Insights by Dr. Daniel Crosby | Cahaba Commentary by Louis Williams, CPA, CFP®
11/2026
A Note from Louis: If we are honest with ourselves, I think that we would all admit to having spent some time on the ‘hedonic treadmill,’ as Dr. Crosby details. A question that I think is often meaningful to pose internally is “What would myself from five years ago think about my current circumstances?” Answering this question often requires reflection on progress and accomplishments that have otherwise ‘faded into the baseline’.
To take it a step further, I think it is important to acknowledge the fine line between ambition and obsession. Success of any degree requires ambition, but if our goal is to lead a balanced and content life, it is highly important that we do not let our ambitions morph into unhealthy obsessions. The sobering reality for competitive individuals is that this likely also means sacrificing a degree of material success that obsessed individuals around us may achieve.
I believe the cure to hedonic adaptation is to find purpose that is rooted in something greater than yourself and worldly gain. This allows us to adjust the lens through which we view success and define it in a way that results in lasting impact.
Why “I’ll Be Happy When…” Almost Never Comes True
Around the sixth century BCE, Croesus ruled the kingdom of Lydia in what is now western Turkey. By the standards of the ancient world, he was extraordinarily wealthy, so much so that his name became a common expression for great riches. He had palaces, armies, gold, and the kind of security most of his contemporaries could not have imagined. By any reasonable accounting, he had won.
Believing that more conquest would finally deliver the satisfaction his fortune had not, Croesus consulted the famed Oracle of Delphi about whether he should march against the Persian Empire. The Oracle responded that if he did, “a great empire will be destroyed.” Croesus took this as the sign he had been waiting for and launched his campaign. The empire that fell, of course, was his own. By the end of the war, he stood awaiting execution, reportedly reflecting on the fact that he had spent a lifetime accumulating wealth and power without ever truly enjoying any of it.
The story endures because the underlying mistake is timeless. Modern psychologists call it hedonic adaptation, and it is one of the most consistently documented patterns in human behavior. When something good happens to us, the bump in happiness we experience is almost always smaller and shorter-lived than we expected. Within weeks or months, the new house, the new title, the new car, or the new account balance fades into the baseline. We adjust. We then begin scanning the horizon for the next thing.
The phenomenon serves us well in some respects. It allows us to recover from setbacks, adapt to new environments, and remain motivated to keep growing. It is also, financially, an enormously expensive feature.
The “hedonic treadmill,” as it is often called in personal finance circles, is what keeps people running faster and faster for diminishing returns. The promotion that was supposed to make work feel meaningful becomes the new normal within a quarter. The home that was going to provide lasting satisfaction becomes the launching pad for thoughts of the next home. The income threshold that once seemed like a finish line becomes the floor against which the next target is measured. Gallup data has shown for years that across nearly every income bracket, when Americans are asked how much they would need to feel financially secure, the answer comes back at roughly one rung above wherever they currently sit. The horizon moves at exactly the speed we do.
The cure is not to suppress ambition. The cure is to disrupt the adaptation itself. Five evidence-backed practices consistently help.
The first is gratitude practice. Research by psychologists Robert Emmons at UC Davis and Michael McCullough at the University of Miami found that participants who kept a regular gratitude journal reported measurably higher levels of well-being and life satisfaction than control groups. The exercise is almost embarrassingly simple, and it works.
The second is mindfulness and savoring. A 2007 study by researchers Fred Bryant and Joseph Veroff demonstrated that the deliberate act of basking in positive experiences, whether a meal, a sunset, or a conversation, meaningfully increases overall well-being. The pleasures we already have produce more happiness when we slow down enough to notice them.
The third is infrequent splurges. Counterintuitively, the path to enjoying indulgences more is to have them less often. Daily pleasures become routine. Weekly or monthly pleasures retain their power. Spacing out treats often produces both better experiences and better financial outcomes.
The fourth is variety and novelty. Hedonic adaptation thrives on repetition. Trying a new restaurant instead of returning to the familiar one, taking a different route home, or pursuing a new genre of book or hobby disrupts the brain’s tendency to register experiences as background noise.
The fifth, and most powerful, is prioritizing people over things. A German study that followed nearly 1,200 participants over a year found that those who consciously invested in social engagement reported markedly higher life satisfaction than those who did not. Money spent on shared experiences with people we love consistently outperforms money spent on objects.
A well-built financial life recognizes hedonic adaptation as a real force and plans around it. The point of accumulating wealth is not to chase a feeling that keeps moving. It is to build the conditions under which the present can actually be enjoyed.
This week’s challenge: Pick one routine pleasure in your life — a coffee, a meal out, a small purchase — and deliberately skip it for two weeks, then experience it again with full attention, and notice whether the absence sharpened the joy.