Why the big treat wears off and the small one does not

Large pleasures are absorbed into normal life with remarkable speed, while minor ones seem oddly resistant to it.

Anything expensive comes with an expectation attached, and expectation is the enemy of enjoyment. A long awaited trip has to be good, which means every hour of it is being quietly marked against a standard. A new object has to justify itself. Within a few weeks the object is simply where it lives, part of the furniture of the day, and the pleasure it produced has flattened out to nothing. This is not ingratitude. It is what happens to anything that becomes normal, and everything becomes normal. The larger the pleasure, the further it has to fall, and the fall is usually quick.

Small pleasures dodge this because they never rise far enough to fall. Nobody expects much from the second cup of the morning, so it cannot disappoint, and it goes on being mildly good indefinitely. The bar is set at ankle height and cleared daily. Over a year, a modest thing that works most days will contribute far more than a large thing that worked spectacularly for a fortnight in March. The arithmetic is unglamorous and it favours the small item every time, which is why it is worth taking the small item seriously rather than treating it as a consolation.

There is also the matter of supply. Big pleasures are rationed by money, distance and other people. Small ones are not rationed at all. The light at a particular hour arrives whether you have had a good week or not. The cold side of the pillow does not require a booking. This is an unusual property and it deserves more respect than it gets. A pleasure that is available on a Tuesday in the middle of a dull month is worth more, practically speaking, than one that is available in principle and almost never in fact.