Why Chasing Happiness is Pointless (The Hedonic Treadmill)

Centuries ago, Siddhartha Gautama was born a prince, with a prophecy declaring that he would become either a great king or a spiritual leader. His father didn’t like the idea of his son walking the spiritual path; he wanted him to become a powerful ruler, just like himself. To keep him by his side, he shielded him from the world’s sufferings (which could lead him to the spiritual path) and surrounded him with luxury and pleasure.

But despite his father’s efforts, Siddhartha wasn’t happy. He felt that something was off. Curious about life beyond the palace walls, he went outside and encountered the realities of aging, sickness, and death, which profoundly disturbed him. Realizing the nature of worldly pleasures, he renounced his royal life, seeking truth and enlightenment.

After years of ascetic practice and meditation, Siddhartha reached enlightenment under the Bodhi tree, becoming the Buddha. The story of the Buddha reminds us that pursuing worldly pleasures doesn’t necessarily lead to happiness; it could even be a source of misery. Yet, most people seem trapped in pursuing happiness in the external world: We think that when we finally have a certain amount of money in the bank, that ideal marriage, and the dream vacation in Bali, we will become happier overall.

But is that really the case? Couldn’t it be that chasing happiness doesn’t make us happier and could even make us miserable? And if so, how should we go about this ‘happiness’ thing? This video explores the nature of happiness. Throughout the ages, humans have attempted to find happiness in external places. For example, in one of his letters, the Stoic philosopher Seneca criticized how people use travel to cure discontent, saying that to shake off the heaviness of the mind, one doesn’t need a change of climate but a change of soul.

From a Stoic point of view, finding happiness through travel is just a vain attempt; it’s trying to find a solution for our discontent in the fickle outside world, while the answer lies within. No other than Socrates also criticized travel, saying: “Why do you wonder that globe-trotting does not help you, seeing that you always take yourself with you? The reason which set you wandering is ever at your heels.”

But countless voices contradict the Stoics (and Socrates, for that matter), arguing that travel is worth the time and effort; it broadens one’s horizon, could be a source of inspiration, and might indeed increase our life satisfaction and be a force for transformation. Travel hasn’t lost its appeal since the time of Seneca. It’s one of those activities people engage in to find pleasure and happiness or to “find oneself.”

Not too long ago, I traveled to Japan for the first time. Planning this trip came with expectations. I designated this endeavor (consciously or subconsciously) as ‘something’ that would generate happiness, just like I designated going to prison as something that would generate unhappiness. I planned to go sightseeing, try many Japanese foods, use the super-efficient subway system, and explore the city of Tokyo on foot. And I’d enjoy it.

But then I got sick. Consequently, I’d spend a lot of time in my hotel room and in bed, and I'd visited a local clinic and a hospital countless times, although they couldn’t seem to find what was wrong. Even though the symptoms eventually dissolved, and I had a modest share of sightseeing and fun experiences, my stay in Japan didn’t meet my initial expectations. The very thing I designated as a source of happiness became a source of distress.

So, the Stoics had a point: my attempt to find happiness was unreliable and dependent on circumstances I had no control over, something we’ll explore later in this video. But what if my trip was as pleasurable as I had imagined or even exceeded my expectations? How much happier would I’ve been? Well, probably, it wouldn’t have mattered that much. Because when it comes to obtaining pleasure, there’s a catch.

So, why do we seek pleasure? The answer seems obvious: pleasure feels good, as opposed to its opposite, which is pain. Hence, we see humans consistently seeking pleasure and avoiding pain (with a few exceptions, of course). There’s a theory called ‘psychological hedonism’ that supports the idea that all human action is ultimately motivated by seeking pleasure. The core of this idea isn’t new: hedonist philosophers of old, like Epicurus and Aristippus, already argued that the pursuit of pleasure was the supreme good.

So, first of all, what’s hedonism? Oxford Languages describes hedonism as follows: the ethical theory that pleasure (in the sense of the satisfaction of desires) is the highest good and proper aim of human life. The pursuit of pleasure is complex. There’s not just one pleasure. There are many different forms of pleasure, varying in intensity.

The hedonistic philosopher Epicurus distinguished between different kinds of desires. He argued that some desires have natural limits, and we must chase them for our survival, and they are widely available, such as food. He also spoke of desires that aren’t natural or necessary, can never be satisfied, and are difficult to obtain, such as fame and extreme wealth. So, we have to choose our pleasures wisely.

As long as we select the right pleasures, then the pursuit of pleasure becomes the highest good, according to Epicurus. I made a separate video on Epicurus if you want to know more about his philosophy. Not everyone agrees with Epicurus’ stance toward the pursuit of pleasure, though. The Stoics criticized him. The Buddhists probably aren’t so fond of him, either.

There’s an interesting psychological theory that explains the problems with pursuing pleasure called the ‘hedonic treadmill,’ also known as ‘hedonic adaptation.’ The hedonic treadmill points to the human tendency to quickly adapt to relatively stable happiness levels despite major life changes. We see this with both positive and negative events.

A study by Brickman, Coates, and Janoff-Bulman observed three groups: lottery winners, paralyzed accident victims, and a control group, as they wanted to see how these people experienced happiness over the course of time. The lottery winners were ecstatic shortly after they won the lottery. Still, a year later, their happiness adapted to stable levels akin to those of the control group (people who didn’t win the lottery).

The accident victims experienced deep unhappiness shortly after their accidents, but their levels of happiness stabilized as well after a year, making them just slightly unhappier than the lottery winners. So, in both cases, the effect of external events on happiness is short-lived. After a year or so, it doesn’t really matter if you won the jackpot, married the person of your dreams, lost all your money, lost your leg, etc., according to the theory of hedonic adaptation.

After a while, your sense of happiness will be the same. I experienced this, too, during my trip to Japan. Eventually, I began to accept my situation, even seeing the fun in it; I got to experience Japanese clinics and hospitals, how Japanese healthcare workers operate, and see the city not through the energetic eyes of a healthy tourist but through the gloomy, melancholic lens of a sick, stranded traveler. It had something special, too. Something unique and interesting.

So, I think in terms of happiness, I wasn’t that much worse off than I’d have been healthy – it kind of returned to baseline after the initial frustration waned. Hence, the metaphor of the ‘treadmill’: no matter how hard you try to increase happiness, you will always remain in the same place. Sure, you can still enjoy short-term moments of happiness, but, as said, they’re just brief hits.

Yet, society consistently pushes us to chase this mythical notion of long-lasting, extraordinary happiness. We fall for the idea of abundant wealth, believing that if we finally become Bitcoin millionaires, all of our troubles will evaporate, and we will finally be happy. We need a big house, an expensive car, a perfect marriage, and millions of followers on Instagram. If we attain those things, we meet with levels of happiness and contentment we could never experience when we don’t attain them.

Firmly believing in the consumerist promise, we become like rats on a wheel, chasing something but never really getting there. Sounds like a miserable existence to me. So, aside from the hedonic treadmill, are there more arguments against pursuing happiness in the external world? When we look at the fickleness of external pleasures and how the effects of pleasure tend to diminish over time, can we make a case against pleasure-seeking?

As far as happiness is concerned, countless philosophers have argued against seeking external pleasure. The Stoics, for example, noticed that not external things but our notions concerning external things decide how they make us feel. So, in essence, it’s not the traveling that makes us happy; it’s how we think about this activity that generates how we feel.

Hence, traveling doesn’t make everyone happy, only those who attribute pleasure to it. Now, at first glance, gaining pleasure in the outside world seems easy. Just identify what you like, obtain it, and when you obtain it, you’ll get that shot of happiness. So, if you desire to travel, the path to happiness is easy: book a ticket and go travel.

But what the Stoics are trying to make clear is that by doing so, you’ve laid the likelihood of attaining happiness in the hands of outside factors you cannot control. Despite your desire for something and efforts to attain it, you may never get what you desire. Maybe traveling is too expensive. Or maybe you do manage to travel, but circumstances ruin it. An anticipated vacation of sun, sea, and beach could turn into being locked up in some Spanish apartment because of lousy weather.

When chasing happiness, we generally look toward external sources. However, the Stoics argue that these external sources of happiness are unreliable. Hence, Epictetus said that desire and aversion can lead to pain. When we get what we desire and avoid what we’re averse to, all is good. But when we don’t get what we desire or encounter what we’re averse to, we feel pretty bad.

It means that our desire for happiness (and our aversion toward unhappiness) backfired; it made us miserable because we set criteria in the form of external circumstances for our happiness. But when circumstances mismatch these criteria, we experience disappointment. So, this chase for happiness often becomes a cycle of pleasure and disappointment.

Pessimistic philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer goes a step further, saying that pleasure is nothing more than the fleeting absence of pain. According to him, satisfying a desire isn’t a pleasurable experience; it’s just a moment of relief from the ongoing dissatisfaction that all living beings are cursed with. Schopenhauer called this urge, this continual desire, and sense of lack the ‘Will-to-live,’ which he considered the source of our unhappiness.

Arthur Schopenhauer presented two strategies to deal with the pain of life. The first one is asceticism. An example of this asceticism is the practice of Buddhist monks attempting to reach enlightenment and end the cycle of suffering. Asceticism leads to the denial and curbing of the ‘will to live.’ It solves the problem of suffering in a radical way, destroying it at the very source. And what follows from that?

Contentment, happiness, inner peace: the products of the absence of dissatisfaction. But, as Schopenhauer admits, the path of asceticism is insanely difficult, and not many will attain it. So, is there a way to find happiness without denying external pleasures completely – without becoming a monk? Can we find durable happiness? Something that’s easy to obtain but effective? Is there some kind of sustainable hedonism?

The most straightforward way would be to focus on pleasures that are widely available and easy to obtain while also using them moderately. By doing so, we spend less time on the hamster wheel and more time being satisfied. Also, we don’t get jaded by overindulging in pleasures and needing more. Schopenhauer preferred one pleasure in particular, namely, intellectual pleasure.

Think about reading books, watching documentaries, and other educational content; there’s an endless source of information out there, and with modern technology, it is more accessible than ever before. Or how about Henry David Thoreau, who enjoyed the simplicity of living in a cabin in the woods and the pleasure of being in nature? Personally, I love to walk and do it almost every day: it’s a cheap activity, and most people can do it.

Oftentimes, I listen to music or a podcast; sometimes, I just think while enjoying the sights. For me, walking is one of the key ingredients for my overall mental and physical well-being. Seeking pleasure is human. By and large, human beings want to be happy and content. If not, we wouldn’t be searching for opportunities all the time that could make that happen.

But when this search for pleasure becomes a source of distress, we might want to rethink our approach. Why should we focus on lavish pleasures and fall for promises of ultimate happiness when, in reality, we hedonically adapt to them anyway and fall back to baseline happiness? We might as well stay at that baseline, enjoying life’s simple and easily attainable delights. It saves us a lot of stress.

Thank you for watching.