When you work hard every single day and
there’s only so much money left after your regular expenses, you have to
make certain it’s well spent. Spend your limited funds on what science
says will make you happy.
The Paradox Of Possessions
A 20-year study conducted by Dr. Thomas Gilovich, a psychology
professor at Cornell University, reached a powerful and straightforward
conclusion: Don’t spend your money on things. The trouble with things is
that the happiness they provide fades quickly. There are three critical
reasons for this:
• We get used to new possessions. What once seemed novel and exciting quickly becomes the norm.
• We keep raising the bar. New purchases lead to new expectations. As soon as we get used to a new possession, we look for an even better one.
• The Joneses are always lurking nearby.
Possessions, by their nature, foster comparisons. We buy a new car and
are thrilled with it until a friend buys a better one—and there’s always
someone with a better one.
“One of the enemies of happiness
is adaptation,” Gilovich said. “We buy things to make us happy, and we
succeed. But only for a while. New things are exciting to us at first,
but then we adapt to them.”
The paradox of possessions is that we assume that the happiness we
get from buying something will last as long as the thing itself. It
seems intuitive that investing in something we can see, hear, and touch
on a permanent basis delivers the best value. But it’s wrong.
The Power Of Experiences
Gilovich and other researchers have found that experiences—as
fleeting as they may be—deliver more-lasting happiness than things.
Here’s why:
Experiences become a part of our identity. We are not our possessions, but we are
the accumulation of everything we’ve seen, the things we’ve done, and
the places we’ve been. Buying an Apple Watch isn’t going to change who
you are; taking a break from work to hike the Appalachian Trail from
start to finish most certainly will.
“Our experiences are a bigger part of ourselves than our material
goods,” said Gilovich. "You can really like your material stuff. You can
even think that part of your identity is connected to those things, but
nonetheless they remain separate from you. In contrast, your
experiences really are part of you. We are the sum total of our
experiences."
Comparisons matter little. We don’t compare
experiences in the same way that we compare things. In a Harvard study,
when people were asked if they’d rather have a high salary that was
lower than that of their peers or a low salary that was higher than that
of their peers, a lot of them weren’t sure. But when they were asked
the same question about the length of a vacation, most people chose a
longer vacation, even though it was shorter than that of their peers.
It’s hard to quantify the relative value of any two experiences, which
makes them that much more enjoyable.
Anticipation matters. Gilovich also studied
anticipation and found that anticipation of an experience causes
excitement and enjoyment, while anticipation of obtaining a possession
causes impatience. Experiences are enjoyable from the very first moments
of planning, all the way through to the memories you cherish forever.
Experiences are fleeting (which is a good thing). Have
you ever bought something that wasn’t nearly as cool as you thought it
would be? Once you buy it, it’s right there in your face, reminding you
of your disappointment. And even if a purchase does meet your
expectations, buyer’s remorse can set in: “Sure, it’s cool, but it
probably wasn’t worth the money.” We don’t do that with experiences. The
very fact that they last for only a short time is part of what makes us
value them so much, and that value tends to increase as time passes.
Bringing It All Together
Gilovich and his colleagues aren’t the only ones who believe that
experiences make us happier than things do. Dr. Elizabeth Dunn at the
University of British Columbia has also studied the topic, and she
attributes the temporary happiness achieved by buying things to what she
calls “puddles of pleasure.” In other words, that kind of happiness
evaporates quickly and leaves us wanting more. Things may last longer
than experiences, but the memories that linger are what matter most.
What makes you happier, experiences or things? Please share your
thoughts in the comments section below as I learn just as much from you
as you do from me.
Forbes
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