The amount of happiness that we feel and the frequency with which we feel it is obviously impacted by what happens to us and what we do to ourselves. However, humans are hardwired to adapt to their current situation and eventually form a new equilibrium around a “new normal”.
If a human is put into a bad situation they adapt to it over time and eventually think of it as normal. If a human is put into a good situation they also adapt to it over time and think of this as normal.
This process of adaptation from the old normal to the new normal (finding a new equilibrium) means that the happiness we feel after something good happens in our lives will eventually fade and we will need to take more action to get more happiness. Then that happiness will fade and we will need to take yet more action to get yet more happiness and so on.
Next article in this series: “Purpose Of Life – Cycles”