Your mind loves a buffet! Learn to indulge it
Your brain loves choices. It especially loves a situation when all the choices are welcome. Look at the image above and notice how your eyes flit from one dish to the other.
We call this the buffet principle, and it is especially relevant to AI Happiness Accelerator. When your body-mind is presented with a plethora of potential outcomes, it revels in comparing the options and choosing.
If you have a belief that one or two emotional states are optimum, and others are less so, you may feel intrinsically limited. But if you know that there are disparate parts of you that value different states, and that you can choose the best feeling-state for you right this minute, and then a different one after that, and so on ad infinitum, stress goes away.
That's why at AHA we have a checklist that includes gratitude, awe, laughter, storytelling, art, music, the Hero's Journey, brainstorming, and curiosity, among others. When you ask yourself in any given moment, "which do I most feel like experiencing NOW?" you find yourself naturally relaxing into the best option.
The principle that the brain is organically attracted to variety applies even when there is NO perceived advantage attached to most of the choices.
Advertisers know this. For many years, Automobile companies have run ads showing examples of every model of car they sell, with a tagline such as "the most complete lineup of sedans, coupes, SUVs, crossovers, and trucks in the industry". This gets customers into the dealership, in spite of the fact that EVERY SINGLE ONE of those customers has ZERO intention of purchasing both a sedan, and a coupe, and a truck, and an SUV. They don't want 8 vehicles. But just the image of incredible variety is enticing, even if no one will be choosing all the options.
Try it for yourself. Run down a list of feeling states, such as our Portals, and ask yourself which would feel most welcome right NOW. Get used to the fact that you can choose, and choose again, and again. For more, see https://ai-happiness-accelerator.ghost.io/ghost/#/editor/post/68bc7b3f48c02000016da7fd
