Treat Yo'self

Which is more valuable, experiences or material things?
How social distancing is changing one of the key ways we can control our mood.


I started this Monday off in kind of a funk. I listened to "The Daily" podcast, which had a great (but very sobering) episode today, I showered, got ready for the day, had my workout, and dove in to my course work. All the while thinking about how different the world and our lives are going to continue to look until there is a vaccine. If you know me well then chances are I've tried to rope you in to some sort of an experience that I've planned over the time that we've known each other. Planning events is one of my absolute favorite things to do. Obviously that isn't an exactly an option right now. There aren't many experiences I have planned that I'm looking forward to, and that can just feel depressing. The day the e-mail came in to my inbox that the Taylor Swift concert was canceled was the nail in the coffin of the big events I had scheduled that I was praying wouldn't get postponed due to the pandemic. Even though I've educated myself and was very aware of the reality that the concert was most likely going to be postponed, I couldn't accept it until the e-mail was in my inbox...and there it was on Friday. Alright...I need to make it very clear that I am an extremely privileged individual. The fact that I can be sitting here writing this from the comfort of my home with my health and my family's health intact is astounding, and I am so incredibly grateful! This however does not change where my mind (and all of our minds) wants to wander to, and that is a place of unhappiness. Well, I'm going to make it my mission to not succumb to that and help others do the same in the process. So let's first talk about the difference between the happiness that experiences brings versus material things.

Experiences vs. Material Things

Through this course I've already learned (and you probably have as well) that our minds tend to want the wrong things. We have bad intuition about what will make us happier, we don't think in absolutes, and our minds get used to the stuff we have. Still what's at the top of my mind is that 40% of my overall well-being and happiness depends on my actions and choices. When we're considering what habits to change or what actions to add in to our lives it's important to decipher what will create the biggest positive impact. When it comes to deciphering between experiences versus material things there is a clear winner. While both can arguably make you happier for a period of time, one creates long lasting happiness that outweighs the other.

When it comes to material things we are quickly faced with adapting to it quickly, also known as hedonic adaptation. You buy that new car that you've been eyeing and after a couple of months the ride is still the same, the color is still the same, and one could even argue that the new car could quickly make you less happy with the addition of some new dings and scratches...whoops. Our intuition for what is going to make us the happiest is just plain wrong. There's a great quote about material things that they "will only stay around to disappoint you". So if we're not spending all of our hard earned money on material things what can we invest in? Experiences. Honestly when this topic came up in the course work I began feeling a little discouraged. That planner inside of me has been dying to get out, and I can't just spend time with my friends off while we're off on another excursion. I had to instead start to think of quarantine friendly experiences. That led me to contemplating the lesson I learned about savoring. Maybe we don't need to focus on the big trip to Europe, but instead could get just as much satisfaction from the "small stuff".

Savoring the "small" experiences

Savoring is the act of stepping outside of an experience to review and appreciate it. It forces you to stop and notice the experience and can even prolong it. Actions that can enhance savoring are (as mentioned in the course "The Science of Well-Being"):

  • You talk to someone about how good the experience felt
  • You look for other people to share it with
  • You think about what a lucky person you are 
  • You share about it later with others
  • You have a physical expression of energy (i.e. jumping up and down)
  • You laughed or giggled
  • You told yourself how proud you are of yourself
  • You thought only about the present and was absorbed in the moment
Now think about something that made you want to do a number of those things during this quarantine. I know my major one has been this course! The fact that I'm so excited that I'm sharing it via blog form is me really stepping outside of my comfort zone. I normally just bore my friends with details about the latest self help book I'm reading, but this is allowing everyone to see my vulnerability and I'm really proud of that. Other things that I've really savored are the meals I've cooked, the painting I've taken up, the workouts I've done, and best of all the long conversations I've had with the people closest to me. Through all of these moments I have been able to truly lose track of time and be present. None of those things were something that needed an exorbitant amount of money or even to be able to leave my home for, but it did take effort. It took me actively making choices to do something different each day and not continue to scroll through my Instagram feed (and trust me that is hard to do right now). These slight tweaks in my routine were really starting to pay off though. I even began to spread out of my course work so that I could savor the material and soak it in more. 

There are things however that keep us stuck in hedonic adaptation and don't allow us to savor our experiences, and those actions are:
  • You focus on the future when the experience was over
  • You remind yourself that it will be over soon
  • You tell yourself that it wasn't as good as you had hoped it would be
  • You remind yourself that nothing lasts forever 
  • You think about how it will never be this good again
  • You think about ways it could be better
  • You tell yourself that you didn't deserve this good thing (the opposite of gratitude)
By just simply catching yourself when you begin to think one of those thoughts during an experience you can begin to rewire your brain and retrain your habits. One technique that can help you halt those thoughts in their tracks is the "Stop Technique", where you literally say the word "STOP" out loud when you begin to ruminate. I know it seems silly, but it's proven to work! I've started doing that with social media use and it's helped me tremendously! 

Now let's get to the good stuff...how can we appreciate the more mundane and monotonous activities more? 


Treat Yo'self

Often a term used when you want to go ahead and eat that ice cream in the freezer...go ahead!...treat yo'self! Turns out not all things that we desire are bad and won't make us happier. They in fact will make us happier but we have to battle the hedonic adaptation part, and to do that we have to break up the monotony of the activities. Studies show that if you start listening to your favorite song and then are told to take a break from listening to it half way through it and are then able to resume listening to it a half an hour later, you will actually like the song more! This technique is called interrupting your consumption. We can do this is really simple ways, like:

  • Plan a day that you're going to treat yourself to that bottle of wine that you've been saving instead of having a nightly glass
  • Choose one day out of the week where you're going to order from your favorite restaurant
  • Try something new for your fitnesses classes that week
  • Break up the binge watching of your favorite show and only watch it on a certain day of the week

Yes...go ahead and have that bowl of pasta that you've been wanting to have, but plan what night you're going to allow yourself to have it on so you can look forward to it! This will not allow your brain to get used to the experience and you will end up not only appreciating it more, but you will also be happier for longer because of it.

Another way to reset our reference points (the gauge in which we are measuring our successes and failures) is to concretely re-experience something.

Concretely re-experience

Think back to a time where you were so elated that you finally got the thing you wanted. It can be a relationship, a job, or your acceptance in to a prestigious program or school. Now take those things that you like and that you take for granted and find a way to re-experience what that time felt like when you just got them and what life was like without them.

There was a study done on couples and they were asked to write for 15 minutes about how they might have never met their partner. They started to think about all the things that could have been and all of the things that could have prevented them from even meeting. From there they started to think about what their life would be like without them and how it was when they met. It broke them out of their present mindsets and they were able to appreciate their partner more. It actually reset their reference point and made relive all of those good feelings that they thought they had lost for their partner. What this exercise shows is all of the things that we so quickly adapt to and take for granted are not the reason for our unhappiness it is our ungratefulness. Gratitude will make you happier than all other things and sharing that gratitude with others can be even more powerful.

One of the things that I get emotional thinking about during this difficult time is how there are family members that can't even tell their loved one's thank you or be there with them in their final moments. So do your best not to take a single thing in your life for granted, if you only try one of the tactics that I've mentioned, I highly suggest you try writing down 5 things you are grateful for each week and maybe even consider sharing why you are grateful for those important people in your life to them.

Exercise: Write a letter of gratitude to someone who has helped you but you never properly thanked them. Then plan a day to send it to them and call them. Notice how you feel afterwards.


My final piece of advice is...just stop complaining and appreciate your life. If you aren't spending time each day being grateful for something you're just not making the right choices...



Additional sources of inspiration on experiences:

https://www.insider.com/free-things-online-while-at-home-during-the-coronavirus-outbreak-2020-3#you-can-mosey-through-national-parks-from-the-comfort-of-the-couch-2

http://sonjalyubomirsky.com/wp-content/themes/sonjalyubomirsky/papers/LSD2006.pdf

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