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Why Having More Doesn’t Make Us Happier
And How it Could Worsen our Lives Instead
“If I win the lottery, then I’ll be the happiest person alive.”
Sound familiar? If you said yes, which I assume you did, that would be because it’s a very common phrase. But it’s also just as common of a misunderstanding.
Whether you actually believe what the phrase is saying or not is a whole different matter, but the truth is that, no matter what the item is that you win or gain, it won’t be long before your enjoyment from life plateaus again or even worsens.
Once you undergo a drastic lifestyle change, such as winning the lottery, you’ll eventually become accustomed to it and life goes on, almost as if that change never happened. And, hypothetically speaking, if you were to win the lottery again, as long as you didn’t blow through all your money from the last winning, you likely won’t be quite as ecstatic.
In other words, you slowly become less and less satisfied with the smaller things in life. Becoming less satisfied with life isn’t ideal, so it would probably be helpful to know the answer to: