Hedonic Adaptation - a Cause of Our Unhappiness
Hello! Hope you’re having a fantastic weekend!
In this short issue, I want to talk about:
a cause of unhappiness - Hedonic adaptation (a.k.a. Satisfaction treadmill)
how to stop hedonic adaptation with a Stoic technique
In Stoicism, there are two root causes of our unhappiness: worrying about things outside our control, and our insatiability.
Let’s focus on our insatiability today.
It’s safe to say most of us are insatiable. We always look at what others have that we don’t. We crave for new things – a new car, a new laptop, a new phone, a new girlfriend/boyfriend.
We always want more and more.
This is because our ancestors were more likely to survive if they were insatiable. Their insatiability helped them to hunt more and have sex with as many mates as possible to maximise the chance of their genes being passed on.
But this insatiability is now causing more unhappiness for us in the modern age. We work hard to get what we want, and as soon as we get it, it becomes our new standard. Then, we quickly get bored with the new standard, so we create a greater desire to mitigate this boredom.
This process is a psychological phenomenon called hedonic adaptation, also known as the satisfaction treadmill.
But hedonic adaptation is not limited to our materialism. It happens in our relationships too. When we meet a man or woman of our dreams and successfully get in a relationship with them, we feel delighted in the beginning. But before long, we start contemplating our partner’s flaws, which can lead to fantasising about starting a new relationship with someone new.
So, how can we stop our satisfaction treadmills?
It’s simple: we have to stop taking things for granted and start appreciating what we have.
There is a Stoic exercise you can do every day.
Every morning or evening, take 5 minutes to imagine that you have lost the things you value, such as your partner, friends, parents, phone, car, or your job. Imagine your spouse left you. Imagine your car got stolen. Imagine you lost your job.
I know this exercise – known as negative visualisation–sounds like far from happiness. But it definitely makes you value your partner, your car, your job more. Subsequently, you become more grateful for what you have, instead of desiring more and more.
I hope you found this somewhat helpful. Even if you’re not really into Stoicism, this exercise and the concept of hedonic adaptation is a useful piece of information to have in your mind.
If you want to learn more about Stoicism, the book “A Guide to the Good Life” by William Irvine is a great entry point.
Have a fantastic weekend!
Shu
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Roam for Personal Knowledge Management: Zettelkasten Method in Roam Research
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