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Imagine that I came over tonight and cooked you a fantastic steak dinner (for the carnivores among us) or a phenomenal all-natural organic vegan lasagna (for the vegan-inclined).  Would you enjoy it?

I’m betting you probably would.  I’m also betting that you’d be happier than if you’d just rummaged through your cupboards and/or refrigerator.  The meal might not make you happy in the long-term existential sense, but it would increase your happiness by some amount – at least in the short term.

The same concept applies to possessions and even experiences.  You might treat yourself to a new DVD every once in awhile.  You might meet up with some friends to go bowling one night a week.  Each of these experiences provides you with some level of increased short-term happiness.

The thing is, the pleasurable experience is only noticeable inasmuch as it deviates from your normal life.  If I came over and cooked you a fantastic dinner every night, sooner or later you’d come to expect it.  You’d plan your day around it.  And if I got sick and couldn’t do it anymore, you might get depressed or even angry.  Why is this?

As you allow the experience to become part of your normal life, you adjust.  This is called “hedonic adaptation”, which is a fancy way of saying “you get used to being happy”.  If you only needed a house, transportation and some decent food before, now you need a house, transportation, and excellent food for dinner.  What used to be special is now normal, and if something that’s “normal” disappears it’s not uncommon to get depressed or angry.

So how do you prevent hedonic adaptation?  Think about your daily or weekly routines, purchases, and activities.  Some of them are pretty much required for you to survive (taking baths, washing dishes, buying groceries & toilet paper, etc.).  Other than the ones that are required, why do you do the rest?

For example, my wife and I like soda.  I know, it’s not particularly healthy.  Let’s forget the health arguments for a second though and look at the consumption pattern.

We used to buy soda by the case as part of our grocery shopping, sometimes multiple cases per week.  This led to soda being something that we had around all the time, making it common and not particularly special.  Even though we do really like it, we found that we were passively consuming it – we drank it because it was there, and we weren’t really taking the time to enjoy it.  If we don’t have anything else in the house to drink, we found ourselves just downing another can of soda.  Worse yet, soda is one of the more expensive beverages – around $7.00 for a 24-pack of a name brand.

We decided to cut back on soda using a completely arbitrary metric – we only drink soda on dates that are divisible by three.  The 3rd, 6th, 9th, 12th, etc. are our soda days.  We have one two-liter bottle on those days, that’s it.  We keep a few different kinds that we like around, and pick whatever tickles our fancy that particular day.  Normally we buy the inexpensive stuff (Great Value from Wal-Mart), but since we only go through ten bottles per month, it’s not a big deal to try something new or different.  Even if we bought the name brand at $1.99 per bottle, it would be a maximum of $20.00 per month.  Our normal monthly cost is much lower, as Great Value soda is about 80 cents per 2-liter.

The result?  We consume less soda.  This is arguably a good thing for many reasons (including health).  When we do have it, we enjoy it more.  We’re more aware of flavor and quality, because our senses have had a couple of days to recover since we had it last.  We’re also more conscious when we purchase it to make sure we’re getting flavors we enjoy.  We save money too – when we were buying 24 packs and just consuming them willy-nilly, we could find ourselves spending $30 to $40 per month on soda.  Our average expenditure per month now is less than $10.

Net result?  We spend less money, we enjoy it more, we consume less, and it’s healthier for us.  If you ask me, that’s a quadruple win!

What about you?  Have you come up with a way to battle hedonic adaptation in your own life?  Sound off in the comments!