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First-World Problems

There's a German expression that I think fits this topic pretty well: "Jammern auf hohem Niveau." It basically means complaining about a problem even though, objectively speaking, you're doing pretty well. In other words, a first-world problem. And I think most of us know situations where we've caught ourselves doing exactly that.

Often, it only takes fairly ordinary things. The internet isn't as fast as usual. At the supermarket, you somehow end up at the one checkout where nothing is moving. The air conditioning at work is blowing uncomfortably down your neck. You can also be unhappy with your income even though you know that plenty of other people have to get by on much less. Or you're stuck behind a slow truck or tractor on a long country road with no chance to overtake for miles. Most of us can probably relate to at least one of those.

Rationally, of course, you know that you could look at many of these things very differently. Not everyone even has air conditioning at work, and whether you arrive five minutes later because of a tractor or spend a little longer waiting at the supermarket probably doesn't matter much in hindsight. Even your income might look pretty good compared to someone else's, despite the fact that you're not completely satisfied with it yourself. Once you start looking at your own situation that way, your dissatisfaction can quickly feel a little ungrateful. You'd think that realization alone would be enough to make you see things differently.

But most of the time, it isn't. Knowing that someone else has a much bigger problem or has to get by with significantly less doesn't change how you feel about your own situation in that moment. Of course, comparisons like that can sometimes help put things back into perspective. But if that always worked, almost nobody would ever be allowed to complain about anything as long as there was someone somewhere in the world who had it worse.

The Luxury We Don't Notice Anymore

Imagine we could take someone from the 19th century and put them in an average modern home for a day. We could start with the faucet. You turn it on and clean water comes out. If you want, even hot water. Then we'd show them the toilet, the fridge, electric lights, the heating, and the washing machine.

And at some point, we'd pull a smartphone out of our pocket.

It takes photos and videos, tells us how to get pretty much anywhere, plays music and movies, and gives us access to more information than any one person could ever read. We can also use it to talk to someone on the other side of the world within seconds and do about a thousand other things. But honestly, the faucet would probably already be impressive enough for our visitor from the 19th century.

(And historically, we wouldn't even have to go that far back. According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, 45 percent of U.S. housing units still lacked what the Census defined as complete plumbing facilities in 1940, including hot and cold piped water, a bathtub or shower, and a flush toilet. And even today, many of these things are far from a given everywhere.)

Today, we turn on the shower and the hot water is just there. Yet hardly anyone stands under it every morning thinking, "Holy shit, hot water just comes out of the wall."

And the same thing happens with much smaller changes in our own lives. Maybe you get a raise, move into a nicer home, buy something you've been saving up for, or reach a goal that used to be really important to you. At first, you're happy about it and the difference from how things were before is still pretty obvious. But eventually, it all becomes routine. You just use the new kitchen to cook, the higher salary becomes the number that lands in your bank account every month, and that special new car eventually becomes just the car.

What once felt like an improvement eventually becomes the new normal. You no longer constantly think about what things were like before. Instead, you start looking at what could still be better from where you are now. And that's how you can end up being dissatisfied with something today that you probably would have been pretty happy about a few years ago.

How Hedonic Adaptation Works

Hedonic Adaptation basically describes our tendency to get used to changes in our circumstances. And that can actually work in both directions. Positive changes can make us happier at first, but over time, at least some of that becomes normal. But we can also adapt, at least to some degree, to negative changes. Something that initially makes everyday life noticeably worse can sometimes become easier to live with as we adjust to the new situation.

That doesn't mean we simply get used to everything, though. How much we adapt can depend on the person and the circumstances, and some changes can have lasting effects on our well-being. In this article, I'm mainly interested in the positive side of it and how improvements that once felt special can eventually become completely normal.

Part of the reason seems to be that the change simply stops standing out as much as it did at first. The positive feelings connected to it can become less intense, while at the same time our expectations start adjusting to the new situation. What initially felt like a bonus can eventually become something we simply expect.

One of the best-known studies on this dates back to 1978. The researchers compared, among others, 22 lottery winners with a control group. Surprisingly, the winners didn't rate themselves as any happier overall and even reported less enjoyment of ordinary everyday activities. The study is still often used as an example of how even a huge positive change can lose some of what made it feel special.

But then again, we're talking about just 22 lottery winners. And it would definitely be going too far to conclude from this that we completely adapt to every positive change and eventually end up exactly where we were before. That stronger idea has increasingly been questioned by later research. A 2006 review and reassessment of the research, for example, concluded that people can react very differently to changes and that long-term well-being can indeed change.

But that doesn't contradict Hedonic Adaptation. We can get used to an improvement without all of its positive effects disappearing. A raise, for example, can make your life permanently more comfortable while still feeling nowhere near as special after two years as it did during the first few weeks. And THAT is Hedonic Adaptation.

It doesn't only happen with money either. Getting your driver's license can feel like a huge deal, until having a license is just normal. The same can happen with finishing school, buying a car, getting a pet, or eventually owning a home. One thing that once seemed like a big milestone becomes part of everyday life, while somewhere further up the list, the next one is already waiting.

It's Not Just About Having More

Hedonic Adaptation sounds pretty shitty at first. Because once something you've achieved eventually becomes the new normal, it can quickly turn into a cycle. You get used to one thing and already have the next one in mind. There's a reason why this kind of cycle is often described as a "Hedonic Treadmill".

But it's also interesting to look at what we actually measure this new normal against. Because often, what matters isn't just what we have, but what we're comparing it to. Strictly speaking, social comparison isn't Hedonic Adaptation itself. But it can still change the reference point we use to judge our own situation.

You can see this pretty clearly at work. Maybe you're actually quite happy with your job and your salary. You earn enough, you like what you do, and you don't really have much reason to complain about it. Then at some point, you find out that a coworker earns significantly more even though you're doing practically the same job.

Absolutely nothing about your own situation has changed. You still have the same job and you're not earning a single cent less than you were five minutes ago. And yet, suddenly you're not quite as happy with your salary as you were before.

And of course, this doesn't just happen with money. Your own home can feel pretty spacious until you see a friend's much bigger one. You can be perfectly happy with your car for years until you start comparing it to someone else's much nicer one. Even things we were actually happy with can start to look different once the comparison changes.

So it's not just about what we have. What we're comparing it to can make a pretty big difference too.

Money Doesn't Make You Happy. Or Does It?

You've probably heard the saying, "Money doesn't make you happy." (Interestingly enough, it seems to be said surprisingly often by people who have quite a lot of it.)

Well, it doesn't seem to be quite that simple. A well-known study from 2010 looked at U.S. data and found that day-to-day emotional well-being initially increased with income, but that this relationship was no longer observed beyond an annual income of around $75,000. People's overall evaluation of their lives, however, continued to improve even at higher incomes.

Those $75,000 were then often treated as a kind of threshold beyond which additional money supposedly wouldn't make you any happier. Later research, however, suggested that there probably isn't one universal threshold like that. A 2023 study that took a closer look at the differing results of previous research came to a more nuanced conclusion. Among roughly the least happy 15–20 percent of participants, the relationship between income and well-being leveled off at higher incomes. Among the happier majority, however, well-being continued to increase even at higher incomes.

So it doesn't make much sense to define a specific amount as some universal happiness threshold. Higher income can absolutely be associated with greater well-being, just not in the same way for everyone.

And then there's the question of what that income is actually worth. After the sharp price increases of recent years, many workers have lost purchasing power. While real wages were rising again in practically all OECD countries examined in the first quarter of 2026, they were still below their early 2021 levels in around a third of them.

So if you're earning more today than you were a few years ago but still don't feel any better off financially, that doesn't necessarily have to be Hedonic Adaptation. A higher salary on paper doesn't automatically mean you can actually afford more with it.

So, does more money make you happy (or happier)? Yes, it can. If it means less financial stress, fewer worries about making it to the end of the month, or simply more freedom to spend money on things that matter to you, that's a real improvement. But even a real improvement can eventually become normal. You might still be financially better off than before, while the feeling of being better off gradually becomes less noticeable. And that's where Hedonic Adaptation comes back into the picture.

So What Do We Do with It?

If Hedonic Adaptation is simply a pretty normal part of how we humans work, the obvious question is what we're supposed to do with that knowledge.

Simply deciding that from now on, we're going to be satisfied with everything probably isn't going to work particularly well. And it wouldn't make much sense either. After all, there can be perfectly good reasons to be dissatisfied with something.

And there's nothing wrong with having new goals either. A new car, your own home, starting a family, a certain job, or eventually retiring can all be things you look forward to for years. It becomes more of a problem when you constantly tie your own happiness to those future points. Once I've achieved that, then I'll be happy.

The same thing can happen with seemingly smaller things. You can spend Monday already wishing it were the weekend, wait all winter for summer, or spend your time at work thinking mostly about your next vacation. Of course, looking forward to something is a good thing. But if your happiness constantly depends on what happens next week, next summer, or at some point further down the road, you end up spending a pretty large part of your life waiting for something.

We're not going to simply prevent Hedonic Adaptation from happening. But I think it doesn't hurt to stop every now and then and consciously notice what has long since become normal in our own lives. After all, a lot of it wasn't always normal. And while we're already looking toward the next goal, it's pretty easy to overlook what we've already achieved.

Closing Words

The topics I write about on this blog quite often come from random situations or thoughts in everyday life. And that was the case with this article too. With the economic and international situation over the past few years, quite a few things have become noticeably more expensive. Naturally, that has also slowed down some of my plans.

At the same time, when I look at my own situation rationally, I'm doing pretty well. Much better, in fact, than I usually realize in everyday life. And that contradiction is exactly what gave me the idea for this blog post in the first place.

And since I'm obviously not immune to Hedonic Adaptation either, I try to remind myself of that every now and then. To stop for a moment and think about the things that were still goals a few years ago but have long since become completely normal.