Hedonism Cannot Win
If you’re anything like me, you’ve caught yourself falling into the pitfalls of hedonism by thinking that “things will be better, happier, more secure, etc. when X event occurs.” This X event could be many things, from major life events like marriage, career decisions, and choice of a life partner to minor things like a new outfit, weekend plans, or even just a good night’s sleep.
But, the temporary satisfaction one gets from these situations can never, and will never last. Human beings are wired to continually adjust to changes, even drastic ones, over time. In the wise words of Fyodor Dostoevsky: “Man is a pliant animal, a being who gets accustomed to anything.”
So what is this hedonic adaptation? A blossoming field in both psychology, economics, and philosophy, hedonistic adaptation posits that humans will gravitate toward some type of baseline state. I tend to side with the psychologists here, as the philosophers tend to go down rabbit holes and the economists tend to focus on dollars and cents. What I care about, ultimately, is happiness.
Hedonic adaptation is a pernicious feature of everyday life, one that virtually everyone has either consciously or unconsciously experienced. As another example, while extreme events on the positive (e.g. winning the lottery) and negative (e.g. loss of a family member) sides of the spectrum will produce significant fluctuations in short-term well-being, the affected individual will slowly but surely return to his or her average level of life satisfaction. And if winning the lottery, a ubiquitous American fantasy, won’t do it for you, what will?
Scholars have even likened it to a treadmill, one cycles us right back to where we began running. It all sounds pretty demoralizing and even fatalistic. If this self-indulging, “on to the next thing” approach to life won’t satisfy us, what is there to do about it?
The answer is essentially mind over matter. Without romanticizing hardships like poverty or conflict, the external or physical events that we equate with happiness simply won’t do: it has to be mental.
This mental focus has led me to mindfulness and ultimately meditation, where I think the real answers lie. The remainder of the blog considers exactly this, so read on if you’re interested!