Stop running - there is no finish line

#61 - Home Alone continues to be funny

Hi there,

A very merry Christmas to you 🎄 ! Incidentally, both Christmas and New Year’s Day sit on a Sunday this year so here you are, a Christmas present from me to you - how lucky. Wrapped in vibrant internet tinsel and a personalised Substack frame, it’s the best gift you’ll receive today.

Also, 2 requests, don’t scrunch up the wrapping paper and throw it away. Remember to reuse it #climatechange. Keep this gift in the front of your mind as you wind down into the last week of 2022.

Enough humour and bonhomie; it has been a pretty so-so week. The weather has been pretty down, both outside and inside: I was struck with a cold which I unwillingly rugby-passed to the family. I’ve been quietly (bar expansive coughing fits) getting stuck into some work with watching a cricket league auction and 2 films acting as the berries of the porridge¹.

Highlight of the week ⭐: watching the new Home Alone film ‘Home Sweet Home Alone’ as a family. It’d been a while since we’d sat down together to watch a movie. The film was expectedly not as magical and legendary as the original McCallister episodes but it was sufficiently hilarious. What made it more comical was how I and my Mum couldn’t laugh without tail ending every serious one with a mini-coughing fit. I thought to myself: how sad - I can’t even laugh without coughing!

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One of the key themes of 2022 has been the rise in the cost of living (link to my economics article on the subject 😛). Infiltrating the whole of our usual spending, it has primarily been rearing its ugly head in our gas and electricity bills.

In a bid to be more mindful of how and how much energy we were guzzling every day, we bought a smart meter around the start of the school year. It quickly turned into an “anxiety portal” as a comedian on Radio 4’s Friday Night Comedy put it.

“A red light! Why? Where? Who’s left their light on? Turn off the big lights in the living room…Oh, it’s the microwave.” 🔴 This sort of shriek became a familiar chant, especially when the per-day-tallies hit the mid-teens.

Thankfully, with the painstaking manoeuvring of the heating controls and being more careful & sparing with when we turn the heating on, I’m happy (and so is my dad) to report that the daily sums and the cumulative bills are on their way down.

This week, when around 4pm, I spotted that the screen showed a relatively low figure of £5.87. Mentally, I charted up less than £10/12 as a win when it struck me. ‘Oh Adi, you’ve been sucked in again. You’ve fallen for its cunning ploy again. One more point to this devilish phenomenon of human nature’ - hedonic adaptation.

Also commonly referred to as ‘the hedonic treadmill’ (a triumphant analogy, might I add), with ‘hedonic’ meaning pleasure, it is the idea that humans never stay at satisfaction equilibrium and are constantly moving up and down from this baseline. As soon as our desires have been met, our insatiable minds set their sights on the next goal, move the goalposts and put us back on a journey of chasing this new dream, only for this story of momentary and fleeting happiness to repeat.

A nice illustration from the creator newsletter I’d recommend Snail Mail (from Slow Growth)

It is this constant will to improve, to seek the previously unattained, to constantly conquer new achievements, and to scale new heights, that enabled us to evolve. We became resilient, adaptable creatures that have charted our own success by making much industrial progress, scientific invention and creative endeavours.

Unfortunately, this seemingly magical human drive applied itself in unfavourable ways. Fame, riches, material possessions: we started wishing for these

and often these wishes often don’t have an end no end at all

What was once magical turns unappealing and dull; the sparkle and joy you felt from it before ends up being stolen by another shiny new toy.

“Among life’s cruelest truths is this one: wonderful things are especially wonderful the first time they happen, but their wonderfulness wanes with repetition.” Daniel Gilbert in his book Stumbling on Happiness

I don’t wish to paint myself as immune to it myself. I’ve definitely succumbed to this issue with my blog and podcast for example. When I started, every subscriber would renew the sense of purpose and rationale behind writing. Now, seeing total views of 50 and a decent open rate doesn’t excite me or fill me with joy. I’m used to it, maybe I can say, my ego expects it.² We see it in lottery winners, who, within a year's time, can end up taking their penthouses for granted, or in our careers, endlessly trying to jostle up the org chart and fatten our paychecks³.

Hedonic adaptation isn’t incessant trouble. It is good that we constantly strive to become better versions of ourselves and ‘outgrow’ our past selves. But the problem is we often become glued to this imaginary treadmill, slowly cranking up the speeds. From walking at a leisurely pace, we can end up running frantically, devoid of breath, without being sure exactly what we’re running for. Like a donkey pulling a cart, we can end up on a neverending attempt to eat that carrot which keeps extending in front of us.

Sometimes, we need to jump off the treadmill and turn it off. As it rests, you can stand still and realise how much you’ve run. Maybe it needs a bit of lubricating or ‘refining’. In life, this is updating our methods and systems, decluttering, reflecting and setting a new path or continuing on our previous one with the correct, updated reasons.

Quit regret, instead reflect

Linking this to happiness, to actively stick a hammer in the treadmill to slow it down, we need to manage our expectations. In his book ‘Solve for Happy’, former Google X chief Mo Gawdat tries to formulate happiness

Happiness ≥ your perception of the events of your life - your expectations of how life should behave

Relating to previous blog posts on perception (zooming out on your life and maybe it’s time to change your glasses), he suggests that having low expectations can narrow the gap between them and reality and therefore increase our happiness. This is something I think about a lot: does this mean that we have smaller ambitions and aim for less? I haven’t come to a convincing conclusion on this but I’d say it’s aiming high and expecting little. No one is destined or entitled to any amount of success so we should do everything in our power and control to shape how much we do get.

Other ways of stepping off/slowing down the treadmill:

• “Smell the roses” - as we’ve hopefully agreed, we can end up constantly chasing the next thing and forget to enjoy the present. Take the time to pause and reflect (there’s that phrase from last week again) and accept how wonderful your life is - zoom out.

• Actively practice gratitude - this could be through journalling or just recognising one thing you’re grateful for each day. Taking stock of how much we already have can dampen our desire to rush for the next goal, satisfied with just how good what we’ve already achieved is.

• Alter your perception to make reality better than you may think it is - more in the blog posts hyperlinked above.

• Embrace minimalism - this is a more extreme solution I found but maybe being content with little can make us enjoy that little more.

Rewind back to your past self. Would they find what you do and what you have cool? If they would, you should too surely? It is human to get caught up in the non-stop race of running for more money, more pride, more attention, more everything. Remember to take a step back to appreciate what you have and realise if you and your wishes are going too fast.

More on this here, a great article recommended by

Mental Pivot

about the slippery nature of satisfaction

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Podcast of the week 🎙️

The Cashflow Academy Show: The End of Cash

Daily finance in China is moving digital. Is this a good model to follow? An expert analyses the situation. It really is a good, insightful listen.

Article of the week 📰

The Focus to Say No

A dream article, incredibly succinct yet packed with powerful insight. Featuring Steve Jobs, it explores the overwhelm of opportunities we face.

Quote of the week 💬

Expect the best. Prepare for the worst. Capitalize on what comes. - Zig Ziglar

Final week of the year. Let’s end it on a good note, whatever that may be for you.

Adi

1. Just invented a phrase! Look at me, all fancy and figurative.

2. Another example that came to mind is my email inbox unread count. Back in 2019 and 2020, I was a stickler to Inbox Zero. A new unread email would be a mini-crisis. Now, this number stands at a grand 274 and my storage 95% full - it clearly doesn't perturb me as much any more.

3. https://eugeneyan.com/writing/seven-habits-that-shaped-my-decade/