The Hedonic Treadmill

Daily writing prompt

What’s a common misconception people have about happiness?

I have taught positive psychology for several years. Positive Psychology is often called “Happiness Studies” because it’s all about how we live a fulfilling life, how we find happiness.

One of the things you find out when you look at positive psychology is that the adage “You can’t buy happiness” is mostly true. Mostly.

Consumption of goods — buying, possessing, and using — only promotes happiness in the short run. Consumption produces positive emotion, and then the person gets used to having the item and returns to their base level of happiness. To reach that higher level of happiness again, they can choose to buy and consume more — but again, it is temporary. This process is known as the hedonic treadmill.

Enduring happiness comes from things like having meaning in one’s life, accomplishments, relationships, and engaging in life. This is not my idea; it comes from Martin Seligman’s work in positive psychology.

Remember I said that money mostly doesn’t buy happiness. There is an exception. Although money spent on goods doesn’t buy happiness, people who spend money on experiences report being happier. This is likely because experience can directly add to engagement in life, and indirectly to things like relationships and meaning.

So the new car will give your mood a boost for a while, then all will go back to normal. But a trip to Disney World may give you a longer-lasting boost if you’re into that kind of experience.

A Feel-Good Song

What’s a song that always puts you in a good mood?

I’m a Boomer, so expect my choice in songs to be old, before your time. The song that came to mind, the one that always puts me in a good mood, is “Lola” by the Kinks. That garage band jangle, the winking lyrics, the feel of perpetual summer.

I understand it’s a controversial song these days, for a different reason than the original one. Originally, the controversy was singing about a trans person at all. Nowadays, it is about whether the song fetishizes being trans. I don’t think it does. It’s a playful nod to the twists and turns of sexuality. It tells us life is not always what we expected.

When I hear that opening riff, I am back riding shotgun in an automobile, endless summer ahead of me, reveling in being alive.

Just One Skill?

The prompt says “One skill”. Just one? I would like to be skilled at a lot of things. For example, things having to do with my writing. I would like to be more skilled at writing and definitely more skilled at promoting. And many other things as well — I would like to be more skilled at athletic things (and as I’m starting at zero, there’s no place to go but up.)

Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko on Pexels.com

But here’s one skill I’d like to have that seems to be out of nowhere — carpentry. I would love to be instantly skilled at carpentry. I am so far away from skilled at carpentry that my friends keep me away from power tools because I might injure myself. This is not an exaggeration — I had three friends yell “No!” When I asked if I could use the chain saw. I took a shop class in high school and the boys in the class did all the bandsaw and sander and router work for me. I was allowed to varnish. That’s it. I have profound hand-eye coordination problems and everyone who has met me instinctively notices this. Probably in the way I can’t walk a straight line when sober.

But I really admire carpentry. To be able to build something that stays together and is useful? Yes, please! I would love to have that power. Christmas presents would be easy from that point on. Everyone needs boxes, and carpentry is based on building boxes, even if some of them actually look like chairs. Or tables.

Of course, if I could do carpentry, I would need lots of equipment to do it. Expensive equipment. Of course I would need it, because when I get a hobby I go all out with it. And then I get bored with it. Writing is probably the only hobby I haven’t abandoned after a couple of years, and even so sometimes I get bored with it. Maybe it’s a good idea I can’t do carpentry. It’s an expensive hobby.

My Husband

Who do you spend the most time with?

The person I spend the most time with is my husband. We suit each other well. He has a silly sense of humor, which appeals to me, and we have much in common. He supports my writing, and I support his collecting Star Trek replicas. (I have also supported his writing, but he does very little of that).

We have been married for 19 years (as he reminds me). It doesn’t seem that long, to be honest. Years just fly by, and I swear I’m only 45 (I’m not). It’s enough time that we finish each others’ sentences. Enough time that we kind of look alike.

Richard is my favorite person. The cats like him too. I think I’ll keep him.

It’s a little hard to see, but this is a family tree for Luke Dunstan’s family from the Hidden in Plain Sight universe. There are other, less expansive family trees that attach to this (I don’t have Daniel Ettner’s family tree here for example, or Jeanne and Josh’s) but this is the big one. Luke’s family gets around.

I made this on Canva, using the whitescreen function, because that was the only document big enough to contain all the family.

Daily writing prompt

What’s your favorite meme?

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This isn’t exactly a meme, but it’s what came up in my mind when I saw the question. “Oh my God! His name is Muffin?”

Hydrophobiaphobia

Daily writing prompt

What’s a fear you’ve overcome — and how did you do it?

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When I was a child, I had a fear of getting rabies. This probably came from my mother cautioning me not to pet every stray dog and cat that wandered in my direction. Instead of ceasing to pet them, I petted them and then obsessed over it — “what if he slobbered on a scratch on my arm and he had rabies?”

Photo by Maximilian Ruther on Pexels.com

Rabies is a legitimate thing to be worried about. It’s virtually 100% fatal once symptoms show up. And the incubation time is somewhere between 2 weeks and 2 years. So it can come out of nowhere. The biggest thing, though, is that it results from something I shouldn’t do, and it’s” the ultimate getting caught doing something wrong.” Like pregnancy but fatal.

I had nightmares about getting attacked by rabid animals, usually cats, although bats and raccoons also showed up in my dreams. It was through dreams that I overcame the fear. I can lucid dream — that is, I can dream aware that I am dreaming and change the outcomes of dreams. I started taking control of my rabies dreams — by killing off the rabid animals and sending them in to get tested. By getting the rabies prophylaxis shots in time. I did the right things and survived.

This helped me when the bats were getting into my house and my cats were taking them down. I got so I could put on the leather gloves and scoop the bats up to be tested for rabies. It turned out the colony in my attic wasn’t carrying rabies, and we eventually stopped the bats from living in our attic. I think I would have been a total mess if I hadn’t gotten over my hydrophobiaphobia.

Self-Confidence

Daily writing prompt

What’s the best way to build self-confidence?

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I find the best way to build self-confidence is to keep trying and do better. What I mean by this is that the first time you do something, you’ve done your best. But doing it again and trying something new is doing better than last time. That gives self-confidence, because you see that you’ve done better.

Don’t compare your work to others’, because you’re probably seeing their work after several cycles of getting better and comparing it to your first or second go-around. That will erode self-confidence every time. Measure your own improvement and keep practicing. Keep learning. Keep trying new things.

My Wixsite

Here is the address for my author site, the one where I talk about my books. I don’t talk about them much here, because I see this space more as a blog than a way to sell books. I will be maintaining my author site more since I rediscovered it, although I find Wix has a user-surly interface. Is there a way to make a web page (not a blog) on WordPress? Someone let me know!

https://lleachie.wixsite.com/laurenleachsteffens

Marie DeLoye

If you had to change your name, what would your new name be?

I thought about a pen name. The advantages of a pen name would be that my writing career would be held separate from my academic identity, and I could hide writing romantic fantasy from my colleagues. The disadvantages? That my writing career would be held separate from my academic identity, and I could hide writing romantic fantasy from my colleagues. Why hide? I like who I am, with all my bizarre facets.

If I had a pen name, however, it would be Marie DeLoye. Admittedly it has a bit more of a romance feel to it. It sounds like gothic romance, though, which is not what I write (although the first draft of what became Apocalypse had gothic elements to it. It was pretty dark).

I got the name from my dad’s side of the family, the French Canadian side. My grandmother’s maiden name was DeLoye, and Marie was my grandfather’s first love. It’s a catchy name. But it is not mine.