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My laptop's internal parts were torched due to a short circuit last week. I had a traumatic experience, to say the least, but the incident reminded me of how we often we forget to savour mundane things in life till we actually miss them! This behaviour has implications on our consumption as well. How?
Consider my friend. He flies business class on international travel. And this has made his personal travel rather uncomfortable! Why? Because he flies coach (economy) class for his personal travel and is always comparing its services with business class. This is the same individual who enjoyed coach class because he was eager to see new destinations and make new friends. This behaviour seems to suggest that our ability to savour good things in life declines as our living standard improves! Research conducted by economists suggests that the rich have trouble savouring everyday emotions.
SAVOURING EVERYDAY EMOTIONS
Eating ice cream at the neighbourhood restaurant may be a rewarding experience for the middle class. The rich, on the other hand, can walk into a five-star restaurant for the same. And this is the point, because money can buy all the desired things. The rich, perhaps, derive little satisfaction from consuming small pleasures in life. The worst-affected are the people who have experienced luxury but are not rich enough to consume such goods everyday. Such people will have to necessarily settle for less exciting goods — those that gave them satisfaction before they actually experienced luxury products. Daniel Gilbert, a well-known psychologist, refers to this behaviour as the experience-stretching hypothesis. It refers to how experiencing best things in life limits us from enjoying mundane joys such as eating chocolate bars. This, indeed, reduces our overall satisfaction because we are likely to spend more time consuming mundane things and less time consuming “best things in life”. This is, perhaps, the reason why people who do not know what they are missing are happier than the ones who do!
(The author is the founder of Navera Consulting. He can be reached at >enhancek@gmail.com )
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