Experience and Share Your Life

Science shows we are happier experiencing the joys of life than buying material goods.

Providing your basic needs are taken care of, happiness is an illusion you predict you will feel when you buy a new pair of Louboutin’s or a new Rolex Oyster or even a piece of cheap plastic from China.

Ever wonder why billionaires own so many of the world’s most luxurious cars, planes, and boats?

It could be for investment purposes. Personally, I reckon it’s because they get bored easily, so they buy another, then another, then they have to buy a bigger house with more land to build garages on to house their boring toys. But the desire to buy doesn’t go away and, I guess, they don’t really mind because they can buy another, more exciting one, in any colour they jolly well fancy.

We know, after learning about hedonic adaptation, we don’t remember that the happiness we feel when we buy a fabulous new car wears off. We get bored, the shine tarnishes and whatever we bought sits there under a dust sheet, especially if you’re a billionaire.

Perhaps it’s sneakers rather than Louboutin’s that you collect, for the joy of snazzy footwear. Just how happy, and for how long, do they make you before you buy another pair to get that happiness fix?

What if, instead of buying that new 1963 Ferrari GTO which is bound to last another forty-seven years and is certain to bore you to tears after the first year, you focus on things that don’t stick around?

Experiences.

My best ever euphoric experience, which I have never forgotten because it was a one-off and I’m not ever likely to do it again, was to drive around Brands Hatch in an old-style racing car. Exhilarating!

There was also a dashing around Madrid for an afternoon before meeting colleagues for dinner. I’d researched and listed ten places I wanted to experience before I went. Armed with my phone for directions, I snapped photos of monuments and stunning buildings along the way.

I explored a museum, enjoyed a delicious Café con leche on the roof of the museum, and took photos of the mountains in the far-off distance.

For lunch, I had a beer in a bar where the barman plied me with incredible tapas until my belly groaned and I begged him to stop.

These moments in time are not forgotten and probably never will be. Because they were one-off experiences, the joy of recalling these happy times lives on because I visited, I enjoyed and I left. There wasn’t time to get accustomed to the city. As you can see from the photos, I still look at them, choose the best ones, and share them with my friends.

But, you might think, why would I invest in a holiday or weekend away when I could buy a new pair of Nike Air Force 1’s or Louboutin’s for that matter?

A study by Leaf van Boven & Tom Gilovich in 2003, shows happiness lasts much longer from an experience than buying something like expensive footwear.

It’s not just rich folk who can afford to experience new things. Students have been backpacking around the world for decades. Working a little here, relaxing a little there.

Deciding where, and then the anticipation of being in the places you’ll visit, the route planning, flight and hostel booking, and coordinating with fellow travellers is part of what extends the excitement and pleasure. Then you have the headiness of the actual trip, filling every sense and being stored in your and your camera’s memory. Returning home to share your memories with your family and friends is the gift to yourself that just keeps giving.

Compare the benefits of an experience you had with thinking about buying your sneakers, buying them, wearing them, and then popping them in the cupboard next to your other five pairs to be dusted off at a later date. Was it the experience or the sneakers that made you happier for the longest?

I can honestly say anything I have bought in the past, that now is unnecessary to my frugal lifestyle, has been sold or given away and not thought about again.

The happiness you feel from objects fades quickly but memories linger.

You can draw upon them when you need an anecdote to share with friends in conversation. Relive your travels, and inspire the next adventure. It’s far more interesting for your friends to hear about your experiences in Australia than feel inferior about your Air Force 1 sneakers.

I think having fun, sex, travel and all those things are a rich part of the human experience. ~ A C Grayling in an interview in The Independent on Sunday, 8 April 2007

Being an experiential kind of person makes you much happier than a materialistic one. I can vouch for this piece of wisdom. I sold everything I owned except for a laptop, and my clothes and accessories eleven years ago. I felt weightless. Ready to fill up on new life experiences. I still feel unhindered by possessions.

However, many people are still in the state of not realising that buying stuff doesn’t make them happy for very long. So, they keep doing it, thinking the new sneakers will make them twice as happy as a backpacking trip. Believing that an experiential purchase will give them a lot less bang for their bucks.

Their intuition is wrong.

How often have you bought an amazing new pair of sneakers and someone immediately compares yours with theirs? They’ve got the Nike Air Force 1s and you’ve got the Nike Air Vapourmax 360. How does that £3000 price difference make you feel? Inadequate, inferior?

Spending money is not obligatory, you can go for a walk around a part of the city you haven’t visited before. Take a picnic to the park. Power walk and shake your booty to tunes of your choice.

Now think about that wonderful walk around your city and the photos you can share with your friends … How do you feel now?

Get over your getting used to material things.

Thwart your hedonistic adaptation by experiencing new things, don’t spend too long doing it, and leave it. E.g. an exciting meal in a restaurant with your friends. A walk around the city or in the countryside. You’ll enjoy it more, I promise.

But hold on, what about the things that you thought you were going to do to make you happy but didn’t?

Let’s take a new relationship or marriage. You go into it with love in your heart and being happy till death parts you. Unless you make up your mind to ensure you both stay happy the Lucas et al. (2003) study says you’ll adapt to just two people living with each other after about two years.

What are the things you should be wanting? The stuff that’s going to make you naturally happy.

For me, that’s a case of a lifetime of experiencing trial and error. Even if we could predict the future accurately, we’d still miswant the wrong things! I’m hoping you’ll be aware sooner than I was. By trying new experiences and comparing them to how you feel about materialistic options. What have you got to lose?

If you want to change your perceptions so you can become happier for longer and more often, what do you have to do?

It’s not going to be easy; you’re going to have to sit down and write about gratitude. You might be pretty resistant. Why do I have to be grateful? I have to do everything by myself, who am I being grateful to?

That was my outlook ten years ago when I found myself on my own long-term for the first time in my life. Since embracing writing fully and engaging and sharing with fellow writers and expanding my knowledge with research and courses, I have my purpose in life. I appreciate my family and friends who have supported me when I’ve had no money anywhere and who got me out of trouble with debts.

Are you willing to do some thinking?

You’ll need a couple of weeks to do some intentional exercises.

Think for a few minutes about your job, what is it that you love about it? Spending fifteen minutes a day appreciating the positives could really enhance your perceptions and help you appreciate what you are doing to pay your bills. I explored my options when I answered the question — If money were no object what would I do with my life?

It’s incredibly easy to forget the good things in your life and compare what you don’t have to what others appear to have. Those are the false reference points we are working to replace. But nothing good comes easy, so I heartily encourage you to do the work.

A good income isn’t necessarily the answer to having good experiences. You don’t have to travel far to feel exhilarated. Power walking, listening to music, working up a sweat all do it for me! You don’t have to be a billionaire to enjoy an experience.

We don’t think in absolutes — a value or principle which is regarded as universally valid or which may be viewed without relation to other things.

We think in terms of what we know; our own personal reference points. So, we probably wouldn’t compare a £3000 holiday with a £10 day trip to the botanical garden if we’ve never been to Mauritius or nobody mentioned an expensive vacation or other reference points.

A change from the daily norm doesn’t have to be huge. Our minds don’t register absolutes. What our minds do notice is change.

We don’t notice the length of the change or the size, but we do register when something is better than before. A bit like the way I remember wanting to watch another episode of a particular show and going back to it, yet I forgot to watch another episode of a different show because it was blah.

What are we grateful for?

One of the many things I am grateful for is the choice of excellent TV shows that I keep finding on Netflix because first I had to wade through many turkeys. The fact that the change has been registered is the size of it — like a maximum or ceiling effect — it’s not going to get any bigger.

Savouring those small positive changes and being grateful for the positive experiences that you create and you remember and repeat will make you happier.

Social Media

Take social media [2] and how it can be used in a positive way to savour those fabulous meals and your photos of clouds or whatever you love, by sharing them on Insta or Facebook. Sharing feels good, getting likes and hearts is uplifting but the darker side is that you could be seen as not being mindful.

Does everybody experience those photos as positives or are they comparing that delicious meal and feeling negative because they can’t afford it? Do we want to make people feel bad about themselves?

Perhaps we need to find a way to share without the possibility of causing others to compare and feel negative about what we’ve posted. By placing, for example, positives in your feed about the walk to the top of a hill where you took a photo of clouds, which cost you nothing.

Cutting down your social media consumption is also a good idea if you have no chance of going cold turkey. I did that years ago. I realised having Facebook open on my computer all day, every day, meant I was checking it frequently and losing hours which could have been used for something productive.

What if I really need a new washing machine?

If like me, you don’t earn much and you are constantly fretting about paying the rent, then materialistic items, most likely, will make you happy. Plus, the happiness will last because you really needed that washing machine or laptop you purchased.

I’m still delighted by the £7 stainless steel bread knife I invested in a month ago and it has a fifteen-year warranty! As a female who earns just enough, the value of every purchase I make evokes thankfulness as well as happiness. That I have a job and family and friends means that I can, occasionally, buy materialistic items. For opportunities and my loved ones, I am grateful.

When your basic needs are taken care of, experiential purchases last longer than materialistic ones.

Take photos to share with others, therefore prolonging your happiness.

Reset your reference points, i.e. stop using social media and comparing yourself to unattainable reference points. E.g. celebrities or those worse off than you.

Try finding an accessible mentor at your work or aiming to emulate someone you respect and admire.

Journalling what you are grateful for could work for you. [3]

Reflect upon your present blessings, — of which every man has many — not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some. ~Charles Dickens

If you need a little assistance to get motivated try installing a Happiness App. There are loads to choose from.

[1] Nelson & Meyvis (2008). Interrupted consumption: Adaptation and the disruption of hedonic experience. Journal of Marketing Research, 45(6), 654–664.

[2] Howell & Hill (2009). The mediators of experiential purchases: Determining the impact of psychological needs satisfaction and social comparison. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 4(6), 511–522.

[3] Emmons et al. (2003). Counting blessings versus burdens: An experimental investigation of gratitude and subjective well-being in daily life. Journal of personality and social psychology, 84(2), 377.

Here are some of my earlier pieces on happiness researched and informed by The Science of Well-being from Yale University on Coursera.

Thank you for reading.