We Keep Chasing The Opposite When The Moment We Want Is Already Here

A blazing sauna. An icy plunge. A mind that can’t sit still. Sound familiar?

We start with a simple gym-side story that mirrors how we live: always craving the opposite of what we have, sprinting toward the next form of relief. From the bagel shop grind to the quick flip from heat to cold, it’s the same pattern — restless attention, fleeting satisfaction.

Together, we unpack hedonic adaptation — the brain’s habit of resetting joy to baseline after any change. The same survival software that once kept us safe now fuels a constant search for “better.”

But what if, instead of chasing the next thing, you learned to catch the flip — that exact moment when the thought “I can’t wait until…” appears? That instant is your doorway back to presence.

If it’s hot, be hot.
 If it’s cold, be cold.

When you fully inhabit the moment, you stop outsourcing peace to a future condition and start building it where you stand.

We also explore real-time gratitude as a lever for calm — not a list at day’s end, but a felt thank you inside discomfort: gratitude for the heat that tests you, for the cold that wakes you. With simple cues and repeatable reps, this practice strengthens resilience — not by finding the perfect temperature, but by expanding your tolerance across seasons, workloads, and mood swings.

The goal isn’t to avoid extremes. It’s to carry calm through them.

If you’re tired of living for the next phase, this conversation offers a practical path to feeling okay — even when the moment isn’t.

If this resonates, subscribe, leave a rating, and share it with someone who keeps adjusting the thermostat on their life.

So — what “other thing” is your mind chasing today?

Instagram: @mikemuldoonlc
Website: www.themikemuldoonpodcast.com
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Transcript

Starting A Shop, Staying Human

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey everyone and welcome to this week's episode of the uh Mike Muldoon Podcast. I know I've missed a few weeks. I'm trying. At this point, it's just gonna be what it's gonna be with the new business going on and everything going on. You know, starting this bagel shop, which has been great, but you know, like any business, you have your ups, your downs, takes up a lot of your time, and then you got family obligations and everything else going on in the world. So listen, like I've talked about since I started this podcast, I'm with you, I'm one of you, I'm going through a lot of things just like you are, and uh, but I do this because I want to help you realize uh some things that might, you know, help you get a little bit things from my own past that's kind of helped me out. And again, we're kind of on this journey together. But today I want to talk about uh uh what I like to call the sauna of the cold tub and that mind that just kind of can't sit still. Because the funny thing is, I joined this gym, it's across the street from where my shop is, and um, I was sitting in a sauna, it's got the sauna and it's great, right? So I'm sitting in the sauna and I'm sweating and it's boiling, and I'm I'm counting the seconds until I can step into a cold plunge Tom. It's literally right across. You're looking at this cold plunge, right? It's right there. And my mind was fixated on man, that cold water is gonna feel amazing. I mean, I couldn't wait to escape the heat. You know, you're in there, you're sweating, it's burning you. You know, you're taking the hot into your nostrils, and it's just burning. And then I got in there, all right. I get into that, the cold tub, and I lowered myself into that icy water, and within a few seconds the thought flipped. I can't wait to get back into that sauna. And that's when it hit me. This is the meta, the perfect metaphor for how so many of us live our lives, and that's what we're gonna talk about today. So based on what we're going to do today is really about the trap of the other thing. See, we're almost always living for the next thing, right? The next job, the next weekend, the next phase, whatever that's gonna be. We chase what's just over there instead of just being present and where we are. And when we finally get the thing we were chasing, the satisfaction lasts about as long as that first cold shock before the brain starts searching for basically that next escape. See, that's the paradox. The same mind that was comfortable in the heat now can't tolerate the cold. It's not the sauna or the tub, it's the restless mind inside of both. So the thing is, why do we do it? Psychologically, this is called hedonic adaptation, which is our tendency to quickly return to a baseline of comfort after any change, whether it's good or bad. You know, that new car smell fades, the promotion becomes normal. Even the dream relationship requires maintenance once you know that honeymoon stage passes. Our brains evolved to keep scanning for improvement, for safety, for more. That instinct once helped us survive. Now it only just keeps us from being satisfied. So, how do we fix it? Especially in this world where it's ever changing, where there's always something new, right? We live in this sort of Netflix type of world. There's always, what's the next thing? What's the next thing? What's the next thing, right? Well, the important thing really is to catch that flip. You know, the moment you catch your mind saying, I can't wait until pause for a second, recognize that craving as a cue. You're probably already standing in a place you once longed for. So why not enjoy that? The next thing's probably gonna come along, but why not enjoy it? Because where you are now is probably where you wanted to be. And lean into that moment when you're in it. You know, when it's hot, be hot. Feel that sweat. When it's cold, be cold. Feel the clarity. The more we can inhabit an experience, the less we crave the opposite. Gratitude. I've talked about this a lot in the past, but gratitude is so important, especially in real time. Don't just list what you're grateful for later. Say it in the middle of the discomfort. I'm grateful for this heat right now that's pushing me, I'm pushing my limits, making me feel warm, maybe helping me get healthy. I'm grateful for this cold that is eventually waking me up when I did when I drop into this cold tub. See, the thing is, balance isn't about comfort. The goal isn't to find the perfect temperature, it's to develop the resilience to sit in both. And that's really where growth happens. Again, life is a series of saunas and cold plunges. When you got one, you want the other. When you got the other, you want to go back to the other one, right? We sweat, we shiver, we move between extremes trying to find comfort. But peace isn't about waiting, peace isn't about waiting for the other end of it, for the other thing to get there. It's built in the space where we learn to be okay, even when we're uncomfortable. So next time you're in your own version of the sauna or that cold tub, try this. Stop longing for the next thing. Stop longing for the opposite. Just be where you are. You might just find that's exactly where the calm has been hiding all along that you've been craving and not so much looking for it in that next thing. So that's all I really got for you. Today that was just something that came in the other day. I got to tell you though, I like the sauna and like the cold plunge. I like them both. They feel great. But um, as always, thank you so much for being there with me. Just uh, you know, I'll try to get these episodes as much as I can. Go back, listen to my earlier episodes if you're just joining me now. There's a ton of them there, and there's only a hundred and something of them there going on over the last few years. And if you have any questions, comments, you can always reach out to me. Make sure you hit that like button on Apple, subscribe so when you see my new podcast come up, it'll pop up and let you know what's going on. As always, I try to keep it simple, fast, quick, to the point. Something you can just get in your car and that two-minute drive to where we got to go, you get it. All right. As of any anyway, uh, it's the weekend coming up. And um, as always, be safe, be smart, and I got another below for you.