Investing in Happiness

3/24/2016

While many of us believe that obtaining material goods is the way to happiness, science has shown that lasting happiness actually comes from experiences – such as travel, outdoor activities, learning new skills, and visiting exhibitions. "One of our enemies of happiness is adaption," says Dr. Thomas Gilovich, a psychology professor at Cornell University who has been researching the correlation between money and happiness for decades. "We buy things to make us happy, and we succeed, but only for a little while. New things are exciting to us at first, but then we adapt to them." 

"Our experiences are a bigger part of ourselves than our material goods," said Gilovich in the study "A Wonderful Life: Experiential Consumption and the Pursuit of Happiness," published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology. Trips we have taken and experiences we have had become part of our identities. They make us who we are, connect us with other people, and bring us great amounts of resultant happiness.

So, now there is a science-backed reason to book your next safari!