Future Happiness Depends Less on the Present Than We Think

This is probably one the reasons why keeping up with Joneses is a route to that hedonic treadmill - here:

"Overall, then, it seems like we continue to wrongly predict how events will affect our future happiness because we have difficulty remembering the predictions we make.
Do these affective forecasting errors really matter? In fact, these errors may be both a blessing and a curse.
On the positive side, it can be motivating to be very concerned about a future event. College faculty approaching tenure are often quite productive in the years before their evaluation, because they believe that the outcome of this decision will hugely influence their career. Even though the actual tenure decision won't influence their future happiness much, this hard work may still lay important groundwork for their research in years to come.
On the negative side, though, these affective forecasting errors can also lead to bad decisions. If you really believe that a sports car will make you happier, you may overpay to own it. That means that you will spend a lot of money on a purchase that ultimately won't affect your happiness that much.
On balance, then, it is probably best to remember that there are lots of factors that affect how happy you will be in the future, and that no single event will have that big an influence on that happiness."