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Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey, Happiness Lab listeners, Welcome back to our special

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Speaker 1: series on spring Cleaning Your Happiness. We're continuing our deep

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Speaker 1: dive into the Happiness Lab closets to find all the

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Speaker 1: show's well being boosting insights that you might have missed.

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Speaker 1: In today's episode Throwback, we'll tackle the happiness boost that

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Speaker 1: comes from literal spring cleaning, that is, decluttering all your

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Speaker 1: material stuff. In this episode, you'll meet Kate Flanders, a

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Speaker 1: writer who went deep into debt so she could buy

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Speaker 1: all the clothes, books, and gadgets she thought would make

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Speaker 1: her happier. But spoiler, buying all that stuff didn't work,

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Speaker 1: but there was something that did throwing it all away.

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Speaker 1: So get ready because in this classic Happiness Lab episode,

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Speaker 1: I You're intrepid host will tackle a spooky British barn

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Speaker 1: overflowing with movie monsters, and a swanky California convertible ride

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Speaker 1: with bad eighties music tunes. Also that I can teach

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Speaker 1: you about the joy of letting go. That's all coming

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Speaker 1: up when this throwback episode returns right after this quick

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Speaker 1: break pick up location sh 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 air 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 No. 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 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 sent 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 wan's 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 got doctor Laurie Santos.

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Speaker 2: I've had a lifelong fascination with the supernatural. I wrote

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Speaker 2: a book about that when my first book was about

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Speaker 2: 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 bangs, which is just the way Bruce likes it.

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Speaker 2: I've loved horror movies and the genre from a very

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Speaker 2: early age. I became obsessional about buying vintage movie posters

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Speaker 2: 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 2: I have over one hundred posts now, and there's no way.

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Speaker 2: I don't think anyone's going to a house small, not

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Speaker 2: unless you're very wealthy. I have got a house so

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Speaker 2: you can easily accommodate them all. So a lot of them.

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Speaker 2: I'm afraid it just stored away. But I have framed

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Speaker 2: most of them as many as I can, and they're

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Speaker 2: all over the walls.

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Speaker 1: You have over one hundred of these?

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Speaker 2: I have over one hundred. Yeah, and they're like, you know,

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Speaker 2: meet by two minas big, So they're not little things.

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Speaker 2: They're big posters.

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Speaker 1: Why would anyone buy more movie posters than it 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 2: I would search on eBay and you can see the

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Speaker 2: bidding line and you can offer a bid, and then

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Speaker 2: you see someone's out bit you, and then you get frustrated.

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Speaker 2: He used to got real buzz and the thrill I'd

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Speaker 2: got it, and a complete desperation and disappointment of I'd

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Speaker 2: lost out to some other guy, And of course the

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Speaker 2: posts would turn up weeks later, and it was great

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Speaker 2: getting them, but nothing compared to the kind of the

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Speaker 2: 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. But nowadays

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

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Speaker 2: objectively and yet still be a victim to the same

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Speaker 2: sort of mechanisms. So at least I kind of understood

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Speaker 2: what was driving it, but I got to a point

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Speaker 2: where I literally could not buy or put up anymore.

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Speaker 2: And after that I kind of start to realize, well,

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Speaker 2: 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.

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Speaker 2: We buy for a number. There's a whole area of

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Speaker 2: evolutionary theory called signaling. The poster child for signaling, of course,

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Speaker 2: is the peacock. Why does it have such a silly tale?

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Speaker 2: It costs so much in terms of energy, it's not

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Speaker 2: very efficient, it makes them very vulnerable to attack, and

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Speaker 2: yet these animals have evolved this elaborate display because it

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Speaker 2: signals to potential mates that they have good genes. So,

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Speaker 2: rather than fighting or learning to run away or whatever,

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Speaker 2: they've developed these signaling behaviors.

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Speaker 1: Like peacocks strutting their stuff. We humans are naturally drawn

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

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Speaker 1: things act as outward signs how awesome we are on

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Speaker 1: the inside, and so our species really likes to accumulate

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

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Speaker 1: our shelves and closets, an attics and garages. We fueled

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Speaker 1: a whole new growth industry self storage rentals.

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Speaker 2: I mean, there are more storage units than there are McDonald's.

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Speaker 2: It's just ridiculously a symptom of a culture which has

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Speaker 2: become obsessed with possessions. So that's why I call the

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Speaker 2: book possessed, because it's like this demon that is this

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Speaker 2: little ip in our mind telling us to buy things

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Speaker 2: and don't throw it away because it might be valuable

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Speaker 2: 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 2: The Acylin paradox was identified by Richard Eestelin back in

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Speaker 2: the early seventies, and he noted that if you look

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Speaker 2: at the gross national product of the US in particular,

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Speaker 2: as it's been rising, it doesn't seem to have a

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Speaker 2: corresponding change and increased happiness, and said, he said, that's

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Speaker 2: a paradox. We should be happier. You may have heard

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Speaker 2: the term retail therapy, and there's a sort of bit

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Speaker 2: of truth in that people do enjoy the process of shopping.

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Speaker 2: But just like me and my poster is that initial

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Speaker 2: 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 before.

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Speaker 2: The trouble is is that as soon as you get

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Speaker 2: something with outstanding quality, it makes all your other possessions

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Speaker 2: look pretty rubbish. So this is called the Dedo effect,

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Speaker 2: after the French philosopher. He really wanted a dressing gown,

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Speaker 2: and he spent a lot of money on it, and

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Speaker 2: he really called it, and he got it, and he

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Speaker 2: loved it, and he looked around and everything else looked

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Speaker 2: a bit shabby. So then he realized he had to

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Speaker 2: go and change everything else in this household. And he

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Speaker 2: started to spend more money than he had and he

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Speaker 2: realized that, you know, in the past, he had control

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Speaker 2: of all his possessions, but as soon as he took

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Speaker 2: on board this new thing of high status that changed it,

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Speaker 2: it almost controlled him.

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Speaker 1: I experienced a hint of the d Terio 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 a

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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 d do 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 3: So maybe they make us happy for a little while,

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Speaker 3: but over time we just stop deriving as much satisfaction

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Speaker 3: 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 3: I'm Amic Kumar. I'm an assistant professor of marketing and

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Speaker 3: 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 3: What seemed kind of new and exciting at first. That

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Speaker 3: excitement tends to fade. I guess the other thing is

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Speaker 3: that it's always there in front of you, so when

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Speaker 3: it malfunctions or if something goes wrong, you're just kind

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Speaker 3: 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 3: People are often kind of peeved when they find out

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Speaker 3: that someone else has a nicer TV than they do,

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Speaker 3: or if they have a fancier wardrobe. It can be

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Speaker 3: similarly annoying to find out that someone who has the

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Speaker 3: same thing that you do, like the same gadget that

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Speaker 3: you have, or something like that, paid substantially less for it.

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Speaker 3: So these sorts of destructive comparisons can stand in the

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Speaker 3: 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 brand new Tesla. But on

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

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

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Speaker 3: Money could make us happier if we made different decisions

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Speaker 3: 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 3: So experiential purchases are essentially something that you spend money

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Speaker 3: on that's an event or a series of events that

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Speaker 3: you live through. So basically it's money that you spend

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Speaker 3: on doing things like travel, vacations, dieting out, going to concerts,

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Speaker 3: 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 3: So in some sense they might seem fleeting, but in

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Speaker 3: a way this is actually a benefit of experiences compared

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Speaker 3: to possessions. So people do tend to habituate, to get

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Speaker 3: used to things and derive less value from them over time.

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Speaker 3: 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 3: One thing that's interesting about waiting is that waiting can

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Speaker 3: also sometimes feel good. So when it comes to material possessions,

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Speaker 3: it feels more like impatience or anxiety or frustration. But

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Speaker 3: with respect to experiential purchases, waiting's just a more positive state.

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Speaker 3: We tend to look forward to what's to come with

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Speaker 3: great excitement and delight. We look at restaurant menus, and

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Speaker 3: we go through our travel plans in advance. That tends

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Speaker 3: 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 3: So if your purchases are promoting social interaction, if you're

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Speaker 3: talking about the things that you've done, or if you're

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Speaker 3: doing them with other people, that's one reason they're going

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Speaker 3: to make you happier than some material items that you

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Speaker 3: 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 3: So if you go on a vacation somewhere, there's all

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Speaker 3: sorts of things that you can talk about, what you did,

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Speaker 3: what you saw, who you were with, what you ate,

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Speaker 3: there's just lots of directions to go. It's a bit

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Speaker 3: 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 3: It turns out that sort of generally speaking, reflecting on

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Speaker 3: experiential purchases inspires more gratitude than reflecting on material purchases,

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Speaker 3: So people are more grateful for what they've done than

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Speaker 3: for what they have. Part of the reason that this

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Speaker 3: is particularly interesting is because of what gratitude tends to predict.

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Speaker 3: So researchers have found that feeling grateful is associated with

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Speaker 3: a whole host of positive outcomes. So in some fun

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Speaker 3: studies we've done, for instance, we found that when people

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Speaker 3: think about their experiences rather than possessions they'vet they end

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Speaker 3: up being more generous to others. They end up treating

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Speaker 3: other people better as a result of reflecting on their

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Speaker 3: 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 am

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Speaker 1: It has studied. And yet we still can't seem to

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: to heart, someone who became so weighted down by her

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Speaker 1: possessions that she decided to get rid of nearly all

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

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Speaker 4: If I'm really honest, if I didn't love it or

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Speaker 4: use it, it was gone.

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Speaker 1: The happiness lab will be right back.

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Speaker 4: In some ways, I'm like, who was she who was

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Speaker 4: old school Kate? I would say that I was someone

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Speaker 4: 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 4: I definitely bought things whenever I wasn't feeling great. But

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Speaker 4: then when you fill your home with stuff that you

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Speaker 4: don't even use, it actually also feels worse. I would

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Speaker 4: always text my best friend Emma and tell her whatever

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Speaker 4: silly thing I was thinking of buying, Like Emma, I

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Speaker 4: think I need all new bedding, and she's like, but

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Speaker 4: do you do you need new betting? And I would

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Speaker 4: just have this idea in my head that somehow that

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Speaker 4: was the thing that was going to fix me that day,

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Speaker 4: Like if I somehow made my bedroom look different or whatever,

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Speaker 4: that that was somehow going to 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 4: I had purchased things thinking I would like to be

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Speaker 4: the kind of person who does X, Y or Z,

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Speaker 4: but I never ended up doing any of it.

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Speaker 1: At the time, Kay 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 4: I decided that for a year I just wouldn't buy

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Speaker 4: anything unless it was absolutely essential. The things I could

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Speaker 4: buy were like groceries or put gas in my car

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Speaker 4: if I needed it. It had to be essential, otherwise

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Speaker 4: it just was off the list.

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Speaker 1: Kate's shopping band 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 4: I was kind of sick of my drawers always being full,

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Speaker 4: or my closet being full. Like I've always been someone

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Speaker 4: who only wears the same two or three outfits, So

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Speaker 4: why did I have a closet full of clothes or

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Speaker 4: a dresser full of clothes? It just didn't really make sense.

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Speaker 4: And so I think as I started decluttering, especially because

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Speaker 4: I was really aggressive in the beginning, I got rid

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Speaker 4: of something like fifty percent of my stuff in the

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Speaker 4: first six months. And I do remember after that just noticing,

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Speaker 4: like when I walked into a room, not only did

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Speaker 4: it feel like lighter is a good word for it,

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Speaker 4: but it also actually just felt more inviting.

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Speaker 1: Kate's year long shopping band 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 nened 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 4: I didn't travel as a kid. We didn't do that,

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Speaker 4: but I always wanted to, Like I knew by the

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Speaker 4: time I was a teenager that that was something I

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Speaker 4: was interested in. I felt like I sort of started slow,

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Speaker 4: you know. I would book three nights away with a

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Speaker 4: friend somewhere, went away to a wedding to a friend that,

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Speaker 4: like I never would have been able to afford to

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Speaker 4: 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 4: Traveling made sense to me. Like it. It made me

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Speaker 4: feel more like myself than anything else.

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Speaker 1: And just as am It's 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 4: I don't remember the majority of what I did cluttered

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Speaker 4: and got rid of, and even just being able to

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Speaker 4: recall things like the hotel that I stayed at for

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Speaker 4: my friend's wedding or the house party that I went

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Speaker 4: to with her and her friends, like the people I

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Speaker 4: met in the conversations that we had. And I think

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Speaker 4: I had never really stopped to save her moments like

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Speaker 4: that before, Like really, I can remember the experiences because

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Speaker 4: of how I felt or how like the air smelt

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Speaker 4: in certain cities, And I mean, I don't remember anything

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Speaker 4: like that of what I decluttered or even what I've

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Speaker 4: 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 able on zoom to look into your room and

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Speaker 1: I see a like 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 4: Yes, I have a painting either.

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

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Speaker 4: Actually, it's done by a friend of mine, so yeah,

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Speaker 4: 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 4: Hiking boots, kind of regular boots, running shoes, and sandals,

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Speaker 4: 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 4: One of the things that I kept was my desk,

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Speaker 4: and that's because I built it with my dad. You

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Speaker 4: just have more appreciation in general for the things. I

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Speaker 4: 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 up.

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Speaker 4: Totally being special in essense. That is something I can't

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Speaker 4: really imagine I would ever get rid of.

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

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00:24:00,116 --> 00:24:03,676
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 amic Kumar had

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Speaker 1: explained when we chatted before.

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Speaker 3: There's this sort of fuzzy boundary between what's an experience

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Speaker 3: and what's a possession. Take a bicycle, for example, that's

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00:24:15,076 --> 00:24:17,476
Speaker 3: something that you keep in your possession, but it's literally

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00:24:17,916 --> 00:24:21,116
Speaker 3: a vehicle for experiences. If you think about it in

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00:24:21,196 --> 00:24:25,196
Speaker 3: terms of its features, it's sort of specifications, it's going

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00:24:25,236 --> 00:24:27,556
Speaker 3: to feel a little more possession y and it can

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00:24:28,036 --> 00:24:31,236
Speaker 3: lead to some of these problems with comparison, for instance,

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00:24:31,276 --> 00:24:33,956
Speaker 3: that we've talked about. But if you think about going

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00:24:33,996 --> 00:24:36,156
Speaker 3: out on the trails, then all of a sudden, that

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00:24:36,236 --> 00:24:40,276
Speaker 3: particular purchase might be something that inspires more happiness within

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Speaker 3: you as a result of construing it in terms of

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Speaker 3: 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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00:24:50,876 --> 00:24:52,876
Speaker 1: realize that I can think of my beat up Nissan

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00:24:53,076 --> 00:24:55,996
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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00:25:11,036 --> 00:25:12,916
Speaker 1: has recently become less beat up than it used to

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00:25:12,996 --> 00:25:15,716
Speaker 1: be since I did in fact, take Ryan's sage advice

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00:25:16,196 --> 00:25:21,436
Speaker 1: and made some strategic Gatto body repairs. Thanks Ryan, making

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00:25:21,436 --> 00:25:23,756
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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00:25:32,716 --> 00:25:34,796
Speaker 1: car that takes me for nice meals with my husband

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00:25:35,436 --> 00:25:37,756
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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00:25:43,476 --> 00:25:46,636
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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00:25:50,476 --> 00:25:54,716
Speaker 1: fantastic future vacation, hopefully one that will involve traveling somewhere

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Speaker 1: warm and sunny. And maybe just maybe a small rental

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00:25:58,796 --> 00:26:02,236
Speaker 1: car splurge too, because I might enjoy just a little

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Speaker 1: more muscle car fun sometime soon. Better