How To Be Happier - Stop Adapting So Much

As the year gets underway and some of you begin to think about your goals, I wanted to repost this article from a few years ago to encourage you to also find contentment in what you already have.

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When my wife and I first got married, we lived in a one-bedroom apartment that was the cheapest option in our zip code. We literally went to apartments.com, sorted from least expensive, and then signed on the dotted line. Our room was sandwiched between habitual smokers. Our assigned parking spot was a 5-minute walk to the front door. They didn’t plow the parking lot when it snowed.

And we were so happy.

We often think back to that first year of marriage and laugh at how much fun we had and the terrible stuff we put up with. We would be miserable in that shack of an apartment now.

Why are we all so quick to adapt to a newer, better normal?

We get a new car and are giddy for a few weeks until it becomes just our car.

We move into a nicer home with a larger mortgage, and then soon enough it is just our home.

We get huge returns in the stock market, anchor to a higher level, and then never want to see it drop below that value again.

The money solved one problem but created a new one - higher expectations that are more and more difficult to meet.

Since 1900, real GDP per capita has increased 9X. In plain English, that means that even after adjusting for inflation, we are nine times wealthier than our ancestors 120 years ago. Today, middle-class America can travel across the country in the same amount of time it would have taken the wealthiest businessman to get across town in 1900. If we could go back and tell our ancestors that, they would have thought we were living extravagant lives – which surprisingly, is not how any of us feel. While wealth has increased 9x since 1900, I would argue we’ve adapted just as much, if not more.

Probably the best thing we can do for our wealth and health is to have more gratitude for what we have and split the difference between enjoying the excess and lowering our expectations for what we deserve.

Happy Planning,

Alex

This blog post is not advice. Please read disclaimers.