People are happy if they are healthy, well fed, see the people they care about are happy, don't live in anxiety all the time, and feel what they do day for day has some kind of meaning.
How that is achieved is secondary.
If someone feels like a faceless drone and constantly has to worry about how to make it through life after retirement, neither a 3000$ gaming PC nor a trip to Bali is going to make them happy, both are just bandaids over the misery.
> If someone feels like a faceless drone and constantly has to worry about how to make it through life after retirement, neither a 3000$ gaming PC nor a trip to Bali is going to make them happy, both are just bandaids over the misery.
Minor nitpick, but if "constantly worry how to make it", how can you afford to go to Bali?
I guess you could make the argument that it's better to never go on vacation or buy a new computer and stash all that extra money in your 401k, but I don't think most people live this way.
Then there is the hedonic treadmill, and there is some evidence that people born with a certain level of innate satisfaction with life that they keep reverting to.
> Most of life is lived in the unmemorable, in-between moments
I think this is the crux of the issue. By traveling, you can make "experiences" be a larger percent of your time, which makes me happier at least.
Before I started traveling, my life was almost the exact same every day/week/year. Sleep, work, gym, pub. Go surfing on weekends if waves were good. One snowboard/surf holiday a year.
Then I started traveling, lived in a ski resort in Georgia (country not the state) for 3 months and went snowboarding everyday, that made me happy (at the time at least). Living in SA and surfing everyday was great as well.
I am in the experiences are better than possessions camp, assuming you can significantly change the ratio of regular life Vs experience.
Is going on 3 one week holidays better than buying a comfortable sofa you sit on every night to watch Netflix? Probably not.
But for me, traveling non-stop makes me happier than owning a house and a car.
I became significantly happier by spending most of my free time walking the same 20 km route every weekend. I was miserable significant portion of time on most holidays i took abroad, because they either involved following orders (on organized trips), or were stressful (because I had to organize stuff for myself and others) in unknown environment. Not my cup of tea.
Another thing is that paying a lot for a short experience puts me into a specific mindset, that I hate.
Also - one indication that you're unhappy in general is that you will pursue more and more intense recreation during the time you have free to compensate for all that sucks and to escape from your problems.
Different people have different needs and the split isn't "possessions vs experiences". Also as the article noticed - possessions boil down to experiences anyway.
i feel the same. i may not have had a great career, but when i look back at my life i did many interesting things, and most of my life was not unmemorable, in-between moments. in fact, by living in different countries away from home most of the time i made those unmemorable moments to be memorable. try going to a chinese wet-market without having learned chinese, even after years of doing that, even just the fact that it becomes routine is memorable to me.
Yup (article has a clickbait title because they actually say to each their own). After a routine many years, I started hanging out with someone who is really really good at choosing the next adventure and it's addictive. It's difficult to balance much travel with other responsibilities but I'm hooked.
This seems like exactly the sort of hard-to-maintain intensity that’ll exhaust itself (and you) eventually. But til that day, if it ever comes, rock on :)
For decades now, certain shops don't just sell stuff, they sell the “experience” of shopping there. I'd like to have what their PR departments are smoking.
It's _all_ experience. "Don't sell the sausage, sell the sizzle".
This is why car adverts are either belting round implausibly empty urban streets, or of Wankpanzers off-roading in a way almost no owner will actually do. "Buy this and this is the experience you're connecting with".
I'm rather confused by the article's point. It really reinforces that it's all experience, and really, material goods are just a means to an end.
Look - if I want to go experience Bali, it's not like I have to buy an aeroplane to do so. We _vastly_ overestimate the marginal utility of a more expensive car or some slightly different shoes in the sense of what additional experiences it's going to give us.
And, frankly, if you're claiming your shoe purchases increase your wellbeing because they don't hurt then I might suggest you pay more attention to purchasing the correct size for your feet (Stop buying from the Dolmansaxlil shoe corporation).
ISTR that materialistic humans being on a hedonic treadmill has quite a lot of evidence.
I'm not sure what you're pointing at, but all shops are selling a shopping experience.
Compare a hard discount grocery store to a regular supermarket, and we see the supermarket invisting significant money (and increasing prices) to improve the customer experience, and many customers willing to pay the price to not shop in what looks like a warehouse, even if they'd buy roughly the same products.
Yes, almost from the start, it sounded to me like something cooked up by marketing experts, either:
* to sell "experiences" to people because those marketers had services to sell;
* to sell "experiences" to people because the target demographic couldn't afford possessions; or
* more a psyop campaign, to placate demographics for whom the memes are that they'll never own a home, never be able to retire, etc.
Or all three.
Sure, there was the random carefree person who just liked to surf every day, and somehow ends got met, but for the rest of us, we were sold on expectations of homeownership, vehicles, consumer products. We can see that society is set up to expect people to have those things, and we can see how people's experience is generally better when they can afford those possessions.
It's not wrong either, though. Experiences regularly and radically change people: you might not have been longing all your life to own a French castle looking at rich pictures if you actually went into one and experienced the humidity, gloominess and sheer impracticality of it all first hand.
Sending people to the other side of the world is overrated, but confronting your world views with actual experiences is a price worth paying most of the time.
Same way experiencing at least once a well cooked, well made dish can effectively lead you cook it better for the rest of your life.
As anything, it varies from people to people, and there's no single truth out there.
It's not just about worldviews - it's having to face the unfamiliar and unpredictable that tends to change people. The best travels are voyages of discovery about oneself.
However, not every trip can be that. The more you travel, the weaker the experience becomes, and eventually one reaches a point where there is little left to learn by being on the road.
I was firmly in the experiences over possessions camp for years. But now…
Without a doubt owning a nicer house would make me happier. More room for family and friends to stay over. More room for hobbies (a workshop would be great). Nicer views, quieter, fewer neighbours.
“Possessions create experiences”, very true. Buy a games consoles to play with friends. Build bonds. Buy a bicycle to go to a riding meet-up. Get fit. A holiday to Asia is much more ephemeral
A part of me feels the message was pushed as part of an agenda. Own nothing and you’ll be happy…!
I bought a Tesla five years ago and it still brings me so much joy. It looks nice, it's comfy to drive, it gives me the freedom to go wherever I want and I've made some wonderful memories with it.
Experiences are great, but my favorite experiences are the ones I've had for free or close to free. Drive in cinema with a date, a hike with friends, Christmas with family. Sure I could go places with a cheaper car, but I'm really happy with the way I spent that money.
My experience too. I drive daily and trading in my old sometimes non-dependable car for a new (somewhat) high end luxury model worked great. It cheers me up to be in it every day even when I'm just running local errands. On the other hand, when I look at photos of past trips, and can't even recall being there or even where it was half the time.
The same points of having friends and family but living in a poverty-ridden slum, where you can have the experience of watching your loved ones die of cholera.
I am not in favor of pursuing wealth at all costs, but there's a balance in having enough material wealth to live in a decent place in a safe, aesthetically pleasing neighborhood, having freedom of movement, being able to access healthcare and education, not starving, being physically fit, etc.
Things beyond that are superfluous and won't make you happier by themselves.
You don't want a house, you want the experiences that come with owning one. Conversely, you can't have the experiences of that Bali trip if you don't purchase it. There, solved it for you and forever :).
It depends on what kind of 'stuff' you are buying too. If it's a tool that you can use to learn new things or create beautiful things, then that's a possession that can unlock valuable experiences.
It seems like a simple truth to me that in the end, what humans value are experiences of some sort. And that possessions have weight and therefore can weigh you down. Over-analyzing the two as a dichotomy doesn't seem that useful to me.
If there ever was a clearer case of false dichotomy.
It's what you do with what you have. You can't have experiences if you don't possess certain things, and possesing things that you do nothing with is a waste.
But don't let common sense get in the way of a study grant.
Unlike the vast majority I do not like travelling.
probaby due to being autistic.
I will share how it feels for me.
(Everyone is different so just me)
This ought not to be much of a problem, just dont
travel. But it has been the "thing" for so long,
and people want to do it, and expect everyone else to.
I tend to focus on practical matters.
Overstuffed highly uncomfortable airplanes where there is
space for my legs, my arms rub up against the person(s) next to me.
All the hassle at the airport.
Then the hotel is never more comfortable than home.
The climate can be uncomfortable.
London in a peak hot period, I find the underground horrible.
But it has been a while, perhaps they have stuffed some ACs in there.
Having certain dietary restrictions does not help
this is made much more of a problem I dont speak the local
language enough to talk about food, directions,
I speak 4 languages fluently, and I am able to fake it in about 5 more.
An expectation when travelling with someone to do all sorts of boring
and annoying tourist rituals.
etc. etc. etc. etc.
I live in Norway now but come from Colorado.
I far prefer driving somewhere to airplanes.
Much less hassle, kind of comfortable can stop when
I want, eat something I like, having a good idea
about what is sh*t and what is not when it comes to
hotels, restaurants etc.
It is of course boring to just travel in the states.
I do like modern art museums and well run zoos.
If I find those that is a good thing.
My house is larger than I need with the best view I can imagine. My car faster than I need. I own all the toys I want.
A bigger house or car won't make me happier at this point. Buying things doesn't make me happier either.
Using these things and toys, enjoying the view with friends and family eating things from the garden and meat from my neighbours. This is what makes me happy
On the other hand... My house isn't large enough to do what I want to with hobbies. It is rather small - an attic apartment, containing more than one person.
I do not have all the toys that I want - I'm limited by space and money. My main solo hobbies are cooking and artwork.
I live across an ocean from all family besides my spouse: It was my choice, I'm happy for it, but I'm never really going to get that family time without money and freedom to travel more.
I could spend more time with local friends if I had space for board games in my house (or other things, really). I would exercise more if I had room for a treadmill as well as hobbies: I choose hobbies because I don't actually like exercise but I do like hobbies.
You might have more than you can want, but I certainly don't. I'm not unhappy, per se, but I'd could definitely do without meeting frustrating limitation so very often. And that really is the difference: When you have enough of the right things, you eliminate a lot of daily frustration and anxiety that just happens in your daily life - and sometimes, you wind up more physically comfortable and/or healthier as well.
I was thinking a lot since writing this. The thing is my house is low rent because it's far off, my car is old and has over 300k km. It's was a very consciously decision to get here.
Nothing is of value, the actual value is the conscious decision of going against the main stream, taking some risks to get to place we actually can enjoy.
It's materialistic in a obvious way, but it's not about materialistic value.
Readit News
People are happy if they are healthy, well fed, see the people they care about are happy, don't live in anxiety all the time, and feel what they do day for day has some kind of meaning.
How that is achieved is secondary.
If someone feels like a faceless drone and constantly has to worry about how to make it through life after retirement, neither a 3000$ gaming PC nor a trip to Bali is going to make them happy, both are just bandaids over the misery.
This is not actually a requirement for happiness, turns out.
Deleted Comment
Minor nitpick, but if "constantly worry how to make it", how can you afford to go to Bali?
I guess you could make the argument that it's better to never go on vacation or buy a new computer and stash all that extra money in your 401k, but I don't think most people live this way.
How can people be happy without self-actualization? Happy and (making things) happen are related words.
I think this is the crux of the issue. By traveling, you can make "experiences" be a larger percent of your time, which makes me happier at least.
Before I started traveling, my life was almost the exact same every day/week/year. Sleep, work, gym, pub. Go surfing on weekends if waves were good. One snowboard/surf holiday a year.
Then I started traveling, lived in a ski resort in Georgia (country not the state) for 3 months and went snowboarding everyday, that made me happy (at the time at least). Living in SA and surfing everyday was great as well.
I am in the experiences are better than possessions camp, assuming you can significantly change the ratio of regular life Vs experience.
Is going on 3 one week holidays better than buying a comfortable sofa you sit on every night to watch Netflix? Probably not.
But for me, traveling non-stop makes me happier than owning a house and a car.
Another thing is that paying a lot for a short experience puts me into a specific mindset, that I hate.
Also - one indication that you're unhappy in general is that you will pursue more and more intense recreation during the time you have free to compensate for all that sucks and to escape from your problems.
Different people have different needs and the split isn't "possessions vs experiences". Also as the article noticed - possessions boil down to experiences anyway.
This is why car adverts are either belting round implausibly empty urban streets, or of Wankpanzers off-roading in a way almost no owner will actually do. "Buy this and this is the experience you're connecting with".
I'm rather confused by the article's point. It really reinforces that it's all experience, and really, material goods are just a means to an end.
Look - if I want to go experience Bali, it's not like I have to buy an aeroplane to do so. We _vastly_ overestimate the marginal utility of a more expensive car or some slightly different shoes in the sense of what additional experiences it's going to give us.
And, frankly, if you're claiming your shoe purchases increase your wellbeing because they don't hurt then I might suggest you pay more attention to purchasing the correct size for your feet (Stop buying from the Dolmansaxlil shoe corporation).
ISTR that materialistic humans being on a hedonic treadmill has quite a lot of evidence.
Compare a hard discount grocery store to a regular supermarket, and we see the supermarket invisting significant money (and increasing prices) to improve the customer experience, and many customers willing to pay the price to not shop in what looks like a warehouse, even if they'd buy roughly the same products.
* to sell "experiences" to people because those marketers had services to sell;
* to sell "experiences" to people because the target demographic couldn't afford possessions; or
* more a psyop campaign, to placate demographics for whom the memes are that they'll never own a home, never be able to retire, etc.
Or all three.
Sure, there was the random carefree person who just liked to surf every day, and somehow ends got met, but for the rest of us, we were sold on expectations of homeownership, vehicles, consumer products. We can see that society is set up to expect people to have those things, and we can see how people's experience is generally better when they can afford those possessions.
Sending people to the other side of the world is overrated, but confronting your world views with actual experiences is a price worth paying most of the time.
Same way experiencing at least once a well cooked, well made dish can effectively lead you cook it better for the rest of your life.
As anything, it varies from people to people, and there's no single truth out there.
However, not every trip can be that. The more you travel, the weaker the experience becomes, and eventually one reaches a point where there is little left to learn by being on the road.
Without a doubt owning a nicer house would make me happier. More room for family and friends to stay over. More room for hobbies (a workshop would be great). Nicer views, quieter, fewer neighbours.
“Possessions create experiences”, very true. Buy a games consoles to play with friends. Build bonds. Buy a bicycle to go to a riding meet-up. Get fit. A holiday to Asia is much more ephemeral
A part of me feels the message was pushed as part of an agenda. Own nothing and you’ll be happy…!
Experiences are great, but my favorite experiences are the ones I've had for free or close to free. Drive in cinema with a date, a hike with friends, Christmas with family. Sure I could go places with a cheaper car, but I'm really happy with the way I spent that money.
I am not in favor of pursuing wealth at all costs, but there's a balance in having enough material wealth to live in a decent place in a safe, aesthetically pleasing neighborhood, having freedom of movement, being able to access healthcare and education, not starving, being physically fit, etc.
Things beyond that are superfluous and won't make you happier by themselves.
In medio stat virtus.
Goddamn Greeks already knew.
It seems like a simple truth to me that in the end, what humans value are experiences of some sort. And that possessions have weight and therefore can weigh you down. Over-analyzing the two as a dichotomy doesn't seem that useful to me.
It's what you do with what you have. You can't have experiences if you don't possess certain things, and possesing things that you do nothing with is a waste.
But don't let common sense get in the way of a study grant.
This ought not to be much of a problem, just dont travel. But it has been the "thing" for so long, and people want to do it, and expect everyone else to.
I tend to focus on practical matters.
Overstuffed highly uncomfortable airplanes where there is space for my legs, my arms rub up against the person(s) next to me.
All the hassle at the airport.
Then the hotel is never more comfortable than home.
The climate can be uncomfortable.
London in a peak hot period, I find the underground horrible. But it has been a while, perhaps they have stuffed some ACs in there.
Having certain dietary restrictions does not help this is made much more of a problem I dont speak the local language enough to talk about food, directions, I speak 4 languages fluently, and I am able to fake it in about 5 more.
An expectation when travelling with someone to do all sorts of boring and annoying tourist rituals.
etc. etc. etc. etc.
I live in Norway now but come from Colorado. I far prefer driving somewhere to airplanes. Much less hassle, kind of comfortable can stop when I want, eat something I like, having a good idea about what is sh*t and what is not when it comes to hotels, restaurants etc.
It is of course boring to just travel in the states.
I do like modern art museums and well run zoos. If I find those that is a good thing.
A bigger house or car won't make me happier at this point. Buying things doesn't make me happier either.
Using these things and toys, enjoying the view with friends and family eating things from the garden and meat from my neighbours. This is what makes me happy
I do not have all the toys that I want - I'm limited by space and money. My main solo hobbies are cooking and artwork.
I live across an ocean from all family besides my spouse: It was my choice, I'm happy for it, but I'm never really going to get that family time without money and freedom to travel more.
I could spend more time with local friends if I had space for board games in my house (or other things, really). I would exercise more if I had room for a treadmill as well as hobbies: I choose hobbies because I don't actually like exercise but I do like hobbies.
You might have more than you can want, but I certainly don't. I'm not unhappy, per se, but I'd could definitely do without meeting frustrating limitation so very often. And that really is the difference: When you have enough of the right things, you eliminate a lot of daily frustration and anxiety that just happens in your daily life - and sometimes, you wind up more physically comfortable and/or healthier as well.
Nothing is of value, the actual value is the conscious decision of going against the main stream, taking some risks to get to place we actually can enjoy.
It's materialistic in a obvious way, but it's not about materialistic value.