Why Does Satisfaction Often Feel Temporary?

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Satisfaction is defined as the fulfilling of a need, wish or expectation, and the pleasant feeling of contentment, gratification, or happiness that comes with it. Whether it stems from accomplishing a goal, enjoying a well-done job, or receiving compensation for a grievance, it represents a state of being fully appeased. When satisfied, a person feels contentment, fulfillment, gratification, pleasure, enjoyment.

The thing is, though, that these feelings don’t last very long. I enjoy a delicious meal and four hours later I am hungry again. Sometimes the feeling can last a bit longer. I accomplish a desired goal and my life becomes better, but then another desire pops up that needs to be satisfied. A political candidate or an athlete will have no complete satisfaction until the election or the game is won.

Psychology tells us that satisfaction is temporary primarily due to “hedonic adaptation,” the brain’s psychological mechanism that returns us to a baseline level of happiness after major positive or negative events. On the level of evolution, permanent contentment would have stopped our ancestors from seeking further improvements, meaning this constant drive ensures species survival.

Interestingly, research has shown that the achievement of such goals as wealth, beauty and fame actually makes people less happy. These factors do not promote overall life satisfaction. Researchers noticed that gratification of desires is not always beneficial for one’s psychological health or emotional well-being. Those who achieve material benefits quickly are more likely to experience negative emotions, such as shame and anger, and ailments such as headaches, stomach aches, and lethargy.

Is it possible to attain complete and long-term satisfaction? It turns out that it is, that people who have aspired to spiritual goals are more physically fit, feel more positive, keep strong social relationships with their close ones and experience less stress. There is a fascinating and elegant teaching that explains how we can attain complete satisfaction called the wisdom of Kabbalah, the science of the correct perception of true reality: what it is and how it is manifested.

Kabbalah teaches a method for attaining inner connection of souls with each other. As we progress in practice, we begin to feel that this connection, this unity, is positive in and of itself because it gives us additional strength, better relationships, confidence, and a good mood. We find this personally beneficial and begin to value the actual connection and the quality of bestowal itself. We realize that this is the purpose of our lives!

This is the inversion of our innate egoism into altruism, sometimes called bestowal, that inner state in which we derive all our pleasure from caring for others before ourselves. It is the activation of the rule that we are to love others before ourselves. Our unification fulfills all of our desires, even the desires for money, fame, power, knowledge, food, sex, and family.

Thus, it turns out that unity and bestowal enable us to attain complete satisfaction.

To learn more about the fascinating world of the wisdom of Kabbalah, you may go here.

https://www.kabbalah.info/