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I recently came across a survey - thoroughly informal - that has stuck in my head. The question was simple: "What do you think about while taking a shower?" The results lingered, like the smell of Irish Spring soap, because it was a rare example of me being more evolved than the typical respondent.
So what did the typical respondent say? He or she ran through a to-do list for the day ahead!
And what do I do in the shower? On occasion, I think about the importance of rinsing shampoo out of my hair. But I usually think, if that is even the right word, that I am really enjoying the shower.
Showers are not guilty pleasures. They are not among the seven deadly sins. They are neither immoral nor illegal. They are simply enjoyable. So why don't more of us just enjoy them?
There are few pleasures that we can savor without qualification or misgivings. Showers are among them. So savor your shower already! Research into savoring by positive psychologists Fred Bryant and Joseph Veroff is very clear that we can best savor a pleasurable experience - make it last - by throwing ourselves into it without distractions.
To-do lists, however important they may be outside of a shower, are a major distraction when you are naked and wet. Do you take a paper and pad into the shower? Can you actually check off anything on your list? Are you thoroughly alienated from pleasure?
(An occasional response to the survey, by the way, was that people in a shower thought about sex. I won't touch that.)
The good life is richly local. Some of it resides in the shower.
Enjoy your next shower. And do not think about anything, even this blog entry.
