How I Counteract Hedonic Adaptation on the Toilet
In my introductory post about hedonic adaptation, I talked about how voluntary discomfort is important for resetting your baseline happiness levels and cultivating gratitude. Because humans adapt to their standard of living, we think we need better and better things to improve our lives and make us happy. In fact, if we temporarily deprive ourselves of everyday items, we reset our baseline happiness levels by finding new gratitude and joy in the things we already have.
I have often reset my baseline for joy throughout my life, through backpacking and, most recently, through full-time living in a camper. Using travel as a tool to counteract hedonic adaptation makes it a valuable part of my life.
Backpacking on a budget for months at a time throughout Southeast Asia and India brought me the sharpest adaptation resets, as the way of living can be especially foreign compared to the Western world. One aspect that forever changed how I view everyday life at home was learning how to use the bathroom in those parts of Asia.
There’s a steep learning curve to getting the hang of using a squatting toilet, and I’m not too proud to admit that I have peed on my own feet multiple times. The double whammy comes with a squat toilet’s frequent companion: a lack of toilet paper. The most threatening set-up I’ve used was a bucket full of water with just a plastic scoop in it. More often, there’s a little hose with a sprayer that has the potential to send Americans into a tizzy of fear and confusion.
Eventually, I grew to love the hose/bidet style of cleaning oneself and am convinced it’s a necessity for full and proper hygiene! Pit toilets, however, never fully grew on me, especially when there were palm-sized spiders hanging out next to them.
In India, at the front desk of hostels and hotels, the receptionist often has their own stash of toilet paper, thoughtfully stored for Westerner use. As there is no toilet paper in the room, once you check-in, the receptionist will hand you an amount, but because they don’t use toilet paper themselves, there is a lack of understanding of exactly how much toilet paper might be required. The tp given to you will often be a laughably small amount, sometimes just a few squares for multiple days.
Because of this, I became a masterful paper hoarder in India, slipping napkins at restaurants into my bag at every opportunity (tp in Asia is thrown in wastebins next to the toilet, so no danger of clogging pipes with a hefty napkin). Honestly, this habit was so useful and led to so many moments of gratitude I still catch myself doing it back in the States.
So why all this toilet talk? Adjusting to a new, uncomfortable way of doing something very basic was a bit of a hardship in the moment (though also funny and entertaining), but I became used to it. The real magic happened when I returned to the U.S. and was suddenly surrounded by latrine luxury. Paper everywhere…..that you could flush! Something was scarce in my life and suddenly brought back in ridiculous abundance.
I now had a new thing that brought and continues to bring me happiness. Regular toilets and toilet paper. My threshold for fancy things has been lowered to something that is required in every home and place of business. Opportunities for gratitude abound.
It can be challenging to maintain this gratitude over the years, and while I’m not literally leaping for joy every time I see some toilet paper, I do get a ping of satisfaction often, doubly so when there aren’t massive spiders hiding in the rolls.
My view from so many toilets around the world
The trick to sustainability when you want to counteract hedonic adaptation is to deploy something called negative visualization, a Stoic technique to savor gratitude in the moment by imagining the loss of whatever you currently have. Negative visualization can be done without actually experiencing the hardship yourself, but I find it’s a little more impactful if you have experienced it in some capacity. You can visualize when you were in that time of discomfort and still hold onto the emotions you had then. Then, you can put those emotions and thoughts towards whatever you might be taking for granted and appreciate it to counteract hedonic adaptation and lifestyle creep.
The Stoics of Ancient Greece pioneered the practice of negative visualization and it became highly influential in ancient Rome. The stereotype of Stoics is a serious, emotionless person. In fact, with the concept of negative visualization, one might even view them as pessimists, always imagining the worst-case scenario. But in fact, a crucial element of Stoicism is unrelenting optimism and joy. William Braxton Irvine, author of A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy explains further:
We normally characterize an optimist as someone who sees his glass as being half full rather than half empty. For a Stoic, though, this degree of optimism would only be a starting point. After expressing his appreciation that his glass is half full rather than being completely empty, he will go on to express his delight in even having a glass: It could, after all, have been broken or stolen. And if he is atop his Stoic game, he might go on to comment about what an astonishing thing glass vessels are: They are cheap and fairly durable, impart no taste to what we put in them, and—miracle of miracles!—allow us to see what they contain. This might sound a bit silly, but to someone who has not lost his capacity for joy, the world is a wonderful place. To such a person, glasses are amazing; to everyone else, a glass is just a glass, and it is half empty to boot.
Yes, like an alien crash-landed on Earth, you too can be amazed and awed at not only the marvels of the modern world but the most basic parts of everyday lives. But enough about the wonder of glassware, we’re here to be excited by toilet paper.
My own capacity for negative visualization was put into use further when I moved into an RV full-time and downgraded from the coveted ‘regular’ toilet to one that empties into a black tank, which must be dumped periodically. While I personally don’t mind this chore, some people hate it and it’s one step down in luxury, for sure. My beloved toilet paper was also downgraded from 2-ply to 1-ply in order to avoid tank clogs.
Me, abounding in 1-ply joy
But because I had already reset my bathroom-specific happiness baseline backpacking in Asia, I’m still grateful for my abundance. Now, 1-ply tp might seem like the ultimate deprivation for some people, but it’s still an incredible, abundant piece of comfort (cheaper and better for the environment, too!). I have a whole shelf of beautiful 1-ply toilet paper and can use as much as I want (and we’re trying to figure out how to install our old bidet on our RV toilet for even more luxury).
My camper toilet has also given me new things to be excited about. When I use the bathroom at a business or a friend’s home, it’s a tiny luxury because everything I flush away is gone forever, and I don’t have to dump it later and won’t ever see it again. Huzzah! What an incredible world of indoor plumbing that we live in!
On the flip side, I can also negatively visualize how many people who live in vans or other small vehicles have even more primitive toilets in their rigs or none at all. Many vehicle residents go into towns to use bathrooms or simply relieve themselves outside. My tiny bathroom is a palace with a throne in comparison.
The extra beauty of voluntary discomfort is that because it’s voluntary, I’m not miserable using my RV toilet. Remember, having what some people might perceive as hardship in your life is not for the sake of hardship itself. Besides more easily achieved joy, I get a lot of wonderful freedoms from living off the grid, and a lower standard of toilet is a small price to pay.
Some of the things I get from being able to live simply, on the toilet and off are:
I pay no rent because I live off-grid
Because of my low cost of living, I only have to work 12 hours a week to cover half of our usual living expenses
I have ‘fuck you’ money because I can save so much beyond what I spend
I can spend many of my days completely as I wish
Because of my freedom of schedule and work situation, I can go where I want, when I want
I fear loss less because I have less to lose
I’m more comfortable in more places because I’m not used to only the best
I can take bigger risks in life because I have savings and self-reliance to fall back on
What you choose to ‘deprive’ yourself of in life depends all on your priorities. If you enjoy working and like spending lots of money on a niche hobby, a nice home, or fancy experiences, there’s nothing wrong with that. But if what you value is the most precious commodity we have -time- then learning to counteract hedonic adaptation and lifestyle creep is the simplest tool you have for buying more of it.
And if you think this is all crazy and I don’t have you convinced, well, the Cynic philosopher Diogenes used to shit in the street to make a point, so count your blessings.
