Money Can Buy Happiness [pdf]
reasonpapers.com
reasonpapers.com
And, yet, here we are, more productive than we've ever been as a species, still slogging through 8 hour days 5 days a week, 260 days a year (give or take, if we're lucky). When do we get to sit back and say, "cool, I think we're done."
When collective productivity is turned into collective leverage.
Reminds me of one former colleague whom I didn't have high opinion about but he is very right when saying: "Do not work more for the same money. It becomes a baseline expectation the moment you demonstrate you can handle it, and you will never get a raise".
The war of life-work balance is in full swing and us the people have to collectively push back as hard as we can. After all, the concept of the modern work is unheard of anywhere in the nature, is absurd and unnatural. Hell, even the humans worked roughly 15h a week just a few short millenia ago.
Shouldn't we seek to just 'be', and react accordingly to what the moment impresses upon us? If we seek to be happy at all times, wouldn't that be as much of a sickness as being sad all the time? Wouldn't happiness become something common place and fall into the background like so much white noise?
Long story short, I'm trying to focus on fulfillment, scaling the Maslow pyramid[1], and accept that happiness may or may not be a byproduct.
Money seems almost always necessary for the journey, but I have no idea if it gets you past the first few levels of the hierarchy of needs. Direct observation shows me that it can help a person acquire the trappings of all five, but I'm not convinced about the authenticity of self-actualization or esteem based on materialism.
[0] http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/index.php?date=013111 [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs
We all have dreams yet not all will be fulfilled but it’s a lot and more fun (happiness) to pursue them either way!
Basically it was a user listing how life changes at different levels of wealth.
ie.
1MM : take family on a big vacation each year
5MM : stop worrying about retirement
10MM : stop working for other people
100MM : private jets to wherever you need to go
and on and on, or something to that effect
Please reply if anyone can find a link.
https://reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2s9u0s/what_do_insan...
After covering your basic needs, money gives you the freedom to pursue your greater needs, and in that sense it can buy happiness. Whether those needs are good relationships, health, or fulfilling work, money in a sense, can buy or help you buy that, at least the time to build relationships or work.
However, something I have been struggling with is the hedonic treadmill. I feel like expectations are consistently being raised. I worry that it will never end and I also worry about what will happen if it does end. Has anyone ever felt this way? I think that's the point of enjoying the journey... Does anyone have tips on how to enjoy the journey?
> Does anyone have tips on how to enjoy the journey?
Every time in my life I got subdued by my hedonism during my rich perioids I was struck by severely awful series of events that ended up humbling me and making me thankful even if I can only cover bills and food afterwards. EVERY DAMN TIME.
So I guess the answer is: you need contrast, for all your life. Which means a lot of pain and stress, periodically, until you learn to universally appreciate what you have and not eternally moving your own personal goalpost.
The danger of being rich for a long time is that you lose perspective and have no other extremity to compare with. This leads to many mental problems.
Observing myself and others, I noticed that the longer your basic needs are not in danger, the more you lean to doing pretty useless crap: mostly tooting political views of which you know nothing about, or my personal favorite -- looking down on people in ever more and creative ways. I legit heard a former friend of mine say the famous Marie-Antoinette phrase: "No bread? Let them eat cake" when we dicussed the gypsy population of my country. Everybody on the table was baffled even more when we realized that he didn't know about that historical quote at all. He reinvented it right there and then on the spot. Really makes you think what is the common trend that makes people lose touch with reality so severely.
What I am trying to say is: when you are rich for a long time, you either become Lara Croft / Batman, or you become a very plain hedonist (like the rich guys who outbid each other on a rare bottle of wine in Vegas and end up paying $6000 for a glass of it... WTF?).
Our brains always need to solve problems. So if one lacks ambition to solve hard problems still existing out there then they end up inventing their own problems and focus on them, usually until the day of their death. It's no coincidence that many rich people end up taking a lot of drugs. They have no struggle in their lives at all and end up feeling empty and directionless.
Giving example of myself: I am currently in an absolutely horrible period of my life. Lost 3 pretty lucrative jobs / gigs that I managed to juggle for years... basically in 2-3 weeks space (5 months ago), and still cannot recover because I refuse bad jobs and don't want to invite stress and burn out back in my life. (I say I lost them and that's not obscuring reality: I only refused to renew contract on one of them because it was really toxic and stale, and political decisions took the other 2 jobs under my feet basically days later). Long story short, if I manage to stabilize and get to a middle-high-class level again as before, I definitely will be buying myself a few years of break and will just work on trying to invent General Artifical Intelligence. I don't care if I will succeed. It makes me happy and fulfilled to combine workout, walks and movies with my wife, and several hobbies (of which inventing AGI is one).
I know I'll never be a hedonist; I would buy myself a beach house and two good bikes but would never ever reach for a private jet even if I can afford a fleet of them. The poor periods of my life have taught me that many kinds of money come with stress and tons of maintenance attached to them. And that other kinds of money you just spend so you can impress other rich people. I don't want any of that crap in my life.
Finally, I work really hard to maintain a balance between being rich and having to do minimal housekeeping. That I believe is a very good balancing factor to help you stop and appreciate life as well.
I'm sorry that you are going through a terrible period right now. I feel like I'm a little in a similar boat in that I am turning down lucrative opportunities that don't resonate with me... and still trying to navigate that but I am confident that you'll be able to succeed your way out of this slump! You've gotten this far, I think you're just having a small road bump.
I totally agree with you. I hope to find balance.
For me when I said hedonic treadmill and raising expectations, I wasn't talking about material objects. The number one thing I'm afraid of is always reaching for another personal growth bar. I find success painful. I think I might have success ptsd haha. I've already lost "friends" multiple times, every time I grow.
Every time I've grown, I can no longer be happy with where I was or what I achieved. I thought it was good enough to help build businesses that do $100k/mo and then 2-3x that but I just met someone who takes $100k/mo businesses and 5x that. Now the bar has raised and I can't be happy with the success I have achieved so far. And I hate the treadmill of consistently achieving because in my experience it brings pain emotionally and socially as you leave people behind. Unfortunately I know that's the way it is - but I wish I can get better at managing the highs and lows.
Looking at it from the side -- I think you are quite okay but still compare to the others. That can be a good motivator but you should stop at some point because it can get very exhausting for your soul. And it can make you pursue outcomes that you will eventually find out you never wanted in the first place.
> Now the bar has raised and I can't be happy with the success I have achieved so far.
...But why? Are you aiming at having a network of luxury real estate in Europe and renting that until the end of days? Do you like the idea of a fleet ot private jets or yachts?
If not, you should not have any PTSD in my eyes. If your basic needs are met and if you can afford to travel and work on whatever tickles your fancy then you are already in the top 10% rich people in the world. Why is that not good enough?
> I find success painful.
I can sympathize with that. As mentioned in my previous post, some money come to you attached with a lot of stress and maintenance baggage. Is that the case with your money? I hope not... But if so and if you have enough of them accumulated then you can always hire somebody to manage those for you. Less stress is always worth investing into!
> And I hate the treadmill of consistently achieving because in my experience it brings pain emotionally and socially as you leave people behind. Unfortunately I know that's the way it is - but I wish I can get better at managing the highs and lows.
That many people are envious and spiteful and drift away from you if you are a better achiever than them is a part of life, an inevitable one at that. I am sorry that you haven't found true friends yet. But they do exist, trust me! There are a lot of pretty cool people out there. You will find them if you get out of your zone.
And I am pretty sure you will manage your highs and lows better with time. Just don't second-guess yourself; life is one huge and constant lesson and you never really "complete" it. You just decide one day that enough is enough and you can stop there. Nothing shameful in that, we don't live to only achieve.
Wanna chat? My email is in my profile (although a bit obscured to stop spam bots). I feel we both can offer the other side an interesting perspective. If not, apologies for offering it! No disrespect intended.
Don't give in to doubts. Reflect on what you have (and others don't) and don't only compare to more successful people than you. Life is not a race.
I think you are doing quite well.
> Spending money is a means of acquiring other goods and services that are one’s values or that will enhance one’s ability to realize one’s values.
Which one is it?
- "value" as principles or standards of behaviour; one's judgement of what is important in life. "they internalize their parents' rules and values"
- "value" as estimate the monetary worth of. "his estate was valued at £45,000"
I'm not sure what words the author could have used instead.
Personal values are things like integrity, charitability, etc.
To say an object is worth $10 is not a claim of the object's intrinsic value - it is to say that it is worth $10 to someone. That person assesses the worth of the object based on their principles and values (whether held explicitly or implicitly).
Edit: Elsewhere in this thread I've linked to additional resources to expand on the philosophy behind the article. I think they are worth the small investment of time to get a view on a radically different approach to life.
Unfortuneatly I kinda know that
"Money can't buy happiness, but it will certainly get you a better class of memories." - Ronald Reagan
"Money can't buy happiness, but neither can poverty." - Leo Rosten
"Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy you a jetski. Have you ever seen anyone sad on a jetski?" - The Internet
So for me, as someone without money, I can look at these two cases and consider: do I find happiness now without money, or do I do what it takes to get money, and hope it makes me happy, but knowing that it's not guaranteed to.
This is very true. I can't say I wouldn't, that's for sure! But at the same time, I've also seen how money can corrupt and change a person. Someone I once knew and loved became rich, and then became a different person entirely. I'm sad that person is gone, and I often times wonder if the same would happen to me, and how I could avoid it if I ever became rich.
That being said, maybe she wasn't aware of the possibilities of money. Many people are just happier if they don't grasp the world as a whole. There's happiness to be found in not comparing to others -- that's for sure.
Maybe if things turned out slightly differently she would be materially very ambitious. I am willing to bet that given extra education she might have wanted a bit more than she had.
My grandparents raised me and throughout my childhood, I was chided for using too much toilet paper, leaving the refrigerator open too long, etc. They were also hoarders like collecting tons of paper napkins, salt/ketchup packets, forks, etc. Even to this day, I can't throw out ketchup packets I'll never use. I loved helping my grandpa pick up plastic bottles and cans until my mother told me it was shameful and I became embarrassed.
My grandpa cannot speak and write English well despite living in NYC for over 20 years. He didn't work much. However he was able to give $10k to each of his grandchildren. I don't know how he had the money considering how frugal he was and how poor he seemed! He picked weeds off the streets to turn them into Korean rice cakes or pickled them into Korean side dishes or made his own fruit wine. That's how frugal he is.
However, when my grandmother passed away my grandfather shared his biggest regrets with me and they have stayed with me to this day. My grandfather is the most stoic man I know. I've known him for 20+ years and I have rarely seen him upset.
His biggest regret was that he didn't take care of his wife better. He said he wished he could have bought a nice home for them to retire and die in instead of the senior apartment they rented. He also said he wished he could have seen his son again before he passed away in an auto accident- and that he missed his son every day. That not being able to support and see her son before he passed was my grandmother's biggest regret. It had been 30+ years.
When my grandmother passed away, my multimillionaire uncle despaired that he had been a terrible son, and that he wished he could have spent more time with his mom. When my grandmother passed away, I had been building my own business and I wish I could have been a better granddaughter.
Despite my uncle's millions and his kind heart, he seems a little alone and sad, with an adult son who never leaves his room, and he is still always working. I also know another multimillionaire who started as a pizza delivery boy. He has everything he could possibly want except adult children who have no motivations in life.
I don't know if this helps at all but what I've taken away is that you need to cover your basic needs but don't sacrifice things that are important to you for money. My relatives sacrificed their health and their relationships. I hope to never repeat their mistakes.
Money or greed has caused much sorrow in my life, in those of the people I love, whether friends and family. People need to chill and focus less on $ if they can. I feel like I've seen both sides and they can be equally dark.
> Happiness is the psychological condition that results from the achievement of one’s [values](sic).
I'd say that's meaning. Puppy videos give you happiness. They don't give you meaning.
> Values are ends that a person acts to gain and/or keep. They are those things that a person cares about having or doing.
That... what? My values are not my ends or my activities.
These two definitions end with a footnote:
> Both characterizations are from Ayn Rand, “The Objectivist Ethics,” The Virtue of Selfishness (New York: Signet, 1964) 31, 16.
Without taking a stance on Rand, is that really the foremost place to find a definition of happiness and value? This strikes me as intellectually dishonest to the point of silliness.
Starts at around 3:50
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlJD0i_WwdQ
Edit: With regard to your comment about puppy videos, I'm curious what you thought about this paragraph from the article:
> It is useful to distinguish particular incidents of happiness from a more pervasive condition. While happiness results from the achievement of specific goals, when a person seeks happiness itself, he is after a more global kind of satisfaction with his life—with his daily activities, as he is engaged in them, as well as with what they all add up to, when he steps back to survey the totality. This more encompassing happiness requires knowledge that his time and energy are being spent in worthwhile ways and that he is efficacious in acting for the things that he cares about.
Just a small thing — you either correct it ("[values]") or you note that the error is present in the original ("vales(sic)"). Doing both doesn't quite make sense.
Wrong.
>Spiritual values encompass such things as knowledge, beauty, a stimulating book, a challenging chess match, rewarding work, mental health, self-esteem, character traits (e.g., honesty, optimism, initiative), a friend or a husband.
Wrong.
>Happiness is essentially the satisfaction that arises when a value has been realized
Wrong.
>Thus we expect a person to be significantly happier when he has completed a college degree, won a coveted promotion, or married the love of his life.
Terribly wrong expectation.
One might go very far away in his conclusions, but if you start with wrong assumptions it only means you went further away from reality.
But what is happiness then?
>Happiness is the psychological condition that results from the achievement of one’s vales
If I value my family then more family time is going to make me happy. If I value buying nice things then more money is going to make me happy. If I value helping other people then volunteering is going to make me happy.
How exactly is this hypothesis wrong?