One day a few weeks ago, I turned the key in my door with my son beside me, and instantly I knew—something was wrong. (I KNEW I had thrown that deadbolt.) I walked in with my heart pounding, sensing something was amiss. I walked straight to the TV cabinet where the flat screen, Xbox and other entertainment devices lived, and yanked the door open. EMPTY. Only wires and dust greeted me. I stared and stared, and then with a jolt I ran into the kitchen where I had left my (very) old smart phone on the kitchen counter. I upgraded a couple of months ago to an IPhone, and had not taken the pictures off my old phone yet….
It was gone. With all the pictures on it.
I went into the living room and sank onto the floor- and started to cry. After a few minutes, I realized I needed to call the police and see what else was missing….
Time passes. I am okay. But what is clear to me is what I am the saddest about. It is not my stolen STUFF but my lost pictures. They captured a year of experiences- family holiday dinner parties, outings with my son, my first trip to Europe, his 13th birthday party. So while the insurance company talked dollars, I only thought about those lost pictures.
In a recent blog I wrote about the hotly debated connection between money and happiness. At first, after this burglary, I felt there was no connection between money and happiness. I didn’t care about the expensive stolen TV. But on reflection, I realized that my experiences- some of them- cost money too. And spending money on them had given me a lot of happiness.
The truth is that there IS a connection between money and happiness, if what you spend your money on are experiences. Studies even confirm this truth. And the fact that I spent a week crying about my pictures and not the two stolen laptops and TV, cements this truth forever in my heart.
Researcher Leaf Van Boven, Ph.D., an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Colorado at Boulder has found that we’re happier when we choose experiences over material things. It’s about doing, rather than owning. Whether it’s vacationing on the coast, taking a pottery class, learning to play the guitar or going on a hike to Mt. Rainer, “Experiences contribute to the process of self-actualization,” Van Boven reported. Part of the reason is that experiences translate into memories, while “stuff” quickly loses its luster after the thrill of the purchase. (Read more: Can Money Really Buy Happiness? – Good Housekeeping) Luckily, I do have my memories!!! But pictures help me remember.
Experiences help us become the type of people we want to become. And we enjoy reflecting on our experiences- we like making memories. It’s one reason we take pictures- to re-live the moment. We rarely take pictures of stuff we bought. (Though truth be told, my insurance company wishes I did!!) We become who we want to be and we create memories of where we’ve been and what we’ve done. And in the meantime, we are enjoying living life in the present.
For example we love to travel because it nourishes our sense of adventure, our social nature and meeting the unknown. We enjoy anticipating it- planning it. We love the actual experience. And we like to think about it and remember it when it’s over. I had a million pictures of France….
Buying a new blouse never gives us all that.
Travel costs money. Many experiences cost money. And these experiences bring us far more enjoyment than stuff. It’s really about spending money on what you value.
Of course there are many experiences that are free. As human beings, we thrive on discovering and experiencing new things. Make a list of all the experiences you can take part in that are free. From hikes to connecting with people in new ways to trying out a new hobby. This is where our happiness comes from- not stuff.
What we buy does not make us happy in the long run. It’s who we become that makes us happy.
I think I’ll go take more pictures.
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Sorry to hear this! I had the same experience a few years ago, only it was over night, and I was in the house alone when burglarized, and I had been in the middle of transferring a ton of photos from the camera, through the laptop, onto an external hard drive. I left the gear out on the table to continue the project in the morning. When I woke, I discovered it all missing, with about 4 years of photos gone. There is a gap there, where a ton of things happened, that I can’t go back to in order to bring back the memories. The digital age has its positives, but also its drawbacks. Growing up my parents had a wooden chest–almost like a treasure chest–where all the photographs were kept. They were in no order, just a big pile of them from many different eras, and of many different friends and relatives. Part of the beauty in this was being able to open it up anytime, with anyone, and go through them, finding my favorites, and asking who this is, who that is… People don’t really do that with a computer, and let’s be honest, how often are we motivated to make that slideshow, burn it to a CD, send it to relatives; and if so, do you really think they watch it? Maybe once, then it is put away and never looked at again. I have CDs, flash drives, hard drives, file folders, boxes, all full of pictures. Are they convenient to look at? No. Do we often pop in the CD and look at them? No. But I like knowing they are there. So I try to back up those photos, transfer them to a safe place often. But I also want to find a better way to enjoy them, to give meaning to the reason I take them in the first place. And whenever I take a picture now, I take an extra moment to try and burn it into my memory, take a deep breath and remember the sound and the smell, or the feel of the wind, heat, or cold. I savor the moment as best I can in case those digital files disappear. In the years following our burglary, the photos have quickly amassed again, and I don’t go back to look at them that often. But I still wouldn’t want to lose them.
Rob