Nassim Taleb on Hedonic Happiness
Making $1 million in one year, but nothing in the preceding nine, does not bring the same pleasure as having the total evenly distributed over the same period, that is, $100,000 every year for ten years in a row. The same applies to the inverse order – making a bundle the first year, then nothing for the remaining period. Somehow, your pleasure system will be saturated rather quickly, and it will not carry forward the hedonic balance like a sum on a tax return.
As a matter
of fact, your happiness depends far more on the number of instances of
positive feelings, what psychologists call “positive affect,” than
on their intensity when they hit. In other words, good news is good
news first; how good matters rather little. So, to have a pleasant life you should spread these small “affects”
across time as evenly as possible. Plenty of mildly good news is
preferable to one single lump of great news…The same property in reverse
applies to our unhappiness. It is better to lump all your pain into a brief
period rather than have it spread out over a longer one.
Source~ Nassim Taleb, in The
Black Swan
Greek
philosopher Epicurus on desire and contentment:
"Do
not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you
now have was once among the things you only hoped for."
"Focus starts with elimination, improves with concentration, and compounds with continuation."
-James Clear
