Get Off the Consumption Treadmill For Greater Happiness — Dave’s Diary

With the valley’s abundant sunshine setting the mood and motivation, spring cleaning is well under way in many homes across the Yakima Valley.  We at KIT are busy planning for our upcoming annual giant yard sale set for May 10^th.   Here’s an idea--let’s put your extra stuff in our sale and we’ll help you be happier as a result.  How does that happen?  Well, it might be a bit of a leap but the truth is, having a lot of material possessions does not make us happier.

A study from Baylor University found that as we obtain more, we become less grateful for what we have, therefore leading to decreased satisfaction.  That all happens because we simply raise our reference point for happiness.  That new 2,500-square-foot house --which is great in and of itself--simply becomes the baseline for your desires for an even bigger house.  It's called the treadmill of consumption.  We continue to purchase more and more stuff but we don't get any closer to happiness.  We simply speed up the treadmill.

So dig out your treadmill and all the other stuff you have accumulated but aren’t making you happy and we’ll see you at our yard sale in the Perry Tech Parking lot on May 10^th.