I’m Paul, The Hedonic Treadmill Guy. I’ve spent most of my life trying to beat the Hedonic Treadmill. I’ve tried most things: getting rich, getting married, having kids… I’ve tried talking to AI, I've tried asking Buddha, (I haven’t talked to Jesus about it, but I’ve met some lovely people that have), and I wrote a book about it.

The Hedonic Treadmill is the only thing you care about. Every morning you get up trying to beat the Hedonic Treadmill— and yet you don't even realise it exists.

the Hedonic Treadmill is evolution’s way of making humans successful — it’s why we aren’t still sitting in caves doing bad drawings of cows in berry juice on the walls. It’s what drove us to put on a bearskin and conquer the planet. We’ve built skyscrapers, rockets to the moon and iPhones — and we’re still no happier than our caveman ancestors. And that’s because happiness isn’t the reward for a life well-lived; it’s the mechanism our genes use to control our conscious choices.

Outrageous claim, serious science: hedonic adaptation is one of the best-replicated findings in happiness research.

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