AKA: Is it so bad that things can make me happy?
AKA: The hedonic treadmill isn't always a thing.
Today was an errand-y sort of day. But there came a point when I was able to put the top down on my little Beetle, and turn on the car trip playlist - one of my favorite top-down kind of songs came on, and I was driving down the coast highway looking at the ocean, and it was just perfect. And I got to thinking - is it such a bad thing that my little convertible Beetle makes me so very happy? And that got me to thinking - how is it that I continue to be made so very happy by my little car? Psychological theory suggests that we tend to return to a relatively stable state of baseline happiness, regardless of major life events, positive or negative. That theory is also often applied to the acquisition of things - we are very excited by them, and they make us very happy, until we sort of acclimate to the happy, and return to our baseline levels. This is the hedonic treadmill, or hedonic adaptation.
I'm not going to say that that doesn't happen to me - there are certainly things that I have totally lusted after and dreamed about and wanted, that, after a while (or even pretty quickly), stop seeming so exceptionally excellent (there are several knitting projects, and yarn acquisitions, that I'm thinking of right here).
But it is also true that there are some things that I maintain a real, heart-expanding, sense of joy around. And I'm trying to figure out what they have in common, or what it is that lets me have that deep sense of continuing joy.
A first-pass list:
- my stick-shift convertible Beetle TDI (all of that is relevant - more in a moment)
- Disco (a story for another day)
- my vision, after Lasik (fifteen years ago, maybe?)
- the fact that my leg doesn't have constant nerve pain any more
- the rugs that we got in Turkey
- my back patio (especially, but not limited to, the wisteria, jacaranda, and quiet morning coffee)
I think there's a lot more, and that list may be something I add to over time. What I think a lot of those things have in common is that they come with a story, or a feeling-tone - and that doesn't diminish with time. The Beetle is a case in point. I often said to my husband, in a kind of "check out my silly dream" sort of way, that someday, when we could afford another car (read: after the girls were both out of college), I'd love to get a convertible Beetle. Stick shift. Diesel. For various reasons (having to do with VW's need to buy back my husband's diesel Passat thanks to their nefarious machinations), the possibility of getting a car came sooner than I'd expected. And then here's the thing: Rick made it happen. He searched for, and found (in Michigan, no less), the ridiculous, impractical, fantastic, happy-making car that I now have. (These are so hard to find that the guys at VW refer to it as a unicorn.) And every time I put the top down, and drive along with the music playing and the wind in my face, it brings me joy. Every. Single. Time. In a year and a half, it hasn't gotten old. And it's not just the wind in my face and the music, and the joy of the stick shift (I really love me a stick shift) - it's that all of that is also wrapped up in love.
And someday, that little car will stop working - as all things do. And that's OK. The joy part won't stop working, because the emotion behind it doesn't go away.
