How to Succeed Like Albert Einstein Driven By Mental Pleasure

What pre-occupies you mentally can turn into an occupation that earns you a living. It was true for?Albert Einstein.?For him a particular mental gift mattered the most, namely imagination. He said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.” If you can find your mental pleasure and you can succeed like Albert Einstein.

Einstein derived pleasure from his intellectual work because it allowed him to explore his curiosity, use his imagination and creativity, and challenge himself intellectually. The beauty of the universe could be discovered through the application of imagination and the scientific method, and this provided his work with a sense of pleasure.

The Joy of Mental Pleasure

Mental pleasure is a source of joy for people like Einstein. Figuring things out, understanding and explaining them is such a thrill to him. It is a pleasure that surpassed all others. In whatever he did, he found a way to devote a great deal of time and energy to mental work. Everything else was secondary to insight and understanding.

Lovers of Mental Pleasure

Among the people who love to live for mental pleasure are intellectuals, scientists, mathematician, philosophers, engineers, software developers, architects, doctors, lawyers and the list goes on. They are willing to make sacrifices to bring clarity to ideas. They derive joy from the act of pushing back the frontiers of ignorance. Sometimes such new knowledge has far reaching implications for the human race.

It can have useful applications in technology, health, communications, transports, and so on. It can set the stage for important discoveries. They do mental work, designing solutions in their minds is fun, using their imaginations and calculations is pleasure. To them, mental work is pleasurable work.

Einstein’s mental pleasure?was derived from following his curiosity as far as it could take him. As he put it, “I want to know God’s thoughts, the rest [is] details”? He wanted to understand how everything is put together. “I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious,” he said.

We like to think we are smart. We like the feeling of being knowledgeable. If you asked someone for directions or guidance most people will attempt to direct you even when they don’t not clear about the answer. We like being considered knowledgeable.

One of 12 Categories of Pleasure

Mental pleasure is one of the 12 categories of pleasure that I discussed in my previous articles. They comprise pleasures in relations to sensory, emotional, moral, freedom, progress, power, wealth, technology, spiritual and pleasures that are to die for. It is a rare individual who gets to enjoy most of them. Most people only enjoy a few of these thoroughly.

You should enjoy some of them. I would like to believe that we are here on this planet to enjoy life, and that such joy stems from all kinds of pleasures. There is no other reason to be here. Whatever other goal drives us, is intermediary. The ultimate destination of our desires is to enjoy life. A good life includes the experience of mental work and pleasure from it.

Albert Einstein enjoyed mental and moral pleasure. He took a stand on human rights, have suffered under anti-Semitic discrimination during the early part of his life in Europe. He is also one those few scientists who believed in God, so he enjoyed a spiritual pleasure too. However, mental pleasure was his choice of pleasure at the buffet table of pleasure.

Thought Experiments

So let us accompany Albert Einstein, around the buffet table of pleasure. We will dish out helpings of mental pleasure but before we start dishing out, let us consider what constitutes the pleasure of mental understanding. It is also interesting to note that a few centuries back in some of our societies, thinking and using your imagination would not have been considered work at all. Today you can earn a living doing that, provided to you share the fruits of your musings. Work can be anything depending on time and place.

Einstein was known for his ability to engage in “thought experiments,” which allowed him to explore complex concepts and ideas in his mind without the need for physical experiments or equipment. This mental work was highly stimulating for him, and he found great pleasure in the process of imagining and exploring the possibilities of the universe.

Losing Mental Pleasure is Costly

When you lose the joy of knowledge and understanding, of making sense of the life around and within, you stop learning. That means you stop growing. Soon your concept of the world will be so out of touch with reality it will be difficult to function in society. Your mental map of the world will be frozen in time and cause you frustration when it fails you.

You can trip and bump your head as you walk into your mental blind spots and disappear into pitfalls that could have been avoided. If acquiring knowledge is perceived as a source pain due to the way it is presented, then you lose the mental pleasure that would motivate you to learn. Without the mental pleasure that enables you to learn, understand, make good decisions, develop the skill to put knowledge into action, you would be poorly equipped to function in a modern society.

Albert Einstein believed that the beauty of the universe could be discovered through the application of reason and the scientific method, and this provided him with a sense of purpose and meaning in life.

He sums up mental pleasure of using his imagination in these words, “The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.”

To Succeed Like Albert Einstein

You may not equal his achievements, but you can follow his approach by doing something that gives you pleasure and do it for a living. What is your mental pleasure? His was imagination. Maybe you like to amuse others and tell jokes, or tell stories, or simplify complex ideas, or think up new ways, or synthesize by combining two or more different ideas, or challenge old ways, or present old ideas in a refreshing way, or you just love learning and growing your knowledge.

Whatever makes up your mental pleasure, do not second guess yourself, just pursue it relentlessly. If you like getting your head in the clouds, you can succeed like Albert Einstein even if you do not equal his achievement.