What’s the one thing in life that you know could really make you truly happy? Getting a raise? Buying a new car? Winning the lottery? Whatever the key to the happiness puzzle looks like for you, chances are you’re searching in all the wrong places.
Since the late 1970s, a growing body of psychological research has been looking into the ways that humans adapt to life circumstances. The findings suggest that even if you were to tick off every item on your wishlist, it wouldn’t keep you satisfied for long. The dopamine buzz wouldn’t last because humans are wired to always want more.
This niggling sense of dissatisfaction is such a familiar part of the human experience that psychologists have even coined a term for it: the hedonic treadmill. First developed by researchers Philip Brickman and Donald Campbell in 1978, the metaphor neatly describes the universal tendency for us to boomerang back to a baseline level of happiness, despite life’s ups and downs.