The Happiness Curve: Beware of Expectations

The grass is always greener on the other side. No truer words were ever uttered. Get it? Utter? Cows? Grass? Anyway, it’s our expectations that lead us in search of new experiences, but do they always pay off?

This concept of something better on the horizon has governed my existence for as long as I can recall. Under the constant glare of incandescent lights in a corporate office, I dreamed of selling my house and living on the road. But once I was living that reality, I discovered the very real contrasts of life on the road that I already knew existed.

When I was surrounded by all the nature, I just really wanted to lay on my living room rug with air conditioning, a lacrosse ball under my lower back, watching The Great British Baking Show.

It didn’t take long for us to decide that some sort of hybrid life was our best option. We opted to buy a house in St. George, Utah, intent on nesting here for the majority of the year, like Roland’s Rock House. For the rest of the year, particularly the hateful summer, we planned to travel and perhaps rent out our home.

So, how is that going?

The Problem with Expectations

One problem comes with expectations. And, like that damn weather man who keeps mis-calling the humidity up at the proj, we are also prone to poor forecasting.

You see, I’ve just finished reading The Happiness Curve: Why Life Gets Better After Midlife. In this fascinating work, author Jonathan Rauch explains how aging actually makes us happier, but only after, on average, passing through a U-shaped trough of malaise in one’s 30s, 40s, and/or 50s.

As a society, we envision the senior demographic to be one of sadness. Growing older, we lose our youthful vitality, our bodies become frail and stiff, our friends and family members die off, and our emotions become regulated.

Ah, but that last point is exactly it! Typically, by our 50s we start to simply accept that happiness will always = 7, and we find contentment in this reality. We become wiser and more pragmatic. We fall into a mode of acceptance and gratitude, finding ways to Be Here Now, which is both a related 1971 book by Ram Dass and an arguably unrelated third studio album by Oasis. A little trivia, that’s all.

Why Do We Become Unhappy in our 30s and 40s?

Without a doubt, the typical life mode of this age demographic is one of high stress. Many are juggling careers, raising young children, and facing the reality that we may never live the life we expected in our 20s.

Which brings us back to our forecasting errors. Rauch notes that younger adults are prone to overestimating future life satisfaction. We assume that certain goals (marriage, home ownership, travel, etc.,) will deliver a level of contentment not yet achieved and that our lives will be super rad (!).

We work doggedly toward these goals with great “optimism bias,” only to fall short of our expectations by our midlife. Some may even achieve great success beyond our youthful expectations—as was the case with the author, Jonathan Rauch—only to find that contentment still must exist across the next fence.

The Hedonic Treadmill and High Expectations

This moving target or series of fences separating the chewed sod from greener grass is the classic “hedonic treadmill,” resulting in a slow, insidious slip into discontentment. We keep jumping fences yet we never find what we’re looking for.

These fences exist in our careers, our family life, our spending habits, and even our recreational pursuits. Certainly, you didn’t retire your climbing shoes after you sent your project, did you? Of course not! That hope of improvement keeps us soldiering on to the next goal. Unfortunately, these endless pursuits can leave us exhausted and constantly disappointed in ourselves at not achieving enough. This is especially true when we fall victim to comparison.

FIRE bloggers have noted the existence of the hedonic treadmill for years, pointing the finger at those keeping up with the Joneses (or the Kardashians). When I first think of hedonism, 90s and early 2000’s rap videos come to mind: yachts, gold, flying 100-dollar bills, and hoes in different area codes. The pursuit of riches, debauchery, and lines of blow forms the classic image of hedonism, but it doesn’t stop there.

While it’s easy to point the finger at the guy with wingtips of silver and a red sports car, the truth is that we all, at some point, run our own hamster wheel.

Hedonism by definition is any life spent in pursuit of absolute pleasure and in strict avoidance of pain.

Therein lies a problem with acceptance of pain—which is universally unavoidable—and gratitude.

Gratitude

Once we hit that midlife trough of malaise, we begin to rethink our priorities. Rauch argues that we cultivate seeds of wisdom and pragmatism, better able to recognize what we can and cannot control. Finally, we learn to simply expect less and appreciate more.

Many religions, in theory, are highly effective at instilling values of gratitude amongst their members. Many adherents have bemoaned the decline in religious participation as a root cause of our thankless, must-have-more culture of hedonism.

Now, let’s be clear: I’m not touching that debate with a 50-foot pole.

However, because we know gratitude to be a universally applicable emotion across both the religious and secular world, we can safely assume that all people are capable of cultivating gratitude.

Having an appreciation for the good in our lives makes the suck more manageable. Interestingly, gratitude is one of those emotions that is well understood, but rarely engaged in a meaningful way.

I can remember sitting at many Thanksgiving dinners, asked to express gratitude while staring at a steaming pile of meat like one of Pavlov’s dogs.

Yes, I’m grateful for everything. Blah, blah, blah. Yo! Pass the gravy!

Without Gratitude: An Example

When I first returned home from my three-week road trip back in June, the southern Utah deserts were parched and scorching hot. Fresh off a romp through high-elevation mountains and cooler temperatures of Wyoming and Colorado, I was feeling a little bummed to be back home. I started writing a cringe-worthy, self-loathing piece about the supposed miserable existence of desert life in the summer.

I even posted it here, but decided to delete it. It’s long, and it’s that bad.

DELETED

You see, I have the immense privilege of financial security. I don’t have to work in a traditional sense. Despite the heat, I’d just spent three weeks traveling, climbing, and enjoying time with friends and family. But instead of being overwhelmed with gratitude for my good fortune, I quickly adjusted to my new normal and reset my sights with even higher expectations.

This psychological creep is so pervasive, and a fundamental reason why happiness remains elusive in families, cultures, and nations with plenty. Research has not fully elucidated the reasons for this U-shape in happiness, but two contributions are reasonable: insatiable expectations and a dearth of gratitude.

It all feels like a reversion to the emotional mean.

Are We Doomed to Unhappiness?

Let’s be clear: I am not authoring this post as some sort of voice of authority. I just read this stuff, think holy shit this is me, and write it out in hopes that someone else will read this and think holy shit this is me. Maybe someone else has been feeling a little off for years, and can’t quite put a finger on it.

I honestly don’t know if I’m dropping into, already riding the bottom, or whipping a buttery smooth kickflip out of the unhappiness curve as described by Rauch. Certainly, I can relate to the emotional highs and lows and perhaps unreasonable expectations of my 20s. It’s also clear that my emotions have stabilized throughout my thirties. Moments of euphoria are fewer and fewer, but particularly rough days also occur with decreasing frequency. It all feels like a reversion to the emotional mean.

I’ve seen this transition in my climbing too in recent years. I once had an insane drive to progress and knock down goals. However, as the years pass by, I’m less and less concerned with how I perform (usually). I’ve taken on a more realistic “you win some, you lose some” mentality (usually), which has the excellent benefit of actually helping me continue to progress without all the undue stress (usually). The brain is a hell of a governor on performance.

And finally, this happiness curve is not a guaranteed destiny. Some folks will never experience a U-shaped decline in happiness. Some curves may be sharp, some shallow, some more prolonged, some earlier, and some later. Geography matters too. For instance, those in Russia generally experience deeper and more prolonged periods of unhappiness in midlife. This period of emotional discontent may even be genetically hardwired—the U-shaped happiness curve is observed in great apes.

Back to Life: Examining Expectations

Alright, alright, so what does this have to do with anything? Well, I’ve spent a lot of time examining my motivations since leaving my job, which once occupied a good chunk of my “thinking time.”

If there’s one great gift of time away from the traditional job routine, it’s the opportunity for some degree of mental clarity. For full disclosure, I still spend way too much time on my phone, and I’d be the first to admit that I’ve merely scratched the surface at any sort of real mental clarity. But I’m closer.

I now know that living on the road in a camper was, for us at least, a greener pasture. I also know that too much routine is itself a greener pasture. Variety is indeed still the spice of life, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to mix things up without worrying about pleated pants and Monday team meetings.

Yes, we’re very happy with our decision to buy a house. And yes, we’re still setting in and getting accustomed to life in a new and very different place. I’m grateful for Friday’s conversation with Wally, the Virginia-born gas station attendant at Harmons whose accent I recognized, leading to an interesting pump-side chat about mid-2000s Appalachian State football and southern culture. And finally, we’re super jazzed on our greatly enhanced opportunities for travel. Now the trick is to recognize and appreciate this life, not falling behind to ever-increasing expectations.

---

So, with that said, we’re looking forward to our upcoming stint in Salt Lake City. Who’s there?!

And finally, as a slight aside, Biz Markie died this past weekend. That really bummed me out. So, I’m grateful for his music, and I’m thankful for the 6,873 times I’ve played this song on repeat over the years. I miss that old hip hop style.

---

Remember, the best laid plans mean nothing if you can’t take action today. Have questions? Need some feedback? Hit us up on the contact page.

If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe here for much, much more. And please, send this to someone who might enjoy or benefit from this content.

Thanks guys, see you next week.

Affiliate links are used on this page. If you choose to purchase a linked product, you will incur no extra charges, but we will receive a tiny-baby portion of the sale. Those very small proceeds help us keep the digital lights on around here. We wouldn’t link to a product we wouldn’t buy ourselves. Tis all!