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Speaker 1: Pushkin pick up location SFOH pick up time twelve thirty p.

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Speaker 1: If there's one car you absolutely have to rent when

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Speaker 1: you go to San Francisco, it has to be compact

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Speaker 1: two four door Ford Focus or similar. I'm not really

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Speaker 1: a car person. Automatic transmission, Yes, air con Yes. My

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Speaker 1: regular ride is a slightly scruffy twenty eleven Nissan CenTra

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Speaker 1: dual Arabic awesome. If you can't picture that in your head,

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Speaker 1: that's okay. I'm not sure anyone can. It's kind of

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Speaker 1: a dull silver color and relatively anonymous lost damage. We

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Speaker 1: were now child seat. Now when I travel for work,

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Speaker 1: I usually rent the cheapest, boxiest and most ordinary car

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Speaker 1: on the lot. Prepig guess no, uh, confirm rental.

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Speaker 2: Done.

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Speaker 1: But when my producer Ryan and I arrived at the

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Speaker 1: San Francisco airport last fall, we were in for a

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Speaker 1: bit of a surprise. The woman at the car rental

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Speaker 1: place apologized profusely they'd run out of normal, boxy compact

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Speaker 1: cars and intermediates and full sizes. Would it be okay,

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Speaker 1: she asked if instead of the car I booked, we

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Speaker 1: accepted at no extra cost, a bright red Mustang convertible.

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Speaker 1: We in our amazing car took San Francisco by storm.

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Speaker 1: We crossed and recrossed the Golden Gate Bridge and soaked

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Speaker 1: up envious glances from teenage boys at crosswalks, and blasted

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Speaker 1: eighties cent pop on repeat the entire time. Instead of

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Speaker 1: adult trip into the city for work, Ryan and I

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Speaker 1: had the time of our lives, laughing like idiots and

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Speaker 1: making memories, all because of the car. That Mustang experience

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Speaker 1: got Ryan thinking he's always kind of hated my CenTra.

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Speaker 1: He wants me to get a newer, safer car, especially

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Speaker 1: since my Nissan does have a few bodywork issues. I

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Speaker 1: kind of hit a huge rock, so Ryan started texting

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Speaker 1: to make his case. Get a Mustang, Get a Mustang,

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Speaker 1: Get a Mustang. This carried on and on and on.

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Speaker 1: One text contained a single word, all caps with an

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Speaker 1: exclamation point, Mustang. I know Ryan only wants what's best

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Speaker 1: for me, but I have a mostly working car now,

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Speaker 1: and the science suggests that giving in and buying a newer,

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Speaker 1: more expensive vehicle would have a surprising effect on my

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Speaker 1: well being. It might hurt my happiness rather than help it.

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Speaker 1: Our minds are constantly telling us what to do to

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Speaker 1: be happy, But what if our minds are wrong. What

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Speaker 1: if our minds are lying to us, leading us away

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Speaker 1: from what will really make us happy. The good news

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Speaker 1: is that understanding the science of the mind can point

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Speaker 1: us all back in the right direction. You're listening to

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Speaker 1: the Happiness Lab. It's doctor Laurie Santos.

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Speaker 3: I've had a lifelong fascination with the supernatural. I wrote

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Speaker 3: a book about that when my first book was about

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Speaker 3: why we Believe in the supernatural.

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Speaker 1: This is Bruce Hood, a professor of psychology at the

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Speaker 1: University of Bristol in the UK. Like me, Bruce is

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Speaker 1: intrigued by some of the weirder, more irrational parts of

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Speaker 1: the human mind. But I didn't realize how personal that

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Speaker 1: interest was until I visited his house for the first time.

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Speaker 1: You see, Bruce lives in a lovely converted barn in

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Speaker 1: a quaint, quiet part of the English countryside, and so

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Speaker 1: I was expecting the inside of his house to look

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Speaker 1: rather cozy. But that wasn't what I saw when I

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Speaker 1: first opened the door. Everywhere I looked there was blood,

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Speaker 1: claws and fangs, which is just the way Bruce likes it.

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Speaker 3: I've loved horror movies and the genre from a very

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Speaker 3: early age, I became obsessional about buying vintage movie posters

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Speaker 3: with werewolves and vampires and all that sort of thing.

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Speaker 1: Bruce was able to actualize his childhood horror obsession once

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Speaker 1: he finally got a professor level salary. That was when

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Speaker 1: he discovered the miracle of online auctions.

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Speaker 3: I have over one hundred posters now, and there's no way.

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Speaker 3: I don't think anyone's got a house small, not unless

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Speaker 3: you are very wealthy. I have got a house, so

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Speaker 3: you can easily accommodate them all. So a lot of them,

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Speaker 3: I'm afraid I just stored away. But I have framed

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Speaker 3: most of them as many as I can, and they're

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Speaker 3: all over the walls.

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Speaker 1: You have over one hundred of these?

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Speaker 3: I have over one hundred. Yeah, and they're like, you know,

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Speaker 3: meet her by two is big. So they're not little things.

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Speaker 3: They're big posters.

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Speaker 1: Why would anyone buy more movie posters than they could

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Speaker 1: possibly display? Bruce realized that it wasn't really the posters

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Speaker 1: he loved so much. It was the pursuit.

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Speaker 3: I would search on eBay and you can see the

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Speaker 3: bidding line, and you can offer a bid, and then

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Speaker 3: you see someone's out bit you, and then you get

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Speaker 3: frustrated I used I got real buzz and the thrill

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Speaker 3: I I'd got it, and a complete desperation and disappointment

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Speaker 3: of I'd lost out to some other guy. And of

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Speaker 3: course the posts would turn up weeks later, and it

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Speaker 3: was great getting them, but nothing compared to the kind

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Speaker 3: of the exhilaration of winning.

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Speaker 1: The auction that thrill we get from buying a new

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Speaker 1: prize on eBay is well understood by science. It's caused

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Speaker 1: by a neurotransmitter called dopamine. Whenever we buy something exciting,

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Speaker 1: the reward areas of our brain release a bunch of dopamine,

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Speaker 1: which not only triggers a pleasurable sensation, but also makes

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Speaker 1: it more likely that we'll repeat the behavior. Evolutionarily speaking,

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Speaker 1: dopamine is there to ensure that we keep doing all

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Speaker 1: the important things like eating and having sex. No is

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Speaker 1: dopamine can just as easily make us chase after things

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Speaker 1: that we don't really need for our survival, like, for example,

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Speaker 1: more vintage horror movie posters than can actually fit in

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Speaker 1: your house. Of course, Bruce understands the science of dopamine.

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Speaker 3: Knowledge is not enough. You can know these things very

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Speaker 3: objectively and yet still be a victim to the same

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Speaker 3: sort of mechanisms, So at least I kind of understood

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Speaker 3: what was driving it. But I got to a point

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Speaker 3: where I literally could not buy or put up anymore.

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Speaker 3: And after that I kind of started to realize, well,

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Speaker 3: this overconsumption thing, this possession thing, is really interesting.

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Speaker 1: Bruce began to study the science of why we like

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Speaker 1: to accumulate so much stuff. This research became the basis

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Speaker 1: of his recent book Possessed. Why we want more than

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Speaker 1: we need We.

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Speaker 3: Buy for a number of reasons. There's a whole area

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Speaker 3: of evolutionary theory called signaling. The poster child for signaling,

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Speaker 3: of course, is the peacock. Why does it have such

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Speaker 3: a silly tale? It costs so much in terms of energy,

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Speaker 3: it's not very efficient, it makes them very vulnerable to attack,

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Speaker 3: and yet these animals have evolved this elaborate display because

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Speaker 3: it signals to potential mates that they have good genes.

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Speaker 3: So rather than fighting or learning to run away or whatever,

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Speaker 3: they've developed these signaling behaviors like.

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Speaker 1: Peacock's strutting their stuff. We humans are naturally drawn to

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Speaker 1: shiny cars, fancy clothes, and other status symbols. These things

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Speaker 1: act as outward signs how awesome we are on the inside.

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Speaker 1: And so our species really likes to accumulate stuff so

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Speaker 1: much so that we've gone beyond just filling our shelves

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Speaker 1: and closets and attics and garages. We fueled a whole

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Speaker 1: new growth industry self storage rentals.

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Speaker 3: I mean, there are more storage units than the her McDonald's.

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Speaker 3: It's just ridiculously a symptom of a culture which has

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Speaker 3: become obsessed with possessions. So that's why I call the

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Speaker 3: book possessed, because it's like this demon that is this

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Speaker 3: little ip in our mind telling us to buy things

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Speaker 3: and don't throw it away because it might be valuable

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Speaker 3: one day.

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Speaker 1: But is all this purchasing really making us happier at

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Speaker 1: least beyond the initial pursuit. I mean, it doesn't really

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Speaker 1: seem like it, which poses a bit of a paradox,

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Speaker 1: since many scholars initially assumed that increased material wealth would

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Speaker 1: lead to happiness.

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Speaker 3: The Acylin paradox was identified by Richard Eastelin back in

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Speaker 3: the early seventies, and he noted that if you look

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Speaker 3: at the gross national product of the US, in particular,

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Speaker 3: as it's been rising, it doesn't seem to have a

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Speaker 3: corresponding change in increased happiness and said, he said, that's

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Speaker 3: a paradox. We should be happier. You may have heard

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Speaker 3: the term retail therapy, and there's a sort of bit

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Speaker 3: of truth in that people do enjoy the process of shopping.

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Speaker 3: But just like me and my poster is that initial

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Speaker 3: buzz I get from doing it doesn't last very long.

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Speaker 1: When the buzz of buying wears off. When that dobamine

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Speaker 1: rush in our brain subsides, those new possessions can make

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Speaker 1: us feel even sadder than we did before.

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Speaker 3: The trouble is that as soon as you get something

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Speaker 3: with outstanding quality, it makes all your other possessions look

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Speaker 3: pretty rubbish. So this is called the Detero effect, after

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Speaker 3: the French philosopher, he really wanted a dressing gown, and

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Speaker 3: he spent a lot of money on it, and he

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Speaker 3: really calleted it, and he got it and he loved

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Speaker 3: and he looked around and everything else looked a bit shabby.

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Speaker 3: So then he realized he had to go and change

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Speaker 3: everything else in this household, and he started to spend

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Speaker 3: more money than he had and he realized that, you know,

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Speaker 3: in the past, he had control of all his possessions.

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Speaker 3: But as soon as he took on board this new

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Speaker 3: thing of high status that changed it almost controlled him.

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Speaker 1: I experienced a hint of the d Dao effect when

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Speaker 1: we rented that swanky Mustang. The valet at our hotel

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Speaker 1: did look at me and Ryan a little oddly, like

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Speaker 1: he was surprised that the people who dropped off that

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Speaker 1: kind of car had the crumpled clothes and crappy luggage

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Speaker 1: that we did. As we wrote the elevator to our rooms,

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Speaker 1: I thought back to my beat up Nissan with the

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Speaker 1: squeaky windshield wipers and sticky coffee cup holders. None of

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Speaker 1: that had really bothered me when I drove it in

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Speaker 1: earlier that morning, but now my own car seemed well

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Speaker 1: pretty crappy. I mean, don't get me wrong, the Mustang

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Speaker 1: was super fun to ride around in, but if it

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Speaker 1: entered into my life on a more permanent basis, I

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Speaker 1: might fall prey to that detail Row effect even more.

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Speaker 1: I might wind up changing the other things in my

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Speaker 1: life to fit with the fact that I now owned

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Speaker 1: a swanky car. As the name of Bruce's book suggests,

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Speaker 1: my new ride might end up possessing me far more

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Speaker 1: than I possessed it. The good news is that there

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Speaker 1: is a way to enjoy the happiness boost that Ryan

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Speaker 1: and I got from the Mustang ride without ending up

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Speaker 1: on a treadmill of buying a new car every few years.

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Speaker 1: And we'll talk about that science backed strategy when the

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Speaker 1: Happiness Lab returns in a moment.

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Speaker 4: So maybe they make us happy for a little while,

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Speaker 4: but over time we just stop deriving as much satisfaction

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Speaker 4: from them.

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Speaker 1: I wanted to find some evidence based strategies to help

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Speaker 1: me decide about this car situation, and so I decided

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Speaker 1: to call a world expert on happier purchasing.

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Speaker 4: I'm amak Kumar. I'm an assistant professor of marketing and

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Speaker 4: psychology at the University of Texas at Austin.

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Speaker 1: Ahmed studies the way our minds mispredict the pleasure we

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Speaker 1: get from what we buy, and so I told him

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Speaker 1: about my car dilemma. Based on his research, he predicted

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Speaker 1: that any happiness boost I'd drive from buying that Mustang

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Speaker 1: wouldn't last much longer than the new car smell. If

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Speaker 1: you've listened to other episodes of The Happiness Lab, you

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Speaker 1: might know the reason why. A phenomenon that psychologists have

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Speaker 1: christened hedonic adaptation. We just get used to stuff far

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Speaker 1: quicker than we think.

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Speaker 4: What seemed kind of new and exciting at first, that

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Speaker 4: excitement tends to fade. I guess the other thing is

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Speaker 4: that it's always there in front of you, so when

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Speaker 4: it malfunctions or if something goes wrong, you're just kind

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Speaker 4: of bothered by that.

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Speaker 1: But there's a second reason that our possessions don't make

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Speaker 1: us as happy as we think that green eyed monster

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Speaker 1: is always with us.

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Speaker 4: People are often kind of peeved when they find out

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Speaker 4: that someone else has a nicer TV than they do,

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Speaker 4: or if they have a fancier wardrobe. It can be

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Speaker 4: similarly annoying to find out that someone who has the

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Speaker 4: same thing that you do, like the same gadget that

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Speaker 4: you have, or something like that, paid substantially less for it.

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Speaker 4: So these sorts of destructive comparisons can stand in the

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Speaker 4: way of happiness.

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Speaker 1: So if I caved in and splurged on a new car,

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Speaker 1: not only would every scratch indent make me sadder, but

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Speaker 1: I'd also unwittingly enter an arms race with my friends

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Speaker 1: and neighbors comparing my purchase to whatever car they had

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Speaker 1: in their driveways, and even a new Mustang would look

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Speaker 1: crappy next to my colleagues's brand new Tesla. But Ahmed's

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Speaker 1: research shows that there's an alternative kind of purchase we

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Speaker 1: can make that can bring us some lasting joy.

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Speaker 4: Money could make us happier if we made different decisions

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Speaker 4: or choices with what we did with it.

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Speaker 1: To get the most happiness bank for our buck, we

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Speaker 1: should make purchases that are experiential rather than material.

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Speaker 4: So experiential purchases are essentially something that you spend money

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Speaker 4: on that's an event or a series of events that

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Speaker 4: you live through. So base it's money that you spend

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Speaker 4: on doing things like travel, vacations, dieting out, going to concerts,

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Speaker 4: sporting events.

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Speaker 1: If you're anything like me, you might feel a bit

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Speaker 1: bad about spending more of your money on meals and trips.

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Speaker 1: It can feel a little frivolous.

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Speaker 4: So in some sense they might seem fleeting, But in

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Speaker 4: a way this is actually a benefit of experiences compared

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Speaker 4: to possessions. So people do tend to habituate, to get

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Speaker 4: used to things and derive less value from them over time.

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Speaker 4: With an experience that's already over that doesn't seem to happen.

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Speaker 1: But experiences don't just make us feel better after we

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Speaker 1: finish them. Experiential purchases can also make us happier than

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Speaker 1: material possessions even before we get to enjoy them.

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Speaker 4: One thing that's interesting about waiting is that waiting can

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Speaker 4: also sometimes feel good. So when it comes to material possessions,

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Speaker 4: it feels more like impatience or anxiety or frustration, but

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Speaker 4: with respect to experiential purchases, waiting is just a more

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Speaker 4: positive state. We tend to look forward to what's to

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Speaker 4: come with great excitement and delight. We look at restaurant menus,

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Speaker 4: and we go through our travel plans in advance. That

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Speaker 4: tends to feel good instead of bad.

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Speaker 1: What Ama has found that the biggest reason experiences bring

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Speaker 1: us more joy is that they aren't normally a solitary activity.

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Speaker 4: So if your purchases are promoting social interaction, if you're

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Speaker 4: talking about the things that you've done, or if you're

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Speaker 4: doing them with other people, that's one reason they're going

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Speaker 4: to make you happier than some material items that you

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Speaker 4: might buy.

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Speaker 1: And experiential purchases don't just keep us social while we're

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Speaker 1: doing them. They also let us connect with people afterwards too.

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Speaker 4: So if you go on a vacation somewhere, there's all

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Speaker 4: sorts of things that you can talk about, what you did,

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Speaker 4: what you saw, who you were with, what you ate.

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Speaker 4: There's just lots of directions to go. It's a bit

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Speaker 4: harder with material goods.

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Speaker 1: And sharing stories about things you've done. We're just reliving

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Speaker 1: the memories. Also has another happiness boosting effect.

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Speaker 4: Turns out that sort of generally speaking, reflecting on experiential

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Speaker 4: purchases inspires more gratitude than reflecting on material purchases, So

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Speaker 4: people are more grateful for what they've done than for

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Speaker 4: what they have. Part of the reason that this is

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Speaker 4: particularly interesting is because of what gratitude tends to predict.

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Speaker 4: So researchers have found that feeling grateful is associated with

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Speaker 4: a whole host of positive outcomes. So in some fun

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Speaker 4: studies we've done, for instance, we found that when people

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Speaker 4: think about their experiences rather than possessions they've bought, they

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Speaker 4: end up being more generous to others. They end up

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Speaker 4: treating other people better as a result of reflecting on

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Speaker 4: their experiential purchases.

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Speaker 1: All this goes to say experiences, be they big or small,

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Speaker 1: they beat material purchases on literally every happiness metric Amah

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Speaker 1: has studied, and yet we still can't seem to break

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Speaker 1: our habit of filling our closets and attics and garages

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Speaker 1: with so much stuff. So after the break, I'll introduce

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Speaker 1: you to a person who has taken this research to heart,

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Speaker 1: someone who became so way down by her possessions that

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Speaker 1: she decided to get rid of nearly all of them

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Speaker 1: and became a lot happier as a result.

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Speaker 2: If I'm really honest, if I didn't love it or

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Speaker 2: use it, it was gone.

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Speaker 1: The happiness lab will be right back.

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Speaker 2: In some ways, I'm like, who was she? Who was

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Speaker 2: old school Kate? I would say that I was someone

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Speaker 2: who basically spent every penny that I earned.

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Speaker 1: I caught up with author and blogger Kate Flanders via zoom.

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Speaker 1: If her bedroom sounds a little echoey, it's because there's

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Speaker 1: virtually nothing in it. But it wasn't always like that.

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Speaker 2: I definitely bought things whenever I wasn't feeling great. But

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Speaker 2: then when you fill your home with stuff that you

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Speaker 2: don't even use, it actually also feels worse. I would

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Speaker 2: always text my best friend Emma and tell her whatever

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Speaker 2: silly thing I was thinking of buying, Like Emma, I

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Speaker 2: think I need all new betting, and she's like, but

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Speaker 2: do you like do you need new betting? And I

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Speaker 2: would just have this idea in my head that somehow

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Speaker 2: that was the thing that was going to fix me

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Speaker 2: that day, Like if I somehow made my bedroom look

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Speaker 2: different or or whatever, that that was somehow going to

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Speaker 2: fix whatever was going on.

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Speaker 1: Kate's material purchases followed a pattern that's familiar to many

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Speaker 1: of us. She bought things in the hope that they

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Speaker 1: would make her a better, more interesting person. She filled

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Speaker 1: her small apartment with unread books and clothes, and then

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Speaker 1: added cameras, paints, brushes, and other art supplies.

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Speaker 2: I had purchased things thinking I would like to be

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Speaker 2: the kind of person who does X, Y or Z,

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Speaker 2: but I never ended up doing any of it.

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Speaker 1: At the time, Kate wasn't all that bothered by her

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Speaker 1: shopping habits, but she did want to fix her financial

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Speaker 1: situation by spending way more than she earned. She'd run

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Speaker 1: up over thirty thousand dollars in debt.

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Speaker 2: I decided that for a year I just wouldn't buy

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Speaker 2: anything unless it was absolutely essential. The things I could

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Speaker 2: buy were like groceries or put gas my car if

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Speaker 2: I needed it. It had to be essential otherwise it

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Speaker 2: just was off the list.

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Speaker 1: Keith's shopping ban was just supposed to reduce her debt,

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Speaker 1: but it ended up teaching her a lot more about

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Speaker 1: happiness than she expected. As the flow of books and

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Speaker 1: clothes and a gazillion other material purchases was cut off,

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Speaker 1: Kay started to realize just how cluttered her life had been.

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Speaker 2: I was kind of sick of my drawers always being full,

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Speaker 2: or my closet being full. Like I've always been someone

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Speaker 2: who only wears the same two or three outfits, So

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Speaker 2: why did I have a closet full of clothes or

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Speaker 2: a dresser full of clothes? It just didn't really make sense.

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Speaker 2: And so I think as I started decluttering, especially because

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Speaker 2: I was really aggressive in the beginning, I got rid

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Speaker 2: of something like fifty percent of my stuff in the

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Speaker 2: first six months. And I do remember after that just

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Speaker 2: noticing like when I walked into a room, not only

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Speaker 2: did it feel like lighter is a good word for it,

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Speaker 2: but it also actually just felt more inviting.

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Speaker 1: Kate's year long shopping ban and radical decluttering made her

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Speaker 1: realize that she didn't need as many material things as

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Speaker 1: she thought. Her project also led to a new book,

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Speaker 1: The Year of Less, How I stopped shopping, gave away

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Speaker 1: my belongings, and discovered life is worth more than anything

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Speaker 1: you can buy in a store. Kate had always wanted

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Speaker 1: to become a professional writer, but her financial situation made

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Speaker 1: that impossible. Having learned to live with less stuff, she

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Speaker 1: finally got the freedom she needed to dive into her

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Speaker 1: dream career. Her new found savings also gave her the

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Speaker 1: funds she needed for something else, the opportunity to experience

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Speaker 1: the wider world.

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Speaker 2: I didn't travel as a kid. We didn't do that,

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Speaker 2: but I always wanted to. Like I knew by the

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Speaker 2: time I was a teenager that that was something I

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Speaker 2: was interested in. I felt like I sort of started slow,

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Speaker 2: you know. I would book three nights away with a

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Speaker 2: friend somewhere, went away to a wedding to a friend that,

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Speaker 2: like I never would have been able to afford to

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Speaker 2: go to her wedding.

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Speaker 1: Since Kate can write from anywhere in the world, she

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Speaker 1: decided to continue traveling. She gave up her apartment and

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Speaker 1: now spends her time visiting friends and experiencing new countries

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Speaker 1: and cultures.

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Speaker 2: Traveling made sense to me like it it made me

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Speaker 2: feel more like myself than anything else.

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Speaker 1: And just as am its work would suggest, these new

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Speaker 1: experiential purchases have given Kate far more joyful memories than

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Speaker 1: any of her old material things.

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Speaker 2: I don't remember the majority of what I decluttered and

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Speaker 2: got rid of, and even just being able to recall

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Speaker 2: things like the hotel that I stayed at for my

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Speaker 2: friend's wedding or the house party that I went to

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Speaker 2: with her and her friends, like the people I met

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Speaker 2: in the conversations that we had, and I think I

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Speaker 2: had never really stopped to save her moments like that before,

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Speaker 2: Like really, I can remember the experiences because of how

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Speaker 2: I felt or how like the air smelt in certain cities,

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Speaker 2: And I mean, I don't remember anything like that of

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Speaker 2: what I decluttered or even what I've purchased in the past.

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Speaker 1: When she's not traveling, Kate uses a single room at

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Speaker 1: her dad's house as her base camp. That was where

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Speaker 1: she met me over zoom. It was pretty spartan. One

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Speaker 1: of the things that's cool about doing this interview is

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Speaker 1: I'm abl on zoom to look in to your room

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Speaker 1: and I see a coat rack with a hat and

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Speaker 1: a coat, but maybe a chair, but like that's it.

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Speaker 2: Yes, I have a painting.

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Speaker 1: Either, Yes, I see the painting. It's a lovely painting.

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Speaker 2: Actually it's done by a friend of mine. So yeah,

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Speaker 2: it was nice to hang that up.

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Speaker 1: Recently, Kate has around forty items of clothing like not

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Speaker 1: including socks and underwear, and a few pairs of shoes.

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Speaker 2: Hiking boots, kind of regular boots, running shoes, and sandals

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Speaker 2: and that's it.

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Speaker 1: Having once been possessed by her material purchases, Kate has

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Speaker 1: now broken free. Now. The few things Kate does have

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Speaker 1: all sort of a purpose or have an important meaning.

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Speaker 2: One of the things that I kept was my desk,

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Speaker 2: and that's because I built it with my dad. You

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Speaker 2: just have more appreciation in general for the things. I

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Speaker 2: think that you understand where they came from.

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Speaker 1: It also seems like you're keeping material objects that also

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Speaker 1: have this feature of they were experiences for you. They

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Speaker 1: were memories for you too, right, Like the desk is

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Speaker 1: a memory that you have with your dad, and so

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Speaker 1: it winds.

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Speaker 2: It totally special in essense. That is something I can't

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Speaker 2: really imagine I would ever get rid of those.

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Speaker 1: Kate's onto something really important here. The material possessions we

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Speaker 1: do love are usually imbued with a certain experiential joy.

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Speaker 1: It got me thinking back to what Ahmed Kumar had

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Speaker 1: explained when we chatted before.

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Speaker 4: There's this sort of fuzzy boundary between what's an experience

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Speaker 4: and what's a possession. Take a bicycle, for example, that's

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Speaker 4: something that you keep in your possession, but it's literally

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Speaker 4: a vehicle for experiences. If you think about it in

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Speaker 4: terms of its features, it's sort of specifications, it's going

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Speaker 4: to feel a little more possession y, and it can

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Speaker 4: lead to some of these problems with comparison, for instance,

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Speaker 4: that we've talked about. But if you think about going

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Speaker 4: out on the trails, then all of a sudden, that

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Speaker 4: particular purchase might be something that inspires more happiness within

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Speaker 4: you as a result of construing it in terms of

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Speaker 4: its experiential nature.

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Speaker 1: After talking with Kate and Ahmet, I'm more convinced than

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Speaker 1: ever that I don't need a new car. I also

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Speaker 1: realize that I can think of my beat up Nissan

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Speaker 1: in a different light. I can construe it as a

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Speaker 1: giver of new experiences, one that can connect me socially

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Speaker 1: with the people I really care about, and so do

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Speaker 1: your podcast listener. Welcome inside my beat up Nissan, which

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Speaker 1: has recently become less beat up than it used to

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Speaker 1: be since I did, in fact take Ryan's sage advice

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Speaker 1: and made some strategic Gatto body repairs. Thanks Ryan, making

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Speaker 1: this episode has given me some real gratitude for these

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Speaker 1: old wheels, and it's helped me reframe how I think

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Speaker 1: about my car. Generally, this Nissan is going to be

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Speaker 1: my doorway to new experiences. It's going to be the

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Speaker 1: car that takes me for nice meals with my husband

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Speaker 1: or on trips to see my old friends. And with

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Speaker 1: all that money I'll save from not buying a Mustang,

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Speaker 1: I'm hopefully I can invest in even more fun experiential

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Speaker 1: purchases In the future. I can pay for a cool

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Speaker 1: new yoga class online and enjoy the anticipation of a

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Speaker 1: fantast aastic future vacation, hopefully one that will involve traveling

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Speaker 1: somewhere warm and sunny, and maybe just maybe a small

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Speaker 1: rental car splurge too, because I might enjoy just a

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Speaker 1: little more muscle car fun sometime soon. The Happiness Lab

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Speaker 1: is co written and produced by Ryan Dilley, Our original

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Speaker 1: music was composed by Zachary Silver, with additional scoring, mixing

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00:24:54,036 --> 00:24:57,676
Speaker 1: and mastering by Evan Viola. Pete Nutton also helped with production.

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Speaker 1: Joseph Fridman checked our facts and our editing was done

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Speaker 1: by Sophie Crane mckibbon. Special thanks to Mia LaBelle, Carl Migliori,

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Speaker 1: Heather Fain, Julia Barton, Maggie Taylor, Maya Kne, Jacob Weisberg

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Speaker 1: and my agent Ben Davis. The Happiness Lab is brought

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Speaker 1: to you by Pushkin Industries and me, Doctor Laurie Santos