Buy experiences, not things

Original post:  Dec 29, 2014

A recent article in the Atlantic discusses a research paper in behavioral economics that came up with a recommendation for leading a happier life. According to their findings, we would be happier if we would buy experiences instead of material goods. One of the authors of the paper, Matthew Killingsworth, writes that "happiness is in the content of moment-to-moment experiences".

Over the past decade, an abundance of psychology research has shown that experiences bring people more happiness than do possessions. The idea that experiential purchases are more satisfying than material purchases has long been the domain of Cornell psychology professor Thomas Gilovich. Since 2003, he has been trying to figure out exactly how and why experiential purchases are so much better than material purchases. In the journal Psychological Science last month, Gilovich and Killingsworth, along with Cornell doctoral candidate Amit Kumar, expanded on the current understanding that spending money on experiences "provide[s] more enduring happiness." They looked specifically at anticipation as a driver of that happiness; whether the benefit of spending money on an experience accrues before the purchase has been made, in addition to after. And, yes, it does.

Essentially, when you can't live in a moment, they say, it's best to live in anticipation of an experience. Experiential purchases like trips, concerts, movies, et cetera, tend to trump material purchases because the utility of buying anything really starts accruing before you buy it.

Their research seems to point to an explanation for this phenomenon:

Gilovich's prior work has shown that experiences tend to make people happier because they are less likely to measure the value of their experiences by comparing them to those of others. For example, Gilbert and company note in their new paper, many people are unsure if they would rather have a high salary that is lower than that of their peers, or a lower salary that is higher than that of their peers. With an experiential good like vacation, that dilemma doesn't hold. Would you rather have two weeks of vacation when your peers only get one? Or four weeks when your peers get eight? People choose four weeks with little hesitation.

They go on to say that this runs counter to the widespread belief that experiences like vacations are gone once they have been completed while material objects will endure. That wondrous iPhone soon becomes passé and needs to be replaced.

The best explanation for the effect seems to be:

What is it about the nature of imagining experiential purchases that's different from thinking about future material purchases? The most interesting hypothesis is that you can imagine all sort of possibilities for what an experience is going to be. "That's what's fun," Kumar said. "It could turn out a whole host of ways." With a material possession, you kind of know what you're going to get. Instead of whetting your appetite by imagining various outcomes, Kumar put it, people sort of think, Just give it to me now.

It could turn out that to get the maximum utility out of an experiential purchase, it's really best to plan far in advance. Savoring future consumption for days, weeks, years only makes the experience more valuable. It definitely trumps impulse buying, where that anticipation is completely squandered. (Never impulse-buy anything ever.)

Here is the link to the full article:  Buy Experiences, Not Things - The Atlantic

Experiences? Priceless.

Original post:  Mar 18, 2014

Over the weekend, we had two events that we had to prep for. On Saturday, we hosted a small dinner party. Since our house normally has the "lived in" look, it required a fair amount of intensive work to clean up. Part of our problem is that our boys tend to take over the whole house. Their toys and books often get scattered where they were last used. The boys "forget" to put them away.

As we started to sort through piles of things, we began to walk down memory lane. There were books that we had read to them countless times. Most of them had cycled through starbursts of activity and then faded. It was the same way with many of the toys. There were spurts of popularity and then they get broken or forgotten.

On Sunday, we had a different experience entirely. The high school drama club had performed excerpts from their play. The boys came home and asked us to go to see "Beauty and the Beast." It was even more exciting for them because one of their black belt instructors at karate was actually starring in the role of the Beast. We all had a good time.

As I thought about the weekend, I realized that this excerpt I found below is actually true. It's from a  

longer piece by author James Wallman discussing the concept of "Stuffocation." In this interview and his book, he advocates for experiences over material goods:

So there are five key reasons why experiences are better than material goods at making us happy. The first thing is something that social scientists call “hedonic adaptation.” And that’s simply a way of saying that with material goods you get bored of things quickly, whereas with experiences you don’t. The great example is the mobile phone. When you first get it you press the buttons, you play with it, you tell your friends about it, you’re excited. A week later, not so excited. A month later, ehh. Three months later it’s part of the furniture. You just get used to the thing being around.

The second thing is “positive reinterpretation.” That’s basically, if you buy a bad material good, let’s say a pair of shoes that actually don’t fit that well or a pair that squeak or that coat that swishes or makes a weird noise when you’re walking, there’s nothing you can do about that. It’s just a bad decision. That’s it. But with an experience, if it goes wrong, it doesn’t really go wrong at all.

Think about being on a long bus ride, and you’ve sat next to a person who’s sick – literally sick – all over you. And there are chickens on the bus, the windows won’t open or shut, you bang your head, the seat is really uncomfortable, and you break your coccyx and you’re just in agonizing pain, it’s supposed to be a one-hour journey and it takes three days. At the time, that’s a really horrible thing to be going through. But the more you tell it, the better it is, right? There’s that magic. The magic of a bad experience is that it’s almost like there’s no such thing as a bad experience. That’s probably my favorite reason.

The third reason why experiences are better than material goods – and this actually references the status anxiety – is that experiences are much harder to compare than material goods. And that means that we don’t get the same kind of tension that comes with comparing things. You know, if you’ve ever bought a handbag, and your colleague turns up the next day with the better one – let’s say you got the one from Top Shop, and it’s a great bag, but your colleague got the Gucci one, and there’s no doubt about it, it’s a better bag. Or I have a Nissan, it’s a very plain, average car, and one of my neighbors has a Porsche, another one has an Audi. And there’s no doubt about it that they have nicer cars than me.

But let’s say, for the sake of argument, that for a holiday your neighbor goes to the Four Seasons in Hawaii, or the Maldives, or one of those amazing islands off Brazil and stays in a five-star resort, and drinks champagne from the refrigerators, which are on the beach. And you go to Wales for a rainy camping holiday. Or you drink warm beer on the beach, or whatever it might be. Now there’s no doubt about it that they had a swankier holiday than you. But did they have a better holiday? Is chilled champagne on the beach better than warm beer? People often smile at me when I say this, and say of course they did.

But actually, you might be really wealthy and having what looks like an amazing time, but you might not be happy and having fun. It’s much more about the people you’re with and what you’re doing. But anyway, from that basis, it’s much harder to compare experiences than it is material goods.

Here is the link to the full article: http://www.salon.com/2014/03/08/buy_less_do_more_5_reasons_why_experiences_make_us_happier_than_things/

20 things 20-year-olds don't get

Original post:  Sep 19, 2013

I must be getting old. When you start identifying with this type of an article, the unmistakeable signs start staring back in the mirror.

That said, there is much of the advice that rings true no matter what your age. As I read through the list, I saw that there were some things I had always done. There were others I may have started on but still need to work on. There are still others that I have not yet put into play.

Here are the ones that resonate most for me:

• Time is not a limitless commodity

It sounds so simple but it rings true. Even when I was 20, I was very aware of the precious nature of time. Perhaps it is why I have this relentless desire to find the most economical way to do just about anything. As I've grown older, I've learned that things always take longer than you think they will. I've also learned that you can never quite accomplish as much as you hope you will, but that with enough effort you can be satisfied with the result.

• You're talented, but talent is overrated

No matter how insanely gifted anyone is, without hard work that talent is likely to be wasted. There is always someone who will be just a bit more talented. If it's not now, it will be soon.

• Pick up the phone

I always prefer a face-to-face discussion if it is possible. You can learn so much more than you can over the phone. While a videoconference is OK, I still prefer live human interaction.

Here is a link to the full article:  http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonnazar/2013/07/23/20-things-20-year-olds-dont-get/

Which ones do you like? 

Knowing how the story ends

Original post:  Sep 6, 2012

Bedtime stories can be an exercise in patience. My boys are like most other children. They love repitition and familiar patterns. They can listen to the same books or watch the same movies multiple times and find them endlessly fascinating. At times, it is difficult to approach the hundredth reading of the same book with the same passion and enthusiasm as the first.

I imagine it must be that way in many service industries. At our recent visit to theme parks, you see the attendants having to go through the same safety routines for the rides over and over again. It must be challenging to hide the hint of boredom that inevitably sets in.

There are times at work when we have done a task so many times that we almost seem to know how a situation will turn out well ahead of its actual conclusion. It must be tempting to wish we could press a magic "fast forward" button to get through the preliminaries. I suppose that is the curse of an age where we expect all of our experiences can be like a digital video recorder (where we can simply bypass the "boring" parts).

Once in a while, I smile when I see that experience paying off. Yesterday, I was in a meeting where we were discussing training and adult learning. One of the persons in our group was highly experienced--having run the training department for many years. As we struggled through a live demonstration, he observed the moderators walking around the room helping people troubleshoot their issues on their computers. As the flash of recognition hit him, he smiled and shared with the team the vital importance of having those floating personnel available for that very purpose during technical demonstrations!

Sometimes it pays to have read the book before seeing the movie!