“My favorite things in life don’t cost any money. It’s really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time.” — Steve Jobs
In psychology, there is this concept called hedonic adaption, also known as the hedonic treadmill. It describes the human tendency to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness after major positive or negative events or life changes. To make it a little easier to understand, let me share with you an example used by the researchers Christina Armenta & Kennon M. Sheldon in 2014.
Let’s propose you are moving into a new 400-feet apartment and are insanely happy that you finally have a beautiful and big place to live in. On your first night, you come over to your neighbor’s place. Although his place is a 450-feet apartment, you don’t notice much difference - both places feel very big and exciting to you, you are happy. After a few weeks, you come back to your neighbor’s place and all of a sudden notice how much bigger and more beautiful his 450-feet apartment is than yours - you are dissatisfied. Maybe you are even motivated to switch apartments.
This example illustrates the concept of hedonic adaption. It could also be described as everything being relative. There is no absolute measure for happiness. As humans, you tend to adapt quickly to your life situation, so you adapt to major positive and negative events quickly and return to your base level of happiness.
In tomorrow’s morning thought, we will explore more of what consequences hedonic adaption has for you, and your happiness.