> That assumes the best measure of a career is income Plenty of studies show a strong correlation between income and happiness, with recent work extending this

> That assumes the best measure of a career is income Plenty of studies show a strong correlation between income and happiness, with recent work extending this increase well into higher incomes. Certainly your few anecdotes don't invalidate such large volumes of data across so many peer reviewed and replicated studies. Other factors correlating with happiness include relationships and marriage, and a leading stress in marriage is lack of money. I'm not saying pursuit of money alone is the goal, but it can provide stability, better health outcomes, security, often comes from jobs providing high satisfaction, and lack of it affects all of these. Plenty of personally meaningful things pay so low as to be unsustainable. If those things weren't unsustainable, people would already do them. Money at least helps provide capability to do some meaningful things not otherwise obtainable.