Perhaps half our problem is that we feel compelled to make the world even more frantic than it already is. Carl Jung said, “Hurry is not of the devil; hurry is the devil.”
Daniel Lieberman wrote a book titled The Molecule of More about dopamine.
That’s a good description of what dopamine does in our neurochemistry: More! Dopamine is essential; multiple diseases, including Parkinson’s, emerge from discordant dopamine pathways. Dopamine is the molecule which rewards progress. It’s at the heart of every positive feedback loop in our behaviors, whether doing nice things for people or clicking on links or shooting drugs into our veins. Maybe we should have named dopamine Moremoremoremoremore.
Problem: Dopamine doesn’t care about your happiness or joy, it only cares about more. Dopamine does not want you to pause and reflect, smell the flowers, quietly absorb a sunset. Onward! Get back to more! Take 32 pictures of that sunset and go on to the next thing that’s picture-worthy! (Yes, I am anthropomorphizing a catechol structure with amine group attached via an ethyl chain. Put the chem-nerd hat away and let me make my point!)
Dopamine power makes it hard to enjoy the present. To be with people without distraction. To sit quietly, wordlessly with a loved one or friend.
Many people achieve a big goal and find they’re not happy. Dopamine doesn’t want you to be happy with accomplishment, just say “Next!” and keep doing more.
There are other neurochemicals (e.g., oxytocin and endocannabinoids) which DO make you want to enjoy the moment. But they are significantly less powerful than dopamine. They can run the show temporarily at best, until dopamine grabs the controls again. Dopamine doesn’t gently press the accelerator pedal, it stomps on it.
Unchecked dopamine-fueled quests for MORE lead to workaholism, burnout, addictions, dysfunctional relationships, depression. This dopamine destruction warps our perspectives about truth, beauty, and love.
We must cultivate and consciously increase the levels of the ‘here and now’ molecules. Aside from some diseases, we don’t need to elevate our dopamine. We need to intentionally act in ways that bring on the oxytocin and endocannabinoids. [No, I am not advocating marijuana, I’m using the technical term for your natural neurochemicals.]
How? Everything you can do to be present in the moment. Create. Play music. Paint, draw, journal, write, laugh, dance. Meditate, pray. Celebrate. Watch the clouds and the stars. Fast from mindless consumption of media. Good conversation. Sabbath rest. Travel with a relaxed agenda, enjoying unplanned moments instead of resenting them. Kairos time not chronos time.
These are where happiness is found.
I want to highlight one dopamine-fighting activity for you: Mastering a skill. Mastery requires 100% focus over periods of time. Mastery requires prodding yourself forward through long plateaus. This kind of effort – and it is effort! – releases the neurochemicals you need to counter the More molecule. True mastery is finding joy in just doing the craft, not checking yourself every 11 minutes to see if you’ve improved. Time disappears in the mastery journey.
I emphasize mastering a skill because we don’t celebrate this enough. Mastery is foundational to building individual maturity, healthy families, and institutions. A culture that honors mastery will be healthier than a culture built on exploiting dopamine destruction for profit.
It’s interesting that for thousands of years smart and wise people who knew nothing of neurochemistry knew what was best. This is ancient wisdom. We need to push and to recover. We benefit from stress only if we also have recovery, otherwise we get into distress.
(Note: I am indebted to a presentation from Perry Marshall for most of these ideas about countering dopamine destruction.)
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Another aid to keeping dopamine in the healthy range is curiosity.
There is a high correlation between curiosity and success in life and business. One of my elders reminds me often that the secret of staying youthful is being curious and remaining open to learning new things. “That’s how to be child-like but not childish,” he says.
Another mentor gave me this list of reasons to cultivate curiosity:
“1. It keeps you learning and growing
2. It helps you spot opportunities others miss
3. It makes you a better listener
4. It fuels creativity and innovation
5. It makes you more interesting (which is great for networking)”
He went on to tell me this:
Challenge yourself this week to go into every conversation, every meeting, every problem situation, and every bit of content you consume with genuine curiosity. “Why?” and “How?” should be frequent questions to help you dig deeper.
This will open doors.
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These are unsettled days, aren’t they?
Two stories come to mind from the 1989 revolution in Romania that led to the swift fall of the dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. A pastor named Lazlo Tokes was protected by a crowd of about 10,000 people surrounding his church from the security forces who came to take he and his family away. He led the crowd in repeatedly praying the Lord’s Prayer. Understand, this is in an environment where even a shred of religion was violently suppressed. “Deliver us from evil,” they collectively prayed, over and over. The second story is about a public speech delivered by Ceausescu to about 250,000 people assembled in a massive square. Ceausescu bragged about one accomplishment after another to help the Romanian people. An old woman yelled out “Liar!” Then ten more yelled “Liar!” and then it became hundreds and thousands.
Tyranny and dictatorships only work through fear. Even a crack in that fear becomes a tear that destroys them from within. George Kennan understood this about the Soviet Union, calling on the Western democracies to contain the Soviets externally knowing that eventually it would collapse from within. (Churchill, Eisenhour, Thatcher, Pope John Paul II, and Reagan knew this, too.)
What can individuals do? Pray. Call out lies. To those secularists who scoff at the idea of “spiritual weapons” I say, remember Hamlet. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” There is more science, more wonder, more history, more divine than we can fully grasp, but it’s all there.
I hope these things encourage you as much as they do me.