I truly love the sound of the wheels of my bike slicing through the quiet wind on an open road, just as much as I enjoyed the whirring sound of the gear-driven camshafts and the rich tuned exhaust note of my old VFR800 motorcycle. Similarly, when moving down the hedonic scale, either voluntarily or involuntarily, we can learn to appreciate simpler things with just as much gusto as we would have appreciated more expensive things. Both serve the same purpose, and the pleasure is about the same. A cold Bud Light was once a true delight after a work day for the lottery winner, but after the win he quits the job and takes up high-end scotch, poured by a personal butler. Well, it turns out that when a person jumps to a new level of material convenience, he loses the ability to enjoy the things he previously thought were pretty neat. But within just two months, both groups had returned back to the average level of happiness. As you’d expect, the lottery winners were pretty upbeat immediately after their win, and the paraplegics were pretty pissed off. Hedonic Adaptation is a feature built right into your Human DNA that allows you to function efficiently in a wide variety of environments, even very harsh ones.Ī most striking example of this was a 1978 psychological study that evaluated the happiness levels of recent lottery winners, and recently injured paraplegics relative to the general population. In less fancy terms, what this term means is that “no matter what happens to you in your life, you’ll very quickly get used to it”. In fact, the one breakthrough that flipped my thinking on the matter was learning about the scientific studies that have been done on hedonic adaptation. I’m not sure if I can regularly deny myself purchases, but at the same time tell myself that it’s a win, but it’s worth a shot!”Īll of these statements would have sounded perfectly rational to me when I was just a little younger. In fact, even the relatively frugal financial blogger I call Mortgage Free Mike once wrote this comment on an earlier MMM article: What’s the harm as long as I’m staying within my budget?” “I like to buy myself something nice a few times a year. There’s no way I’m going to bike to work all week and work hard every day just so I can drive around in a $5,000 shitbox on the weekends” * “I happen to like driving around in a nice car. How’d you like to die tomorrow after scrimping and saving for your whole life, never having spent your money?” “You can’t take your money with you when you die, buddy. Critics of my approach have said things like this, Now, everybody knows that I like to promote a relatively frugal lifestyle. Today we’ll be focusing in on #2: What actually makes us happy.
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