Dissatisfaction Factor #4: Hedonic Adaptation

Hedonic adaptation is the tendency to quickly return to a baseline level of satisfaction no matter what happens to us in life and may be the cruelest of all 4 factors.

Hedonic adaptation is Mother Nature’s bait-and-switch. All sorts of life events we think would make us happier actually don’t—or at least, not for long.

As David Myers writes in The Pursuit Of Happiness, “Every desirable experience—passionate love, a spiritual high, the pleasure of a new possession, the exhilaration of success—is transitory.”