Hey, welcome back to practicing human, the podcast where every day we're getting a little better at life.

I'm your host, Corey Miscara, and in today's episode, we're going to talk about why concentration can be a happiness superpower.

More to come on that in a moment.

First, let's settle in together with the sound of the bells.

In each moment of being alive, we could say there exists two things.

There's what we want, and then there's what is actually here.

And our quest for a certain kind of peace and happiness often relies on closing that gap.

Now, much of the time, the way we go about closing that gap is trying to make our reality match what we want. So we manipulate the external variables of our life. And that's one way the gap can be

closed, but often that's a transient sort of satisfaction. Eventually, our want changes, and then we need to

continue to manipulate. There's another way to close the gap, though, which is to change what we want

to meet what is here.

And this is why concentration can be a happiness superpower or happiness hack.

Concentration closes the gap between what we want and what is here.

Not because we start falling in love with what is here or we convince ourselves

that we like what is present, but when we're fully attuned, fully focused, 100% concentrated on the

moment, there's no space in the mind for it to contemplate another reality.

And without that contemplation or dissonance, there's ease with the moment.

This can be true with very positive experiences, like being fully focused on a sunset

or a deep conversation with a loved one or friend.

But it can also be true with more intense experiences.

People in hospitals, like surgeons, often report this very deep quality of calm,

even when there's a lot of chaos in the operating room.

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