Take Care in Adding Comforts to Your Life
ID: [[201911042243 Take Care in Adding Comforts to Your Life]]
Tags: #comfort
Related: [[201905121401 Do You Really Need That Comfort?]]
We have to be careful about each comfort we bring into our life. It’s not that we should always be uncomfortable and never let comforts enter our lives, but we should be deliberate in incorporating comforts.
Due to hedonistic adaptation, our baseline level of comfort will continually creep up as we inject comforts into our life. This will come at a price because we will always face greater resistance when moving backward in comfort.
I think this is why some people reject luxuries even if they’re within reach. You don’t necessarily want to experience something with significantly more comfort because it will change your set point for comfort in that context. For example, you may avoid flying first-class even if you can afford it; save Michelin star restaurants only for special occasions; avoid the luxury gym; and refrain from anything above Uber Pool or UberX. The more you indulge in a creature comfort or luxury, the more difficult it becomes to go back.
You can experience a bit of comfort creep even with short exposures to great comforts. This is why car salesman push so hard to get you to do a test drive — once you’ve experienced it, you unconsciously begin to internalize that experience as your new baseline.
There is also what we can term “comfort creep.” We get so used to a certain level of convenience and luxury that it becomes almost inconceivable that we used to live without it. As wealth grows, so does our sense of “normal.”
Holiday, Ryan. Stillness is the Key, pg 172
