This is an example of the Hedonic Treadmill [0]. At first glance, winning the lottery should increase your happiness compared to becoming paraplegic but after a few months the happiness level seems to go back to the baseline in both case anyway.
Sure, after 8 weeks, their happiness was equalized, but what about after 8 years, or a lifetime?
How many more positive experiences does having money unlock (innumerable) compared to how many positive experiences does being disabled prevent from happening (also innumerable)? Over a longer timescale, the differences between the momentum of good experiences versus the stagnation of having most of human activity inaccessible intuitively add up to be pretty large.
A good study would be to measure the happiness of paraplegics who won the lottery.
You're not considering that the 'positive experiences' for someone who won the lottery vs. someone who is paraplegic are vastly different.
> In his archival data analysis, Lucas found evidence that it is possible for someone’s subjective well-being set point to change drastically, such as in the case of individuals who acquire a severe, long term disability.[15] However, as Diener, Lucas, and Scollon point out, the amount of fluctuation a person experiences around their set point is largely dependent on the individual’s ability to adapt
But what I find interesting is the overall underlying argument that for most people, we have a happiness baseline that is only slightly moved by external events.
Subjective Well-Being and Income: Is there any Evidence of Satiation?
"Many scholars have argued that once 'basic needs' have been met, higher income is no longer associated with higher in subjective well-being. We assess the validity of this claim in comparisons of both rich and poor countries, and also of rich and poor people within a country. Analyzing multiple datasets, multiple definitions of 'basic needs' and multiple questions about well-being, we find no support for this claim. The relationship between well-being and income is roughly linear-log and does not diminish as incomes rise. If there is a satiation point, we are yet to reach it."
That is inconsistent. What I believe they are trying to say is that there is no sharp cut-off. If the relationship is always roughly linear-log, then it always diminishes as incomes rise.