zlacker

>>wallfl+(OP)
This very much captures the hedonic treadmill: when you increase your baseline level of happiness, you re-normalize to the new level, with relatively little change in your absolute happiness.

But while I do think appreciating what you have is part of how to avoid the hedonic treadmill, I don't think it's a matter of learning to be happy with a routine.

I've found it possible to make a conscious effort to avoid hedonic adapation, and enjoy novel things without allowing them to become a new baseline. If you can maintain your expectations at the same level, while improving your actual circumstances noticeably above that level, you can maintain a higher level of enjoyment of your life.

>>JoshTr+nU8
I find this very depressing, but the reason the nordics have some of the happiest people in the world is they have low expectations.

>>dehrma+KW8
Source? The nordics have some of the highest suicide rates in the world, actually.

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r...

>>camill+Z39
Did you mean to link to some other data? This list shows that the Nordic state with the highest suicide rate is Finland at number 38, in which suicides are about 30% higher than the European average (although of course Greenland remains an interesting artefact). I don't think that really fits your description.

It's always been pretty interesting (and I'd say quite well-known) that the Nordics do have a somewhat higher suicide rate than other similar states. But it's also likely a pretty bad proxy; I'd be suspicious of a metric suggesting the average North Korean citizen is substantially happier than the average Finn.

Probably better is the World Happiness Report (https://worldhappiness.report/ed/2020/social-environments-fo...). It's a bit arbitrary for my taste, but does at least have a pretty long history as well as plenty of transparency about what it's measuring and why. And it consistently places the Nordics in the top ten.