Iris Mauss

So preferences with a light touch are good for our mental health and well-being.

It's the need and the concern that we want to get away from.

I would tell myself that it's okay to prefer to have a wonderful birthday party, but that I don't need it to be special.

The perfect birthday party where all the kids are completely happy 100% of the time.

And that my son and my life and all the important things are going to be okay, even if it's not.

Yes, I would say that.

Feeling joy, feeling happiness is a universal human preference.

So I'm not saying we should get rid of all of those books and all of the advice, but I do think we need to fine-tune a little bit just how single-mindedly we go about the pursuit.

as well as how we go about that pursuit.

So connecting with other people, engaging in experiences over material goods, those are things that tend to work.

It's actually pretty difficult to do, at least for me, because the way we encounter happiness, the way we encounter positive and negative emotions is really deeply ingrained in our upbringing and in our culture.

So these are deeply ingrained habits of the mind.

And so even though it's literally doing nothing, not judging, not trying to control, it can be really difficult for people to do it.

But I absolutely try to do it.

And one example where I feel like I succeeded is when I reconnected with my childhood friend after...

really long time she actually had gone through cancer and had surgery and chemotherapy she was in recovery but still seeing her physically it was difficult and there were many feelings of sadness and grief for seeing what she had to go through the toll it had taken on her body and

I think I managed to stay with those feelings because I was able to see how the journey of going through cancer, it's a normal reaction.

It's part of life.

And

What it feels like is almost like watching clouds in the sky or watching a peaceful river go by, right?