After selling their California home for a desert retirement paradise, my parents discovered that 30 years of morning coffee companions and farmers market Saturdays were worth more than perfect weather and lower taxes; a $100,000 lesson in why we're terrible at predicting our own happiness.
Picture this: Two weeks after my parents sold their California home and moved to their "perfect" retirement spot in Arizona, I got a call.
My dad's voice was different.
Not quite defeated, but definitely missing that excitement I'd heard when they first announced the move six months earlier.
"We might have made a mistake," he said.
By month three, my mom was openly talking about coming back.
By month six? They were actively house hunting in their old neighborhood, willing to pay nearly double what they'd sold for.
What happened? How did their dream retirement turn into a cautionary tale?
The answer lies in something behavioral scientists call "affective forecasting," or our terrible ability to predict what will actually make us happy.
My parents fell for every classic trap in the book, and watching it unfold taught me more about decision-making than any research paper ever could.
They confused vacation mode with everyday life
Here's a question for you: Have you ever come back from an amazing vacation and thought, "I could live there"?
Of course you have, we all have.
My parents visited their retirement location exactly three times before buying.
Each visit was essentially a vacation with leisurely breakfasts, scenic drives, and dinner at the best restaurants.
They were in exploration mode, dopamine flowing from all the novelty.
However, we're terrible at distinguishing between our experiencing self and our remembering self.
My parents remembered the highlights, the perfect weather days, the stunning sunsets.
They didn't factor in the mundane Tuesday afternoons when there's nothing to do and it's 115 degrees outside.
The place that feels magical when you're visiting for a long weekend feels very different when you're trying to find a decent grocery store or sitting in traffic on your way to a doctor's appointment.
The best decisions come from understanding the difference between peak experiences and daily reality.
My parents optimized for the peaks and forgot about the valleys.
They underestimated the power of weak ties
My dad thought he'd be fine without his Tuesday golf buddies.
My mom figured she'd make new friends at the community center.
"We have each other," they kept saying, "that's all we need."
Wrong.
What they didn't realize is that most of our day-to-day happiness comes from "weak ties," like the barista who knows your order, the neighbor you chat with while walking the dog, the familiar faces at the gym.
These aren't deep friendships because you might not even know their last names.
However, these micro-interactions create what researchers call "ambient belonging," or that feeling of being part of a community.
In their old neighborhood, my parents had thirty years of weak ties.
The guy at the hardware store who'd help my dad find exactly what he needed, the librarian who saved books she knew my mom would love, and the couple down the street who'd water their plants during vacations.
Building that network from scratch at 68? Much harder than they anticipated.
They ignored their actual daily routines
For three decades, my mom's Saturday routine was the farmer's market followed by coffee with her book club.
My dad spent Sunday mornings at the local diner, reading the paper and arguing politics with the same group of retirees.
Were these earth-shattering activities? No, but they were the scaffolding of their weeks, the rituals that provided structure and meaning.
In Arizona, the nearest farmer's market was a 45-minute drive.
The local diner scene? Nonexistent.
These might seem like small losses, but happiness researchers consistently find that our wellbeing depends more on frequent small pleasures than occasional big ones.
Think about your own life: What small rituals would you miss if they suddenly disappeared?
My parents focused on the big selling points, such as the weather, the lower cost of living, the beautiful hiking trails.
They forgot to audit their actual daily behaviors and ask whether those behaviors would translate to a new environment.
They bought into the retirement fantasy
"Retirement community" sounds great in the brochure, doesn't it?
Golf courses, pools, organized activities, people your own age.
But here's what my parents discovered: Being surrounded only by other retirees can be surprisingly limiting.
No young families with energy and fresh perspectives, no middle-aged neighbors juggling careers and teenagers; just a lot of people talking about their medical appointments and grandchildren who never visit.
One evening, during what would be their final month there, my mom called me.
"I feel like I'm in a waiting room," she said, "like we're all just... waiting."
Harsh? Maybe, but research on "age-segregated" communities backs this up.
Intergenerational contact is associated with better cognitive function, improved mood, and greater sense of purpose in older adults.
They didn't test drive the decision
Want to know the kicker? They could have avoided all of this.
Three months before selling their house, I suggested they rent an Airbnb in their dream location for a month.
Actually live there, shop at the grocery stores, deal with the traffic, and experience a typical Tuesday.
"Too expensive," my dad said, "we know we love it there."
That "expensive" test run would have cost them about $3,000.
Instead, they lost nearly $100,000 in real estate transactions, moving costs, and the price difference buying back into their old neighborhood.
We need to find cheap ways to test our big decisions.
My parents went all-in without properly testing their hypothesis.
They confused confidence with actual knowledge.
Wrapping up
The happy ending? My parents are back in California now, just two streets over from their old house.
The farmer's market lady actually cried when she saw my mom again, and my dad's diner crew saved his usual seat.
They're out about $100,000 and somewhat embarrassed, but they're also wiser.
"We optimized for the wrong things," my dad told me recently, "we thought about perfect weather instead of perfect days."
The lesson here is that our intuitions about what will make us happy are often wrong.
We overvalue novelty and undervalue familiarity, we focus on features instead of daily experience, and we forget that happiness is about the life we build wherever we are.
So, next time you're making a major life decision, ask yourself: Am I choosing based on vacation mode or everyday mode? Have I actually tested this hypothesis? Am I giving enough weight to all those "small" things that make up most of my actual life?
Sometimes the dream location is just where you already are, with a few adjustments.
My parents had to learn that the expensive way.
Hopefully, you won't have to!
Just launched: Laughing in the Face of Chaos by Rudá Iandê
Exhausted from trying to hold it all together?
You show up. You smile. You say the right things. But under the surface, something’s tightening. Maybe you don’t want to “stay positive” anymore. Maybe you’re done pretending everything’s fine.
This book is your permission slip to stop performing. To understand chaos at its root and all of your emotional layers.
In Laughing in the Face of Chaos, Brazilian shaman Rudá Iandê brings over 30 years of deep, one-on-one work helping people untangle from the roles they’ve been stuck in—so they can return to something real. He exposes the quiet pressure to be good, be successful, be spiritual—and shows how freedom often lives on the other side of that pressure.
This isn’t a book about becoming your best self. It’s about becoming your real self.
