Living a Life of Pleasure via Enlightened Hedonism

A couple of definitions, according to Google:

1. Hedonism: the pursuit of pleasure; sensual self-indulgence.
2. Enlightened: having or showing a rational, modern, and well-informed outlook; spiritually aware.

The paradigm image of hedonism, in my mind, is shooting drugs while screwing a random stranger in the midst of an orgy and shovelling chocolate into your mouth. But imagine what happens when pleasure is pursued not with mindlessness, but with mastery: instead of merely rushing from one high to the next while his life crumbles, the master of hedonism is going to work, paying taxes, getting exercise, eating healthy food, and doing all kinds of other things that typify a Type-A personality more than the typical activities of a rock star. Because all that Type-A stuff creates a better overall life--provided it is pursued for the right reasons, and a little fun is thrown in with it.

Here's the essence of the practice. The concept is simple, though the realization of the concept is of course much more difficult:

1. Imagine your entire life, from start to finish.
2. Imagine how you would like to live that life. Include all aspects of the human experience, be it physical, mental, spiritual, religious, political, environmental--anything.
3. Create a plan that will allow you to live that life as much as possible.
4. Frequently review the plan. Things change.

Step 3 is obviously a doozy. I doubt there is a single human being alive who can claim they are perfect at step 3, and only a few would dare to suggest they're pretty good at it. Step 2 is even harder, oddly enough. Anyone with a good imagination will have trouble choosing amid the myriad possibilities, and finding the right fit for you is even harder. The important thing is to try and not to be afraid of failing. Failure happens. Learn from it, and try again. In fact, don't think about failure as failure, but as learning.

If I ever get the hang of these steps, I'll let you know. It might be a while. But I have always found them valuable to contemplate and pursue. Every time I do, my life gets better.