#3: Achievements != Happiness

Thoughts on the Hedonic Treadmill

This is a famous Buddhist Aphorism. Simple but deep. We are addicted to the idea that external things get us happiness. Happiness is being at peace with what you have.

TLDR -:

• I am on a Hedonic Treadmill, chasing achievements, jobs and material goals as proxy for my happiness.

• On achieving any milestone, happiness is fleeting and I am left feeling like there is more to be achieved.

• An interpretation of happiness -> When my mind is not shuttling between the regrets of the past and the anxieties of the future. When my mind is at peace.

• The trick is to understand we are all playing a game and the one who wins this game is not the one who has the most money, power or status, but she who is at peace with herself.

• Stoic technique of Negative Visualization as a way to attain some of that peace.

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First they told me happiness was getting admission into Doon. In Doon, happiness meant getting into Cornell. At Cornell, happiness correlated to a good internship. And last I checked, my happiness was dependent on my full time job offer.

And yet, here I am, two months before I start work at my ‘dream’ company, having achieved all my past milestones but still not sure if I am all that happy or content. The ever lasting fulfillment I thought I’d get if I got a job at Tesla was nothing more than a few days of fleeting joy once I got my offer. Life is back to normal now. The dull, ever-present anxiety that I am still not doing (or being) enough has not magically disappeared like I expected it would. The desire to work at Tesla, now fulfilled, has been replaced by a new desire to get into a fancy, top notch MBA school.

Basically, it feels like, I’ve been fooling myself with what I call ‘The 3 Step Scam’

The 3 Step Scam

Hedonic Adaptation -> We adjust to their life conditions (good or bad) by recalibrating our expectations and desires.

The crux of the problem, I’ve realized, is that I like to believe that there is something out there, achieving which will give us happiness. It can be an achievement, some relationship, more money, more followers, a better car or whatever. But what I don’t realize is that once these goals are achieved, my desires and expectations increase accordingly, taking me back to square one as I get fixated on some new goal.

All my life, I’ve been on a Hedonic Treadmill. As I hopped from achievement to achievement — Doon -> Cornell -> Internship -> Tesla — I continuously held these external life goals as proxies for happiness, only to get there and look for new ones. Even today, as I write this, a part of me likes to believe that once I get to Tesla, I would live happily ever after. But my past experience has led to this nagging realization that even Tesla will normalize soon and I’ll be left chasing some new goal — a promotion, a salary raise or a transfer to some ‘better’ team.

And this realization is demotivating because then I start wondering, what is even the point in chasing all these seemingly prestigious jobs and institutions when at the end of the day, I am only gonna be desiring the next step up.

The key to contentment is to appreciate what I have. Instead of desiring external things, I need to learn to desire my own life. I am, in fact, living the dream life of my past self.

Happiness is synonymous with peace and can be attained in the present. Peace is when my thoughts are not shuttling between the anxieties of the future and the regrets of the past. Peace is an internal state, a feeling that nothing is amiss my life.

The ancient Stoics understood the futility of the hedonic treadmill and the power of appreciating one’s present. They developed a technique called Negative Visualization, which allows one to desire the life that they already have —

1. Visualize someone or something that you hold very dear.

2. Imagine that person or thing to have left your life. Imagine death, divorce, breakup as ways for you to lose that valuable entity.

3. Visualize the consequences of that happening on your emotional state and mental peace.

4. Finish visualization. Return to life as normal, happy that you still have that person or thing.

Paradoxically, having flickering negative thoughts makes me happier regarding my current circumstances. It teaches me to not take things for granted because at all points in time, life could be much worse. While the sense of appreciation obtained through negative visualization is short lived, regular practice does make me grateful for what I have.

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I know that was a lot! Thank you so much for making it through till here.

Now it’s your time to talk! What did you like? What did you dislike? What was unclear? Was it too long? What would you want me to expand on? Tell me in the comments. Help me make Metanoia better :)

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