The disappointment of things

Buying a new phone used to be a big deal
Your whole life is on there
You’d have to set it all up again to my preferences, install all the apps, set up rhe home screen…
Often I would get a new phone and the barrier of setting it up would mean my new phone would sit there unboxed for months till I finally worked ip rhe courage to take it on.
Now its much easier.
I still love the lead up…
Bought new phone
The anticipation of the texts
Your package is on its way
The excitement of that package arriving
The pristine package design
The excitement of turning it on
I love it
But copying over all my data is so easy
In 10 mins it’s done and I arrive on my new home screen,
All my data perfectly captured and transferred across…
And that’s it
It’s done. Over.

Within 15 mins I’m back to the same level of satisfaction as I had with my old phone.

The pleasure of new things fades so quickly.
Experiences are what give lasting satisfaction
I used to get so excited about tech, gadgets and apps.
I followed all the feeds, and had alerts set up for news.
Now they hold no interest for me.
Often I prefer simple pencil and note pad.
I try to avoid new things as much as possible.

Is it a sign of maturity?
The disappointment of things?
Detaching my satisfaction from mere objects.

They call this the “hedonic treadmill“.

We live in a consumer society which pushes us to value things.
But the exceitment of new things doesn’t last long at all.
We jsut adjust to our new level of satisfaction in seconds.

The only way to be perpetually happy is to learn to enjoy the things we already have

But
Experiences > things

and
People > experiences > things.