The Hedonic Treadmill: Our Happiness Resting Point

Right after I submitted my college application to Penn over four years ago, I remember thinking to myself “If I get into Penn, I’d be set. I would have all these incredible opportunities right at my doorstep — how could I not be happy?” Though Penn has been a remarkable journey, it has been nowhere close to as simple as that. When I first set foot on campus, there was no epiphany. My high school thought process was misleading: there was no moment of sudden happiness that just hit me. Through this experience and many others, I have realized that even after emotional highs and lows, we eventually come back to a stable happiness resting point, a constant level of contentment regardless of major events in our lives. This tendency is called the hedonic treadmill.

I’m sure there are exceptions where certain events can have a dramatic permanent impact on your happiness but I’d argue that they are rarer than you think. Take the disability paradox for instance. One might believe that becoming physically impaired through some sort of traumatic event such as a car accident would inevitably affect a person’s happiness permanently. However, research in hedonic psychology has shown that after an initial shock of depression, many disabled people’s quality of life and happiness eventually return to the same level as pre-trauma. In some instances, they are more inspired than before. Here’s a quick visualization of the tendency:

That isn’t to say that happiness levels stay the same forever. Your resting point can change over time (a shift in the blue line) and I think the height of your resting point is tied to your day-to-day happiness. So how do you determine whether you are going through a temporary shift in happiness rather than a permanent change in your resting point? I think the distinction comes by understanding the reason behind the change in happiness. If it was caused by some sort of discrete event (i.e. a break up, death, or failure) then it is more likely to be temporary. If it is caused by something that is more continuous in nature that is tied to your day-to-day happiness (i.e. feeling of loneliness, lack of motivation, or frustration with work) then it may suggest a more permanent shift in your resting point. Once we acknowledge that the hedonic treadmill holds true in most cases, then we can consider two important implications.

The first is that this theory only strengthens the argument to live in the present. As per the argument above, the way to become truly happier is for there to be a permanent upwards shift in your resting point. I believe that the resting point is tied to your day-to-day contentment as that’s essentially what determines the resting point in the first place. As a result, to become happier, you have to increase your in-the-moment happiness. I’ve seen this hold true with many of my friends as well. Regardless of success (in school or in the workplace), they all seem to be similarly happy to how they were when in high school or college. I believe that we should work toward optimizing our present happiness in a way that doesn’t severely compromise our future. This argument is especially relevant to Penn students — most of us think about what’s next before thinking about how happy we are in the present.

On campus recruiting (OCR) is the obvious example here. I don’t think living in the moment implies that we shouldn’t focus on important opportunities in the future. As a matter of fact, I would say that working toward these type of opportunities may be an important factor in someone’s day-to-day happiness. That said, I do think there are two important considerations that may suggest we are overly focused on the future. The first is if the we get the opportunities we are working toward, we will actually be less happy on a day-to-day basis. According to many investment bankers, their job is grueling and often times not enjoyable. I think if you are working toward these type of opportunities where you know you may be less happy than your current state of happiness, then you should reflect on whether it’s something you really want. The second consideration is if the process of pursuing these opportunities considerably decreases your in-the-moment happiness. A good heuristic here is if you can actually notice that you’re less happy then it probably means it’s having a significant enough impact on your happiness. In general, I think we should spend more of our time focusing on shifting the resting point through in-the-moment gains, rather than focusing much of our energy on pursuing that dream opportunity in the future.

The other (more comforting) implication from the hedonic treadmill is that time heals almost all wounds. If we know for a fact that we will return to a central resting point even after traumatic experiences such as a death to a loved one or a long-term breakup, then we know we will be okay. In the moment, it may seem like there’s nothing else more pressing but in almost all cases (including instances such as physical impairment), we come back to a set point. Having this knowledge is hopefully comforting in times of difficulty — everything will be okay if given enough time.

Both of these implications are easier said than done, but if you truly believe in the hedonic treadmill then it’s only further proof to live in the moment while staying resilient in times of difficulty.