You Are Designed To Be Unhappy (Here’s Why and what To Do About It)

This essay was originally featured in my  free Sunday newsletter .

“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”
-Epicurus

Think about all the things in your life right now: your car, job, career, education, and every purchase you’ve ever made in your life up to this point. You may not have thought about it in awhile, but all of these things were once something you wanted. After all, if you didn’t want such things, it’s unlikely you would have gone through the trouble of acquiring them. 

Law: Anything you’ve ever taken the effort to acquire was something you desired.

Now, when you think about these things, you don’t feel the same because ‘have’ them in your life. As a result of having them for a period of time (the longer the more this effect shows itself), you don’t think about them the same way you used to when you desired and sought them. They just are a part of your life now. 

Another law: The longer you have something the less appreciation and gratitude it garners. 

Try to think of a specific thing in your life that you used to be excited about but no longer are—a car, a relationship, a watch, a game, a home, a new city, whatever. Now, think back to the time when you were excited about this thing. Try to remember how strongly you felt and how excited you were as you progressed toward attaining it. Finally, compare those feelings to the way you feel about it now. 

It’s crazy how our desires, wants and appreciation changes, isn’t it?

(If you didn’t put much effort into this thought exercise, I highly recommend you do it now.) 

The reason you are no longer excited is because of a concept called Hedonic Adaptation. Basically, Hedonic Adaptation means you have ‘gotten used to’ something. This thing is now just a part of your life, and as a result, you don’t appreciate it the same way anymore because you don’t think about not having it, and thus you have no reason to think about being grateful for it. In fact, you are now probably desiring something else new and shiny.

A Thought Exercise

It would serve you well to remind yourself what you have now was once new and shiny. Try to remember how you desired the things you have, and how you worked to attain them. Remember how, once you got them, you were ecstatic. Visualize what you saw in them when you wanted them. Engage these thoughts so that you will recreate the desire. Try to relive the same feelings of excitement and yearning. Finally, imagine losing them. Imagine they go away and never come back and think about how this would make you feel? 

Try it!

This simple—yet powerful—practice of reminding yourself what you have from the point of view of your former self is useful for combating the dangerous trap that is hedonic adaptation. We can call this the practice of Negative Visualization—visualizing loss—and Gratitude—promoting appreciation.

To practice Negative Visualization and Gratitude: View everything you have as if you didn’t have it. Let the desire well up: remember what it was like before you had it and wanted it. Move your mind to a place of appreciation and gratefulness.

Gratitude moves the mind from a place of expectation and wanting more—which is the default mindset for most—to a place of appreciation and contentment. This is, in my opinion, a secret to a fully healthy, happy and content life.

Life lesson: Spend more time and energy being grateful instead of desiring more. 

Hedonic Adaptation

Humans are notorious for wanting new, better and shiny. Thanks to our ancestors living in a state of perpetual resource gathering that was necessary for survival in hunter gatherer times, our yearning for new and more is programmed into our genes. But nowadays we live in modern society, and since living in a modern society is not the same as living in the harsh wild, we have an environmental mismatch that forms the root of many of the problems that the human species faces on a daily basis—obesity, disease, loneliness, depression, etc. 

As human beings, we have to learn how to focus on gratitude for what we have so we can remove many of the negative effects of hedonic adaptation while also controlling our impulses for more and better, which lead us to compulsion, addiction and discontentment. For most of us, we have all we will ever need to live long, healthy and happy lives. You’d think we’d be happy and totally taking advantage of this, right? 

W. R. O. N. G.

Unfortunately, human beings are more unhappy, sick and depressed than ever. And I believe one of the root causes is this constant chasing of more, new and shiny. The reason this constant yearning for more is bad is because we have so much available to us, that, with nothing limiting us, we end up moving from thing to thing in an obsessive, unrestrained and neurotic manner in search of fulfillment. Of course, this is a fool’s errand; we never reach fulfillment because the premise that external things will bring fulfillment is flawed, and so, we are just stuck in the hedonic hamster wheel.

So many turn to shopping, drugs, entertainment, sex, money, and power as a means of fulfilling the need for new, more and shiny. This is the “shiny ball syndrome” in full effect, and no human is spared from its nasty sway. 

The human hamster wheel goes like this: we want, get, then want more. And when we get, we are temporary satisfied before we want the next thing. 

A real life example: You save up for years to buy your first car, all the while counting down the days until you get your license. Then the day comes, and you buy the best car your money can buy. You are ecstatic. It’s the perfect car. You are throughly excited about the freedom and autonomy you now have. It’s a great feeling through and through.

Then… what happens in 6 months?

Your car, and the freedom it affords you, are now just another part of your life. You don’t think about them much anymore, if at all. They aren’t exciting to you. As a result, they aren’t something you think about much (appreciate) anymore. You might even start to feel entitled to them, as if nothing or no one could take them away from you. You are ‘hedonically adapted’ to them and it’s likely you are well on to the next thing—a boyfriend or girlfriend, an exotic trip, a drum set, an Xbox, whatever.

Then, once you acquire this new thing, what happens again in 6 months? The same damn thing!

The Hedonic Treadmill: This cycle of wanting, getting and adapting repeats itself over and over and over. You seek things out, get them, then seek out other things after the things you have gotten have lost their luster. You are a drug addict in the most socially acceptable sense. 

And here’s the thing: We all are addicts.

I’m not here to speak on the morality of all of this. Maybe the buddhist monk that shuns all worldly possession has the right answer, maybe not. Either way, I know I don’t want to live like a monk and that’s why my goal is to try to avoid—reverse if possible—the adverse effects of hedonic adaptation: anxiety and fear of loss, discontent from always chasing and wanting, and a fundamental lack of gratitude for the now and what I have in the now.

I will always seek more in my life, as will you. This is just something we should accept. Instead of criticizing the fact that we consume too much and are never satisfied, let’s instead think of ways we can be better at the entire process. Perhaps we can move to a place of appreciation so much so that we don’t get (too) stuck in the hedonic treadmill. Perhaps we can find ways to can avoid slipping into the “shiny ball syndrome,” such as expressing gratitude for things we have instead of focusing on what we don’t.

I don’t know if there is a best answer or just a better one. That said, I know that it is possible to get better t this stuff because I’ve been able to do just that in my own life. I’ve also seen it in others.

Of course, you don’t get better at this stuff overnight. It’s a process, with the first step being: think about the things you have now so you think about them from the point of view of your former self. The practices of Negative Visualization and Gratitude will move your mind from a place of yearning to appreciation.

An amazing thing we all should be grateful for: being alive!

Think about it: being alive is something we all want and have been granted each day so far in our entire livers. That’s pretty amazing if you consider that you and I were not one of the  150,000 or so people that died yesterday—or that will today, tomorrow and every day until the end of time. That’s a pretty damn awesome thing to be grateful for, wouldn’t you say?

Instead of wasting so much energy on what you don’t have, expend it on being grateful for what you do. This simple change of mental frame can change your life for the better in more ways than one.

Look back on our past and use it as a way to appreciate what you have now. Then spend more time thinking about what you have instead of what you don’t.

Grateful,

-Colin

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