Pleasure

[plezh-er] 

noun

1. the state or feeling of being pleased.

2. enjoyment or satisfaction derived from what is to one’s liking; gratification; delight.

3. worldly or frivolous enjoyment: the pursuit of pleasure.

4. recreation or amusement; diversion; enjoyment: Are you traveling on business or for pleasure?

5. sensual gratification.

I just finished reading Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.  If you haven’t read this book, please, go buy it and read it. (Just a tip, I found mine at Goodwill for 99 cents!)  It’s a quick read; for me, the way she writes just makes it flow so smoothly, you can easily read the entire book in a couple of days.  It’s a book about her journey after a terrible divorce and deciding spend a year traveling to Italy, India and Indonesia to get closer to God and just sort of find herself.  That being said, it’s not a preachy book by any means and even though the book inspired this post, this post will in no way be preachy either.  However, I did LOVE being able to almost go through her journey with her!  I recently found out there is an Ashram just outside of Boulder (if you don’t know what that is and haven’t read the book yet, you’ll understand what that is when you get to the India section).  I’m rather curious and have considered checking it out, we’ll see.

Anywho, her first journey through Italy discusses pleasure and what that means to her.  Which got me thinking, what does it mean to me and what does it mean to other people?!  This is probably a book club-esque topic, however, since I don’t belong to a book club, a blog will have to do.  Now, I’m pretty sure everyone can easily define pleasure in terms of sex and intimacy.  That’s pretty much a given (or you’re probably having a pretty rough marriage).  However, I’m curious to know how other people define pleasure.  Generally, I don’t look for any comments at all on my posts, but this one will be different.  I would like to know how you define pleasure.  Respond anonymously if that makes you feel more comfortable, I’m just curious.

I’ve had a few days to think about how what pleasure means to me and if someone asked, how I would respond.  I feel like I have a very blessed life, therefore, I really think the things I could list in response to this question are nearly endless.  However, I came up with a few that would top the list.  Some are petty, materialistic things, and some are deeper, more meaningful things, but they all bring me pleasure: (in no particular order…)

• Iced coffee
• My family and friends, dogs included
• My husband (yes, he gets his own bullet point, he’s that important)
• Sitting on the side of a mountain listening to a waterfall or a creek run by, enjoying nature and taking in how amazing it all is and how lucky I am to be able to bask in its greatness
• Beautiful skies (I say this and not sunsets or sunrises because I think the night sky with the millions of stars or a day with beautiful blue skies and white puffy clouds can be just as wonderful)
• Love (feeling it, seeing it, giving it, receiving it, everything about it)
• Shopping
• Reading
• Meaningful, deep conversations where people don’t get defensive and aggressively argumentative, but can actually have an intelligent conversation with someone they disagree with without becoming childish (generally involving politics, religion or some hot topic)
• Best friends (Also get a separate category; I also, in writing this, have realized I needed to change this from friend to friends.  Even though we are states away and haven’t known each other all that long, I think I definitely made a best friend in Houston 🙂 )

Welp, there’s ten.  I’m very curious to hear from others.  I’m wondering if people also define pleasure differently.  To me, it’s something that makes me happy, something I enjoy.  Perhaps there are other ways to interpret the word and the feeling you get from it.  Let me know!