dreadpirateroberts69
RRREEEEEEE (she/her)
- Nov 4, 2021
- 278
I tend to avoid motivational/inspirational podcasts, but this one was suggested to me on spotify and decided to listen to one episode out of curiosity. This episode was about the "hedonic treadmill", or the fact that people eventually come back to a certain default level of "happiness" no matter what happens to them. The narrator of the podcast framed this as a positive thing, like saying, "no matter what happens, humans bounce back to their normal level of happiness."
It made me think about how sadness and loneliness are basically my default state and always have been. That no matter what happens (shy of one or two possible things I believe could "save" me but have great reason to believe will never occur), I will always return to a "steady personal baseline" of misery. For people with lifelong depression, the concept of the hedonic treadmill is not encouraging, it's damning. It's frustrating to me that normal people fail to realize this.
And this is why I avoid motivational podcasts...
It made me think about how sadness and loneliness are basically my default state and always have been. That no matter what happens (shy of one or two possible things I believe could "save" me but have great reason to believe will never occur), I will always return to a "steady personal baseline" of misery. For people with lifelong depression, the concept of the hedonic treadmill is not encouraging, it's damning. It's frustrating to me that normal people fail to realize this.
And this is why I avoid motivational podcasts...