Brian Johnson argues that chasing material success like cars and houses is a hedonic treadmill: psychologists say only 10% of happiness comes from stuff. Real fulfillment comes from integrity, mastery, and living by your values instead.
Hi, this is Brian with another mini chapter from a Philosopher's Notes. This one's called Bling Treadmill. Researchers tell us that at most 10% of our happiness comes from stuff like fast cars, big houses, initials after our names, or fancy titles on our business cards. Unfortunately, we've been conditioned to believe otherwise, and most of us spend our lives chasing one thing after another. The bigger bank balance, the shinier bling, the higher altitude on the org chart is in our attempts to finally live with more happiness, peace, fulfillment and all that jazz. Psychologists call that being stuck on a hedonic treadmill, gasping and working, but never quite getting there. There's a much more direct way to sustainable happiness that comes from effectively shaping our thoughts and behaviors, living with virtue, and being in integrity with our highest values. Ultimately, we need to realize that the pursuit of all that fame, fortune, power is a lot like running in place. So let's step off the bling treadmill and diligently, patiently, persistently and playfully start focusing on what really matters. Mastery of our thoughts and behaviors. Interestingly, the more we do this, the more the material stuff tends to show up, but more as a byproduct of our goodness than anything else. So there you go, Bling treadmills. Let's step off and get on the integrity track. Alright. Hope you dug it. Have an awesome day.
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