As 2024 comes to an end, people are looking back to evaluate their lives and think about what can be done in 2025 to achieve a more fulfilling existence. As you do, you may notice a conundrum: why do you have great things in your life – perhaps a fulfilling career, a loving family, a comfortable home – when those things seem to have little impact? on your daily happiness. ?
At the same time, there may be less serious things around us – cracks in a relationship, rudeness online, inefficiencies in the workplace – and it seems that we often get used to these illnesses, we We are therefore less likely to try to change them. .
In other words, we stop noticing what has always been there. Here’s how you can change that.
Recognize the habit
Habit is a fundamental characteristic of our brain: a tendency to respond less and less to constant or frequent things.
Imagine walking into a cafe. At first the aroma of freshly ground coffee is dominant, but after about 20 minutes you no longer smell it. Your olfactory neurons stop responding: they get used to it. And just as you get used to the smell of coffee, you can also get used to more complex aspects of your life.
The challenge then is to regain sensitivity, both to the great things in life, so that we can feel joy, and to the terrible things that we have stopped noticing and could potentially change if we tried. So how can we sayget used to it?
Break the good
The answer lies in this wonderful quote from economist Tibor Scitovsky: “Pleasure results from incomplete and intermittent satisfaction of desires. »
Think about a song you love: would you enjoy it more if you listened to it continuously from start to finish, or with short breaks? Ninety-nine percent of people say “no” to breaks. However, research shows that people enjoy a song more when they listen to it with pauses. For what? If you continually listen to a song, the joy it sparks at first diminishes over time. The breaks, however, cause habituation, so each time the song comes back, the joy level rebounds.
To combat addiction and maximize pleasure, we must consume the good things in life little by little. Whether it’s a Netflix show, chocolate cake, or a new romance, savor rather than binge.
Swallow the bad whole
On the other hand, if you have to accomplish an unpleasant task (household chores, administrative work), accomplish them all at once. Research shows that people suffer less if they have to continuously listen to an unpleasant noise (such as the sound of a vacuum cleaner) than if they take breaks. If you continually feel the noise, the “pain” it causes at first diminishes over time. The breaks, however, cause dishabituation, so that each time the noise returns, the level of suffering rebounds.
Experiences in life
What about aspects of your life that you think can induce stress and anxiety, but you can’t really tell how much they affect you because they’re always there, so you don’t Don’t try to change them? They appear in the background like the constant noise of an air conditioner: you don’t realize how much of a negative impact the noise has until someone turns it off and you suddenly feel much better.
Think about social media: do they have a negative impact on you? In one studyResearchers paid half of the participants $100 each to leave a social media platform for a month, while the other half continued their lives as usual. At the end of the experiment, the “quitting” cohort was happier and less stressed. More importantly, they were surprised. They didn’t realize how much the platform was having a negative impact on them.
In 2025, experience life. Eliminate certain items from your daily routine for a while, one at a time, and add new ones. Measure and evaluate the impact on your life, so you can retain the characteristics that induce happiness and purpose, and eliminate those that don’t.
