Why You Should Buy Less and Experience More
How much pleasure do you get from your car? Put it on a scale from 0 to 10. If you don’t own a car, then do the same for your house, your flat, your laptop, anything like that. Psychologists Norbert Schwarz, Daniel Kahneman and Jing Xu asked motorists this question and compared their responses with the monetary value of the vehicle. The result? The more luxurious the car, the more pleasure it gave the owner. A BMW 7 Series generates about fifty percent more pleasure than a Ford Escort. So far, so good: when somebody sinks a load of money in a vehicle, at least they get a good return on their investment in the form of joy.
Now, let’s ask a slightly different question: how happy were you during your last car trip? The researchers posed this question too, and again compared the motorists’ answers with the values of their cars. The result? No correlation. No matter how luxurious or how shabby the vehicle, the owners’ happiness ratings were all equally rock bottom.
The first survey revealed a correlation between the monetary value of the car and the perceived pleasure it gave its owner—the greater the luxury, the greater the pleasure. Yet the second survey revealed no such correlation—a luxury vehicle didn’t make drivers any happier. How can this be? Easy: the first question makes you think about the car, while the second question makes you think about completely different things—a phone call during the journey, a situation at work, a traffic jam, the idiotic driver in front. Simply put, a car makes you happy when you’re thinking about it but not when you’re driving it. That’s the effect of the focusing illusion, which we discussed in the previous chapter.
Of course, it’s not just true for cars. The focusing illusion influences the pleasure you take in everything you buy. While you’re thinking about X, you tend to grossly overestimate X’s impact on your life. Whether it’s a holiday home, a gigantic plasma television or a new pair of Louboutins, thinking about your purchase in a focused way makes you happy—but during daily use these things fade to the back of your mind, minimizing their effect on your happiness. When we factor in counterproductivity, the secret side effects and hidden costs of maintaining nice things (both time and money, as we saw in Chapter 5), we discover that these two effects often combine to leave you out of pocket—the net result being a loss in happiness.
Hard to believe? Let’s take an example: you’ve bought a magnificent stately home outside the city. For the first three months you enjoy each of its fifteen rooms, delighting in every little detail. Yet just six months down the line, you barely notice the opulence around you. Everyday life has long since caught up with you; you’re occupied with other, more urgent matters. At the same time, some things have changed—a house with fifteen rooms and a garden is different from the three-room apartment you used to rent in the city center. Now you need a cleaner and a gardener; you can’t do your grocery shopping on foot any more, and your commute is an hour’s drive instead of a twenty-minute bike ride. Basically, your gorgeous new home has created a net loss of happiness. Your wellbeing account is overdrawn.
This example is made up, but I’ve seen it happen in real life. A friend of mine owns a yacht—owned, I should say, because he sold it again almost immediately. Still, he does seem a little wiser now: the two happiest days in a yacht-owner’s life, he observed laconically, are the day you buy it and the day you sell it.
As you can see, if it’s the good life you’re after then it’s advisable to show restraint about what you buy. That said, there is a class of “goods” whose enjoyment is not diminished by the focusing illusion: experiences. When you experience something pleasurable, you’re fully present in both heart and mind. So try to invest more in experiences than in physical objects. One side benefit is that most experiences cost less and are less subject to the effects of counterproductivity. Reading a good book, taking a trip with your family, playing cards with friends—they’re all bargains. Of course, some experiences do require deep pockets, like a world tour or private space travel. But if you’ve got the money, they’re guaranteed to be better investments than a Porsche collection.
Incidental but important: your job is an experience too. It’s not simply there while you do it, the way a Porsche is simply there, fading to the back of your mind while you drive it. Your job monopolizes your thoughts; it demands constant, intensive engagement—which is great if you love it. But if you hate it, you’ve got a serious problem on your hands. You can’t hope to be distracted from your shitty career by other thoughts.
This issue was a major part of why I decided to become a writer. I love the act of writing. It’s far more important to me than the published book. Of course, I’m delighted each time I pick up the first copy of a new book. I stroke the cover tenderly, leaf through the pages, inhale the glorious scent of fresh binding glue. But the book soon disappears onto the shelf, and I hardly give it a second thought—I’m already contemplating the next one.
There’s nothing more idiotic than slogging away at a job that earns you lots of money but brings you no joy—especially if you’re investing that money in items rather than experiences. Warren Buffett puts it this way: “Working with people who cause your stomach to churn seems much like marrying for money—probably a bad idea under any circumstances, but absolute madness if you are already rich.”
Speaking of marriage: in the end, this is also an experience. It’s pointless maintaining a relationship that doesn’t make you happy out of sheer loyalty or lack of other options. The focusing illusion won’t rush to your aid. Of course, not every relationship consists exclusively of sunny days, but the darker ones shouldn’t outweigh the rest. If storm clouds loom, try the art of correction (Chapter 2). If it definitely isn’t working, pull the ripcord. A relationship—especially a romantic one—will never retreat into the background of your mind.
In sum? We overestimate the impact of purchases on our wellbeing and underestimate the impact of experiences. The thought of your house—even if you’re currently standing in it—vanishes into the cacophony of your other daily thoughts. With experiences this isn’t the case. But what if you’ve already bought your Louboutins? Then at least make sure you’re consciously enjoying them. Ideally you want to be brushing and polishing them each morning and dreaming of nothing but bright red shoe soles each night. Make the focusing illusion work to your advantage for once.