause us to feel pain when we're on the wrong path. These drugs are called neurotransmitters if they're from the nervous system and hormones if they're from the endocrine system for our purpose, it doesn't really matter which system they are from. These neurotransmitters and hormones are infused into our system to motivate us to stay on the optimal path to survival. But fulfillment, happiness, same thing, remember? But it does it by creating the emotion of desire in two different ways. Number one, seeking of the goal, right? We're going after the goal, right? So when we're on the right path towards the goal and making good progress towards the treasure, we're rewarded with consistent doses of the mood enhancing neurotransmitter called serotonin. It's infused into our systems all along the way around the right path. This is more of a long term gratification feeling and this can be sustained for longer periods of time. This is good since it contributes to the feeling of long term fulfillment, otherwise known as being in a good mood. This is the state of mind that's experienced. We're making progress towards our most important goals. Hunters in the old days would feel this all along the hunt. I felt this while preparing for this show, right? So the other way that we're motivated, maybe there's two ways. The other way that we're motivated is that we're rewarded for the actual attainment of the goal. We get the goal right. When we've achieved our goal, we get a generous dose of a different pleasurable neurotransmitter drug called dopamine. This ecstatic emotion from dopamine is a reward for the accomplishment of some big challenge. This is more like a short term gratification feeling represented by really strong emotions and feelings. It's important to note that these short term gratification experiences are aren't meant to happen too frequently, lest we burn ourselves out. An example of this is when we taste and swallow a great meal. We're motivated by the dopamine because it makes us feel good, really good, and we'll keep it PG here. But I'm sure you can think of other pleasurable rewards when huge amounts of dopamine are flooded into your system. Now you know why this makes you feel happy. Really happy.