If the guy loved what he was doing, then that's more than the majority of people can say about their jobs. Money definitely does not make people any happier.
This clearly isn't a simple story of 'happy man in a humble job'.
I mean, the man still buys lottery tickets for a start...
The focus on take-home pay misses the other parts that don’t show up on your pay slip.
It would be a struggle to write something more patently ridiculous.
Check out the book, Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill
You're making some unfounded assumptions about me there.
> People are generally happier and satisfied with what they have. They work, they eat, they enjoy life with their families. They don't feel the need for more.
One major problem with this "money does not affect happiness" schtick is that a person will often, if they live long enough, encounter a problem or set of problems that can be solved by the spending of money, perhaps only in that way. An inability to solve such problems because of the lack of money can affect a person's happiness.
It's true enough that some people and some cultures are better at shrugging off disappointments like not being able to afford medicine, education, housing, food, or whatever. To say that being able to solve those problems wouldn't make them happier is just disingenuous.
Also, key point: > Spend some time traveling the world, head to some developing countries outside of your consumer driven world.
Traveling is a luxury that many people cannot afford - it requires a ton of money.
You're telling me to save up money, then to spend it, to go to a place where I realize I won't need money?
How do you tell a poor person with financial troubles - don't worry just travel and you'll see you don't actually need money?
People who say, "Money does not affect happiness" usually come from a place of privilege - i.e. they already have money and have their basic needs met, so they've never /really/ had to worry about money. If you're a single mother of three kids in a minimum wage job, then money definitely affects your happiness.
From the article, it sounds like Loggan is exactly that. Never complains. Never asked for a promotion. Content with what he has.
“He could retire now,” said Javon Chambers, his grandson, himself a Walker Bros. busser for 15 years. “He’s financially straight and everything. I just think he knows when people retire, they die. That’s what he’s said: Old people don’t have nothing to do, they see their friends retire, and then they retire, and that’s when they die of boredom too. It’s like people who are married a long time — if one dies, the next goes right after. That’s like my grandfather and this place. He doesn’t want the will inside him to dry up.”
Ambition, in a time of low expectations, in a country defined by inequality, can mean holding on to what you have, internalizing your place in the world. “I think Loggan wanted to fit in somewhere,” said chef Pat Levy, also known as “Popeye”; he has worked at the restaurant 42 years, arriving in Chicago from Jamaica. “I think Loggan just decided to be a busboy. He is content. It’s all he wants. So I ask — isn’t that OK?”
For instance, the company took out life insurance on Loggan (payable to his wife); Ray says that for years he’s set aside about $50 a month for Loggan, as an informal retirement fund (subject to a 30 percent penalty for early withdrawal).
A person can be content with what they have and still find value (happiness, even!) in having more, for a variety of reasons that don't involve naked greed or avarice. It's extremely strange that anyone needs to have this explained to them.
This thread of discussion literally began because you wrote "Money definitely does not make people any happier."
Well yeah the ones that are alive..
>They don't feel the need for more.
I would question if that's true.
I've also spent time being fucking broke, and being very very well off. Actual adult broke not fake have-a-backup-plan broke. One is way fucking better than the other.
Having money does not create happiness. Not having money most certainly certainly does create misery though. In hundreds of daily very specific death-by-a-thousand-cuts ways.
Instead of wandering around the world, try that instead, and see how your perspective changes.