The Sweet Spot Book Summary - The Sweet Spot Book explained in key points

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The Sweet Spot summary

Name: The Sweet Spot
Rating: 4.5 (725 reviews)
Author: Paul Bloom

Paul Bloom

The Pleasures of Suffering and the Search For Meaning

4.5 (725 ratings)

21 mins

Table of Contents

The Sweet Spot
summarized in 5 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 5

What's in it for me? Find the sweet spot between pain and pay-off.

So, you like salt and vinegar crisps. You like the pinch at the back corner of your mouth, and though it doesn’t overwhelm, you love the sensory kick it gives you. Or maybe you’re into habanero sauce; you're into the perfumey fragrance of the chili that snakes its way through your sinuses – that fiery, blinding pain that stops everything, all thought and time. How about pushing yourself at the gym – doing that one last squat as your thighs quiver at the exertion?

Sounds like punishment, but there’s always a pay-off. There’s always gratification at the end of these ordeals.

So what is it about that feeling – that mix of pleasure and pain? Why do so many of us microdose on uncomfortable experiences like this? Is this our way of flirting with our mortality? We all know that at some point we’ll meet death and so maybe this is a way of forcing ourselves to remember that life is meant to be felt.

OK, yes, with some perspective, the kind of pain that I’ve just described can be read as “trivial” – a fleeting, instant bit of suffering, for a moment of pleasure. So what about the more serious or more meaningful choices that we make voluntarily that also result in the potential for pain? Like going to fight in a war, or donating a kidney? What’s going on there – why do so many of us sign up for that?

These are some of the conundrums The Sweet Spot gets into. It doesn’t claim to be the authority on the human appetite for pain and suffering, but it does share some interesting insights, which can give us pause for thought.

The pleasures of pain

Recently some of my friends have gotten into winter dipping. It’s this thing where in the bright, crisp coldness of winter, they go out to a lake, strip down into their swimming gear, brace themselves against the freezing air, and then, with their hands raised above their heads, wade into the icy water until they’re neck-deep. It’s so cold they can only be in there for a few seconds. But when they come back, they aren’t shivering intensely, as you might expect – they’re buzzing with energy, laughing, sparkling with an almost uncontainable joy.You probably have your own version of that type of experience, where you put yourself in an intense situation to feel something that’s both uncomfortable and blissful – too-much, but in a good way. These experiences all fall under a category researcher Paul Rozin calls “benign masochism.”Masochism was described by Freud as a pathology, a sign that we are mentally ill. I mean, choosing to hurt ourselves goes against all our survival instincts, doesn’t it? But benign masochism involves experiences that aren’t harmful or destructive in the long run. These kinds of experiences can actually make our lives more pleasurable.

Okay, now you might be wondering: How could short-term pain lead to pleasure?

Getting out of your head, and finding joy in effort

But contrast isn’t the only reason that people choose punishing experiences. There’s another very important motive, and this is it: pain can get us out of our heads.

To illustrate this, let’s look at the practice of BDSM. BDSM stands for “Bondage, Domination, Submission, Masochism.” It’s a sexual practice that’s been popularized by books like 50 Shades of Grey, and it’s a practice that involves power play, where one partner dominates another, sometimes with the use of pain. Participants could be tied up, or whipped, or spanked, or choked, or even shocked with an electric current. A very important proviso here, though: BDSM is consensual. All participants explicitly agree on what they’re comfortable doing, before they get into it. And like other benignly masochistic practices, the one experiencing the pain always, always has the power to stop it. And that’s absolutely essential to how BDSM is performed.

What’s the point? Meaning and purpose and other reflections

But there’s something missing – there must be more. The joy of being in the flow, or mastering new skills, isn’t enough to explain why people sign up for very grueling and dangerous situations, like climbing Mt. Everest, or going to war. For that, we need to introduce another important concept: meaning.

Renowned psychiatrist Viktor Frankl studied human resilience and flourishing in horrific circumstances. He found that people who felt their lives had a broader purpose – or meaning – were more resilient. In contrast to people who had no sense of their own lives having any significance, those equipped with a sense of purpose were able to rebuild their lives after great loss.Moments ago, I talked about the joys of effort and mastery – of doing a task for its own sake. But that’s only part of the story, because we don’t value effort equally. It might be tiring to climb up and down a flight of steps 5,000 times and, similarly, to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro. But while the former activity seems kind of pointless, maybe even a bit crazy, climbing a mountain seems brave and noble, even if there’s suffering involved. That’s because it’s seen as being a meaningful goal. In the same vein, if we want to understand why people volunteer to fight in dangerous wars, we have to consider the sense of meaning and purpose derived from that choice. What, for new recruits, is attractive about war? Well, for one, it gives them a sense of belonging – that they’re important and fighting a worthwhile cause. Yes, they may be sacrificing their lives, but their feeling is that it’s not for nothing. It’s for their group, or their country, or an ideal like “liberty.” It makes them feel like their lives have value, that they mean something because of the potential legacy of that sacrifice.But the decision to go to war may seem like a more fringe, extreme choice. A lot of us wouldn’t find the pull for meaning from that to be as strong. So let’s introduce a more popular choice in this pursuit for meaning – having children.

The components of a meaningful life

In 1988, Life Magazine asked the Dalai Lama, Maya Angelou and over a hundred other luminaries of the time, to reflect on what made life meaningful. As you can imagine, their answers differed widely. But they can be categorized as falling under four main themes.

Firstly, they described meaningful experiences as those which allowed them to connect with other people, and feel a sense of belonging.

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What is The Sweet Spot about?

The Sweet Spot (2021) is a refreshing antidote to all the books we read about being positive at all costs. It argues that negative experiences like pain, suffering, and discomfort are not something to be shied away from. In fact, they can add value to our lives. Instead of trying to avoid discomfort, we need to find the right discomfort. That is, the kind of challenge that makes our lives meaningful.

Who should read The Sweet Spot ?

Self-help fans who are tired of all the toxic positivity
Psychology lovers looking for an original perspective on how pain and suffering affect our lives
Reflective seekers looking to understand what will give their lives a sense of purpose

About the Author

Paul Bloom, a psychologist, teaches at the University of Toronto. He’s also the Brooks and Suzanne Ragen Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Yale University. A prolific writer, he’s been published in scientific journals as well as the New Yorker and the Atlantic. His other books include Just Babies, How Pleasure Works, and Against Empathy.

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Psychology Science Mindfulness & Happiness

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