It’s not that I’m against any of these things or that I’m against spending money. Instead I’ve been investing my money in different ways.

I’m not focused as much on buying new “stuff,” but buying experiences and memories – things that seem to enrich my life more than just collecting material things.

For example, instead of trying to keep up with the latest Macbook, I’d rather spend that money going to concerts with friends or hanging out at new bars and restaurants. Buying new experiences such as these often adds an extra meaning to our lives that material things fail to accomplish.

The reason buying experiences leads to more happiness than buying stuff.

Often when we buy that new pair of shoes or new car, we get a feeling called “buyer’s remorse.” This is our tendency to regret our purchases because we feel we may have made the wrong choice, or that we have spent too extravagantly, or something better will be available in the future.

However, a 2012 study published in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology shows that we aren’t as likely to get buyer’s remorse when we buy experiences.

The reason for this is that when we buy objects they are easily interchangeable with other objects. We get a brand new car, but there’s a new model out within the next 6 months. Material things tend to eventually become out-dated or broken. We get an initial boost in mood when we first buy them, but it quickly dies off.

Experiences, on the other hand, aren’t as easily interchangeable. You can’t trade your first concert experience for someone else’s first concert experience. It’s deeply personal to you – and it’s valuable to you and you alone. When we focus on buying experiences that we can never replace, we build memories and good feelings that stay with us for a lifetime.

Ways to spend money on new experiences.

There are many ways you can spend your money on new experiences:

• Going to a new bar or restaurant with friends.
• Attending a concert or sporting event.
• Planning a trip to a place you’ve never been before.
• Checking out a museum or art exhibit.
• Signing up for a new class or workshop.
• Joining a local club or community center.
• Taking up an extreme hobby like skiing or skating or paintball.
• Throwing a themed party at your house.
• Go camping or plan a mountain hike.
• Buy someone a surprise gift just to see their reaction.

When we spend our money on these types of things, we invest in building good memories. Memories that often stay with us and improve our lives in the long-term.

I’m sure you can still recall pleasant events today that happened in your life 10 or 20 years ago. The pleasure you get from these memories is often much longer lasting than the pleasure you get from solely material-based purchases, which lose their novelty far more quickly.

If you focus your spending habits on experiences vs. stuff, you’re likely to live a more happy and fulfilling life. Of course, this doesn’t mean we should never buy stuff – some material goods are necessary for a comfortable living. The key lesson is that buying things that directly lead to positive experiences often has a stronger impact on our well-being than buying stuff just because we want more.

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References

• Carter, Travis J. & Gilovich, Thomas. (2010). The relative relativity of material and experiential purchases. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 98. 146-159.
• Rosenzweig, Emily & Gilovich, Thomas. (2012). Buyer’s remorse or missed opportunity? Differential regrets for material and experiential purchases. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 102. 215-223.

I remember a time when I was very depressed, and looking back, I can now see how my absolutist views were a big reason I couldn’t get out of the rut I was stuck in for so long.

Black and white thinking is our tendency to look at the world in terms of “all or nothing.” We either find things to be “good” or “bad,” “beautiful” or “ugly,” “easy” or “hard,” “happy” or “sad.”

We don’t acknowledge all the grey areas in life. The things we can’t fit into a box. Life’s paradoxes. Unknowns. The stuff that’s difficult to put into words.

Instead, black and white thinking is the illusion that we have all the answers to life when we really don’t. And when we engage in this type of thinking, it can actually cause a lot of unnecessary problems in our life.

Black and white thinking limits our perspective.

When we only see things in black and white, we miss out on alternative ways of viewing the world. These other perspectives may be just as good if not better than our current perspective.

Black and white thinking often creates a false choice between “A” and “B,” when “C” is the more accurate and helpful view. Unfortunately, if we only think in black and white terms, then we are unlikely to even consider “C” a possibility in the first place.

Black and white thinking increases depression.

A black and white viewpoint often creates artificial “needs” in our life that lead to disappointment and depression.

The cognitive-based psychotherapist Albert Ellis called one example of this “musterbation.” This is our tendency to think that we must have something, or we must do something, or life must be a certain way – or it will be awful.

Black and white thinking doesn’t open us up to the possibility that even if life doesn’t work out exactly the way we think it should, we can still find happiness.

Black and white thinking makes us less willing to compromise.

Black and white thinking doesn’t just hurt ourselves, but also the relationships we try to build with other people. When we view the world in strict and over-simplistic terms, we are less likely to compromise and cooperate with others to meet common interests.

Again, it’s because we don’t acknowledge the grey areas in life. We believe everything needs to be a specific way, and we aren’t willing to deviate from this narrow view of the world.

This makes us stubborn and frustrating to live with or work with. People are often turned off by those who think they are always right and hold dogmatic views about the world. If you want to build stronger relationships, then try being more flexible.

Black and white thinking makes us less adaptive.

At the end of the day, black and white thinking makes us less adaptive to our surroundings. This hinders our growth as individuals. It’s also what keeps us stuck in old habits and thought patterns.

Once we acknowledge that we don’t know everything about the world, we can begin to learn new things and change our ways.

Black and white thinking comes with the assumption that we always know where to “draw lines in the sand.” But the truth is we don’t. Sometimes new information and new experiences tell us we need to adjust those lines we draw. And without this open-mindedness, we will always be trapped within those same limitations.

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This means our happiness and success largely depend on the relationships we build with others.

When building relationships on a day-to-day basis, we really only have two distinct choices we can make:

1. We can choose to build positive, meaningful, healthy, and productive relationships with the people we interact with.

2. Or we can choose to build negative, empty, toxic, and destructive relationships with the people we interact with.

Knowing how to maximize the positive relationships and minimize the negative relationships is key to living a happy and satisfying life.

Positive relationships encourage personal growth.

One benefit to positive relationships is that you encourage each other to grow and flourish. Friends like seeing friends succeed and achieve their goals. And most of the time, good friends are willing to help you in anyway they can if it means seeing their buddy be happy and successful.

Positive relationships give you support during tough times.

Another huge benefit to positive relationships is that they provide support during tough times. We all have our bad moments, whether it be health-related, money-related, or something else. Thankfully, having a supportive social circle is one of the best ways to stay strong, persist forward, and get a little bit of help when we need it.

Positive relationships enable you to collaborate and work together.

The more we get along with someone, the better we are at collaborating and working together. Human relationships thrive when individuals can combine their skills and talents, and successfully create something greater than the sum of their parts. This is the stuff that makes businesses and other social institutions work.

Positive relationships create feelings of pleasure and joy.

One of the more obvious benefits of positive relationships is that they make life more enjoyable. Good friends, family, and co-workers make life an overall more pleasant experience – we enjoy spending time with these people and we often share positive moments with them on a frequent basis. They provide that extra flavor to life that we can’t find by ourselves.

Positive relationships add more meaning to our life.

Having positive relationships in our life increases our sense of purpose and meaning. When we have a real, positive effect on someone else, we feel like we are making a significant difference in the world – and we are.

Positive relationships enrich our life story. They fulfill our need to belong in a community and they give us a stronger sense of identity. Without this sense of belonging, we can often feel isolated and disconnected with ourselves. But once we find our place in society, we become more comfortable in our own skin.

Positive relationships live on through other positive relationships.

The relationships we build have a much broader influence than just ourselves and our immediate social circle. They also influence people who we may never know exist. When you create a positive connection with someone else, that person is more motivated to make positive connections with other people. Our actions and relationships, therefore, are part of a much larger chain of events that are what influence society as a whole.

One of my favorite studies illustrates this phenomenon well: when we do acts of kindness, others are more likely to repeat that act of kindness toward another person. In many other ways, the relationships we build can influence how others build relationships in the future.

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And the truth is there is a lot of scientific evidence showing the physical and mental benefits of mindfulness and why we should aim to be more present in our everyday lives.

The purpose of this article isn’t to diminish the importance of mindfulness or “living in the moment,” but to remind you that it’s just one mode of awareness. At times, it is just as important that we “step outside of the moment,” and interpret our world from a broader viewpoint.

The benefits of reflecting on the past.

One benefit we don’t get from only living in the moment is reflecting on our past and learning from our mistakes.

If we never look backward at the scope of our life, the choices we’ve made, and where they have led us, then it’s incredibly difficult to identify what we’ve done right and what we’ve done wrong.

Research indicates that reflection is key to learning.

The benefits of planning for the future.

Living a happy, healthy, and successful life often requires adequate planning and foresight. It rarely happens by accident.

Therefore, looking forward into the future is often just as important as reflecting backwards on our past, or living in the moment.

If we never think about the direction we want to go in our life, it is very unlikely we will get there. This is why it is so important to make our values and goals clear to ourselves.

Try creating a rough timeline to better envision your goals.

The benefits of mind-wandering.

When “living in the moment” we often try to fix our attention toward something in the present – like our breathing.

And any time we deviate from this fixed awareness – or get distracted by something else that catches our attention – we beat ourselves up because we are no longer living in the present. Instead, we have what is sometimes called “monkey mind.”

However, some research suggests that mind-wandering and daydreaming can actually come with some valuable benefits.

Of course, daydreaming can be counterproductive (especially when it leads to procrastination), but other times letting our minds wander can aid in creativity and problem-solving.

This is because sometimes things distract our attention because we find them new and interesting. And keeping our minds open to different thoughts and sensations can help increase our opportunity to discover new ideas.

In this way, the occasional daydreaming and mind-wandering should be thought of as healthy.

“Living in the moment” – a common excuse to be impulsive and reckless?

This isn’t always true, but sometimes I see people use the “living in the moment” excuse as a way to justify their impulsivity and recklessness.

Say you’re at a party, solely living in the moment, without any concerns for the past or future.

With such a mindset, you may find yourself drinking lots of alcohol, taking drugs, and engaging in unsafe sex with strangers. And why not? You’re just reacting to your immediate surroundings, you’re not seeing the bigger picture of your actions, so you act in ways that only bring immediate satisfaction.

In this example, “living in the moment” becomes an excuse to find short-term gratification, but ignore long-term consequences. This is a misapplication of living in the present.

When to “live in the moment” – and when not to.

Developing mindfulness and “living in the moment” are valuable skills to learn. I can’t stress that enough, I just don’t think they are the only skills to learn.

The ability to “step outside your immediate senses” – and also reflect on the past, and plan for the future – are often just as important to your happiness and health.

In fact, reflection and foresight are valuable adaptations of the human mind that have greatly helped our evolution over time. They are also what distinguish us from more primitive minds, which can only react to information they receive on a momentary basis, and therefore can’t form memories or project into the future.

Trying to live in the moment, while completely ignoring the past and future, can be dangerous. There needs to be a balance between these different modes of awareness in order to have a healthy, functioning mind.