The dopamine factor

Hope deferred makes the heart sick,

but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life

Proverbs 13:12

 

When I first read the story of Jacob and Rachel in the Bible, I thought it was insane. Let me explain.

Jacob, as a young man, fled from home because a series of events bordering on sibling rivalry had pitched him against his brother and the latter was after his life. Prompted by his mother, Jacob fled to take refuge with a maternal uncle who had two daughters, Leah and Rachel. On meeting Rachel, it was love at first sight for Jacob and he was determined to have her as wife. When it came to the hearing of her father, he sounded pleased with the proposition. On one condition. For dowry, he wanted seven years of Jacob’s labour – without wages. Jacob promptly agreed because his love for Rachel was so strong that the seven years appeared like a few days in his eyes!

Unfortunately, on the completion of the seven-year service period, Jacob’s uncle gave him a bride alright but not the one he paid for! He got the elder sister instead, on the premise that it was against the customer to marry off a younger sister when her elder sister was still single. Nobody told him that earlier! Undeterred, Jacob, having consummated the marriage with Leah, insisted that he still wanted Rachel. So, he agreed to serve another seven years, making fourteen years, his enthusiasm sustained by his heart’s original desire!

Can you think of moments of joy and satisfaction when you went to bed literally with a smile on your face after what might have been a long, sometimes tiring, day? Or moments when you felt a sense of excitement, sometimes manifesting as anxiety when you are about to embark on a project or task that is of importance to you and which brings you out in your best element like fish in water? I am talking about moments when you know that your passion is about to be unleashed, even if it would be physically or financially tasking or even entail some stress.

As a public speaker who has stood on various platforms globally to deliver several Keynote speeches, I know what it is to have butterflies in your stomach. It’s a cross between anxiety and excitement. I love to teach. Both on the pulpit and in corporate environments. When I am asked to speak on a subject that engages my passion, I am practically unstoppable. I could be on my feet for hours and not understand anything called tiredness until it is all over. I look forward to such moments. Not because I want to hug the limelight – in my private life, I am quite reserved – but because I am in my best elements when I fell that I am adding significant value to people or an organization. I am convinced that every knowledge that I have invested in and which has helped me should be invested in others. And guess what? It is something that I would do for free or without a formal invitation. I put in the same efforts, and perhaps time, whether I am speaking to an audience of one or of thousands. Sometimes, I end up being physically fagged out and exhausted but I am literally bursting with the joy of fulfillment, knowing that I have not only done what I love doing, but that doing it has enabled me to make someone’s life more meaningful! That is the only thing that has kept this column going for almost thirteen years! In that period, what many of the readers don’t know is that sometimes, I have had to write from the discomfort of hospital beds going through some health challenges or while in transit between long flights with my eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep! I am very sure that there is at least one activity or task that you do even under some of the most harrowing conditions with no consideration for remuneration and yet you are very happy doing them and actually look forward to the next opportunity!

What is it that keeps champions awake while others are sleeping and rouses them from sleep earlier than most? I call it the dopamine factor! Sometimes referred to as a chemical messenger, dopamine is a type of neuro transmitter produced by the body and used by the nervous system to send messages between our nerve cells. Dopamine plays a big role in the way we feel or respond to pleasure and contributes largely to our capacity to think, plan, aspire, focus or find things interesting, from reading to sexual pleasure or any other thing or activity we have a desire for.

When there is too much of it in the system, it could lead to hyperactivity at a level that could lead to degeneration of certain functions. On the other hand, too little of it can cause depression, mood swings, lack of motivation, a constant feeling of boredom, attention deficit issues and other related conditions where the individual literally feels terrible about everything and may even lose the will to live because there is little or no motivation for staying alive! This is sometimes why many people take to hard drugs and alcohol to have the feel-good feeling. Unfortunately, with these indulgences, the feeling of pleasure is very short-lived and as time goes on, the individual finds that he needs to take more of the substances to get the same feelings.

One of the ways by which you can keep your dopamine at optimally functional levels is to look outside of yourself more often and derive pleasure from making life pleasurable for others. If you guide your life by the compass of your negative experiences, there is always a tendency to turn the pain inwards and lose every sense of joy and possible fulfillment. We were created and blessed for the advantage of others. No tree eats its own fruit. Every tree gets its nutrition and empowerment for fruitfulness from the environment when it is fulfilling its original mandate of producing fruit for others.

When we derive our greatest pleasure from putting a smile on the lips of others or helping them find pleasure and fulfillment while we are doing what we naturally would love to do, even if for free, we would soon discover that over time, what we are willing to do for others for free will begin to command a fee from its beneficiaries.

This has nothing to do with making others happy while you are miserable. You cannot give what you don’t have. Several public figures in business and entertainment live as recluses, have very unhappy marriages and many die terrible deaths. It is simply because there is a dissonance between their actual essence and their outward perception. It’s like an orange tree seeking success in producing mangoes because people pay more for mangoes!

Meaningful contribution and true enthusiasm only happen when you have connected with your inner being and discovered your real calling and you function in service to your world on that platform!

May your dopamine never run dry!

Remember, the sky is not your limit, God is!

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