Hedonic adaptation-getting back to your happy place


While motoring down to a beach in southwest Florida 🙂 yesterday, I listened to this NPR interview of Sonja Lyubomirsky on her book “The Myths of Happiness”.  Evidently people have a natural ‘set point’—like a thermostat for mood—that helps them withstand terrible events and be happy again.  It’s called hedonic adaption.*  Sadly most folks suffer the flip side of this mood regulator: They finally get what they want, such as a coveted Christmas gift, but it does not make them any happier.

There is a nifty way around this—rather than gratifying your greed, do something for someone else.  It needn’t be much: Every little bit adds up to leading a happier life.

Such behavior is twice blest—good for the giver as well as the beneficiary.

“The pleasures associated with our own acts of consumption tend to be short-lived. The pleasures derived from doing something for others linger.”

– Excerpted from this 1/14/12 post on “Consumption Makes Us Sad? Science Says We Can Be Happy With Less” by Barry Schwartz of The Daily Beast.

*I dictated “hedonic adaptation blog” into my (supposedly) smart phone and it transcribed “add on a caterpillar engine block”—presumably thinking I meant to increase the horsepower in my road grader. Ha ha!

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