"I don't think I'll ever get over this"

The thing about that sentence is that we've all said it at some point. We've said it at our highest, and at our lowest. We never want to get over that euphoric feeling of winning an award, but we do get over it. We desperately want to get over the ache of a breakup, and we do get over it. Maybe the only difference is that one feels like it happens a lot faster than the other, but ultimately, we get over it.

I recently experienced something that had me thinking about this whole idea of getting over things. Why is it that we always feel like we'll never get over something, even though time and time again, we've proven to ourselves that we always do?

The way that our brains process emotion is unlike how our brains process facts. You'll never forget 2 + 2, but you'll eventually forget what it felt like to go on a walk with a loved one that passed. Our brains are wired for survival, not for preserving every emotional high or low we experience. Hedonic adaptation basically says that when people get used to changes in their life– whether good or bad– their happiness levels eventually always return to a baseline. It dampens the intensity of both joy and sorrow over time.

In short, we are biologically wired to get over things. This explains why, no matter how much we swear we'll never stop feeling a certain way, we always do. The weight of experiences, no matter how heavy, gets redistributed across time, until one day, it feels like it's barely there at all.

I think there's a certain beauty to it. Everything passes, and we're wired to ultimately be okay with that.

02/22/25