If nothing else, this stay-at-home period is demonstrating what studies on happiness have shown over and over.

When people talk about what they are missing most, it isn’t things. It is experiences.

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People aren’t talking about what they wanted to buy.

They’re talking about what they wanted to do.

Happiness research has consistently shown that the only spending that meaningfully lifts happiness beyond the short term is spending on experiences.

Trips, vacations, events.

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We live in a culture that conditions us to covet “things”.

Yet, if nothing else, this period of quarantine is showing what has always been true:

We get far more value out of people, places and experiences than anything we can buy and own.

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If you’re interested in the science behind why that is, here’s a quick read.

The punchline: things we buy only have an effect for as long as it takes to adapt to them being a new normal - and that isn’t long.

But we get to relive experiences in our minds. https://www.fastcompany.com/3043858/the-science-of-why-you-should-spend-your-money-on-experiences-not-thing

It would not be terrible for us as a society to come out of this with shifted priorities.

Less purchasing of stuff. More investment in going, seeing and doing.

When we look back on our lives, we’ll value the pictures far more than the camera.

5/5