Invest in experiences rather than material possessions to enhance your life satisfaction. It's a proven way to maximize happiness and fulfillment.
We buy too many things; people have forgotten that we were happier with less things.
[...] And then you buy a house... Now you have more space to buy more stuff
I've heard and read this so often that I was convinced it was true. The "experience recommendation" is that you will be happier spending your money on experiences rather than possessions. Somehow, I believed this was wrong, but how can so many people all be wrong? The problem is definitely with my way of thinking, and happiness lies within a ticket.
Of course, a sabbatical in the Caribbean full of meditation, acupuncture, and sound baths gives you more happiness than a new collection of handbags. Of course, skydiving over the Fox Glacier will provide you with more adventure and adrenaline than having a new car. And the list can go on. When making these claims, we employ a few biases and some subjective tactics to justify them:
- If we had already done these activities, it wouldn't have been in our favor to recognize them as mistakes, especially for accruing anecdotes. It's a commitment bias.
- Being wealthy doesn't make you happy. We've seen so many sad, rich people, and their fancy possessions can't change that. Naive realism and Illusory truth appear here.
- We should live less materialistic lifestyles. Nature will benefit from them, climate change will decline, and we will all be better off. Somehow, we omit how travel negatively influences our carbon footprint. Leveling and Sharpening in the stories we tell.
It is a complicated subject to understand, and psychology is not an exact science that can follow the scientific method to find the truth. Multiple studies suggest that experiences are better, but I still consider the subject open to discussion.
A memory is worth a thousand words.
One of the original studies is [Leaf Van Boven, Thomas Gilovich 1 Dec 2003], which is highly cited and has many influential citations. The takeaway is that experiential purchases make people happier than material purchases, as they are more open to positive interpretations, contribute more to one's identity, and contribute more to successful social relationships. People were asked to remember purchases from the two categories and then compare which made them happier. Results showed that a nontrivial amount of responses were in favor of experiences. It is a study that does not rank very high in the hierarchy of evidence.
This result shows that people have more positive memories of experiences when directly asked to recall them. Is it because doing something novel sticks more in our heads? Is it because it was a one-time thing? I don't know, but it doesn't mean these purchases make people happier.
Let me share an example: Some years ago, I was lucky enough to participate in a barista training course, and later, I purchased a manual espresso machine for my home.
The training was unforgettable. I went in with some knowledge about coffee, but I came out amazed and with even more questions. Brewing the perfect cup of coffee might seem straightforward, but it's a skill that demands precision and expertise. It's not just about pouring hot water over the grounds; it's about achieving the right balance of temperature, grind size, and brew time to bring out the complex flavors of the beans for your taste buds and sense of smell. A skilled barista must take a single-origin coffee and bring out its unique notes—such as the bright, citrusy flavors in a lightly roasted Ethiopian bean—that would be lost with the wrong technique. Crafting coffee is a fusion of art and science, transforming a simple beverage into an extraordinary experience. Yes, I remember the experience well.
The manual coffee machine enables me to do that. It lets me enjoy my mornings, it gives me feedback, and I still have my skills. It also keeps me humble by requiring a stricter cleaning schedule than the rest of my kitchen. The machine offers a small increment in my happiness each day, quite often. Or I can say that it lets me experience great coffee as part of the ordinary in my life—removing the memory from even occurring when it's working as expected.
How can you say one thing is more important than the other if both are required?
So, with this example, I can't say which item from my shopping cart had a better impact on my happiness, and most examples I can come up with tend to be like this.
I like bad paintings with suitable frames.
So, if I was stopped on the street and asked, "Hello there! Which purchase made you happier, your barista course or your manual coffee machine?" I am confident the course would win. But if they added a follow-up like, "Don't forget that each morning you enjoy a great coffee on your balcony, made with that machine?" I am also confident I would change my answer.
So, depending on which frame the question has, I am sure my answers would be different or, at least, would make it harder to provide a correct conclusion. Is a question that prompts reflection better than one that doesn't lead? I'm not implying that the study didn't take this into account, but it's really difficult to discern people's true thoughts.
Like quality, it is a binary dilemma if something adds happiness to our lives. Comparing two of these that have the most significant impact is almost impossible, yet we do this exercise almost daily.
The sand passes in the hourglass; nothing stops it.
A more recent study concludes [Amit Kumar, Matthew A. Killingsworth, Thomas Gilovich · 1 May 2020] that experiential purchases promote greater moment-to-moment happiness than material purchases, regardless of when happiness is measured. I believe that is correct, but at the same time, I don't have a WOW moment reading this conclusion. We experience life moment by moment, but whenever we reflect, we look at the aggregate data points.
As time passes, the initial excitement of the experience passes. And, of course, you can't replay the experience for the second or third time to get the same results. You might need to up the budget, the risk, and the price in general.
After visintg a few European countries, Alex said that all major cities look the same. He wasn't even interested in exploring the local.
A coffee machine creates an experience.
And now, returning to my example, it is part of a category called experiential possessions, which was explored in a different study [Darwin A. Guevarra, Ryan T. Howell · 2015]. The takeaway is that experiential products provide similar levels of well-being as life experiences and more well-being than material items, supporting the positive-activity model and self-determination theory.
So, we are closer to a 50/50 to what the generators for happiness are between experiences and possibilities.
But using and handling a manual coffee machine is a lot of work!
The customer is always right in matters of taste.
Looking back, I've played both roles in my life. In one, I had a lot of fantastic experiences: traveling for exotic meals, meditation retreats, snorkeling, and maybe the occasional parachute jump. The other times, I enjoyed nice possessions: a nicely decorated house, wearing nice fragrances, and so on.
Different roles with different tastes. One prefers a consistent, comfortable lifestyle with little variations, while the other treats life like a series, each episode wilder than the previous one.
So which one is the good role? Which one should you favor? How can you start choosing?
I don't know. Even after exploring the studies that I could find, I don't have a more evident answer than I started with. I can share some of the principles I try to guide my decisions and, as usual, take them with a grain of salt.
How to purchase, not what
Know thyself before thy wealth doth flee.
You should be open to change, but your preferences are not random. In your late twenties, you likely have a strong sense of whether you are more inclined towards material possessions or life experiences. This usually comes when you have time and some budget to try and experiment. Trust that you can confidently recognize what makes you happy and that your self-awareness surpasses that of a popular psychology article.
Riches and reckless pursuits can lead to barren paths.
Indeed, some people bring unhappiness upon themselves through possessions, be it hoarding or the belief that the next luxury handbag will complete them. On the other hand, others make themselves unhappy with experiences, such as those fixated on creating a glamorous Instagram feed and feeling let down when a spa day fails to provide the expected revelations. It's worth noting that there are numerous ways to spend wisely or foolishly.
The self who lives the moment is not the self who recalls it.
Human beings not only crave novelty but also seek out comfortable structures. We fondly reflect on past pleasures and challenges while benefiting from day-to-day enjoyment. It's important to strive to satisfy needs and care for present and future longings. However, it's essential to recognize that it's impossible to fully meet your constantly evolving future self. If you sometimes regret past actions, take comfort in knowing that those actions were taken by a previous version of yourself who did not seek your current opinion.
Simplicity enriches life.
Less is more in life, especially in areas like dopamine balance.
Culture eats happiness for breakfast.
Our culture influences how we expect and experience happiness. A few studies have already observed and compared this difference.
