4 ms·

There are all sorts of complexities here that's difficult to capture in sweeping statements, statistics, principles or studies. Money (problems) are the source

by netcan 12y ago

There are all sorts of complexities here that's difficult to capture in sweeping statements, statistics, principles or studies. Money (problems) are the source of lots of unhappiness. Stress and its consequences. Failing to make ends meet is stressful and unhappy. While being a broke and careless 26 year old in love might be fun, in most circumstances being broke sucks. Choosing between a dentist or ballet class for your 5 year old is not pleasant. There are noncausational correlations between making money and happiness. To a large extent, having money is one big example of successfully functioning in our society. It's therefore probably correlated with all sorts of other types of functioning. Making money is often succeeding at controlling your life. It's similar to other successes at controlling one's life (deliberately and successfully choosing a career or family life). These are related to happiness. Feeling successful is pleasant in itself. Most of us work most of our lives. Money is the main reason. Not making much money is (with many exceptions) failing to make more money, failure is unpleasant. My Shtick recently is attempting to be deliberate. There's a lot of romanticism around serendipity, less so about deliberate action. They're not really competitive, but they often feel like they are. In any case, spending your money in a more happiness generating way is being deliberate about being happy. It extends past money. Be deliberate about spending your time, your effort and anything else you spend on happiness and you will probably be more happy.

vidarh 12y ago
Money are the source of lots of unhappiness, but as they point out: We adapt. The research does not support that "being broke sucks". The research supports that starving and being homeless sucks. The moment you are not starving, and have shelter, peoples happiness level is on average almost as high as the happiness level of a rich person. > Feeling successful is pleasant in itself. It may be, but as we adapt to having little money and success, so do we adapt to having lots of money and lots of success. It does not bring substantial added happiness other than shortly after we achieve it. Being given a raise, or promotion, or public praise gives us happiness, but that happiness fades very quickly. Similarly, not making much money, or failing, is unpleasant but the unhappiness it causes is very much temporary unless you keep doing worse. Avoiding adaption to an improved situation, and ensuring adaption to a worse situation is key to maximising happiness. You are best served by a slow, steady "drip" of improvement than suddenly achieving wealth, fame or success for example. Conversely, if you need to make cuts, you are far better off cutting your expenditure further than necessary, get used to it, and slowly see things improving, than you are making small cuts with the risk of having to cut back further. Apart from relative effects on adapation, money overall has very little direct impact on happiness other than at the extremes: If you starve; if you're homeless; if you lack access to mental health services; if you lack access to health services that can prevent or slow a degenerative condition (pretty much any catastrophic health change is subject to adaptation as long as the change is over quickly - e.g. amputees are as happy as most people relatively soon afterwards - but conditions that slowly become worse avoids adaptation). (See Jonathan Haidt's "The Happiness Hypothesis" for more on this, and a decent chunk of references)
- netcan 12y ago
  I'm far from up on the research, and I've heard conflicting versions of what research supports. But, this article seems to be treating the relationship as clearly causal but modest. From the first paragraph: "Scientists have studied the relationship between money and happiness for decades and their conclusion is clear: Money buys happiness, but it buys less than most people think (Aknin, Norton, & Dunn, 2009; Diener & Biswas-Diener, 2002; Frey & Stutzer, 2000). The correlation between income and happiness is positive but modest.."
- circlefavshape 12y ago
  My understanding of the research is that there is a point at which more money doesn't increase your emotional happiness (i.e. the amount of joy minus the amount of sorrow in your life), but that point is considerably higher than not-starving-and-not-homeless. I think you have misread The Happiness Hypothesis
jacquesm 12y ago
> Choosing between a dentist or ballet class for your 5 year old is not pleasant. That's simple: dentist. Of course the 5 year old will definitely not agree with that choice but health comes first no matter what.
- ceejayoz 12y ago
  You can probably skip one of a five year old's twice-annual dental checkups, given that they've still got baby teeth and likely to just get a clean. More of a choice than one might think, especially if you've got a kid who truly loves ballet. Whatever the choice made, it sucks to have to make it.

by netcan 12y ago

vidarh 12y ago

Money are the source of lots of unhappiness, but as they point out: We adapt. The research does not support that "being broke sucks". The research supports that starving and being homeless sucks. The moment you are not starving, and have shelter, peoples happiness level is on average almost as high as the happiness level of a rich person. > Feeling successful is pleasant in itself. It may be, but as we adapt to having little money and success, so do we adapt to having lots of money and lots of success. It does not bring substantial added happiness other than shortly after we achieve it. Being given a raise, or promotion, or public praise gives us happiness, but that happiness fades very quickly. Similarly, not making much money, or failing, is unpleasant but the unhappiness it causes is very much temporary unless you keep doing worse. Avoiding adaption to an improved situation, and ensuring adaption to a worse situation is key to maximising happiness. You are best served by a slow, steady "drip" of improvement than suddenly achieving wealth, fame or success for example. Conversely, if you need to make cuts, you are far better off cutting your expenditure further than necessary, get used to it, and slowly see things improving, than you are making small cuts with the risk of having to cut back further. Apart from relative effects on adapation, money overall has very little direct impact on happiness other than at the extremes: If you starve; if you're homeless; if you lack access to mental health services; if you lack access to health services that can prevent or slow a degenerative condition (pretty much any catastrophic health change is subject to adaptation as long as the change is over quickly - e.g. amputees are as happy as most people relatively soon afterwards - but conditions that slowly become worse avoids adaptation). (See Jonathan Haidt's "The Happiness Hypothesis" for more on this, and a decent chunk of references)

netcan 12y ago
I'm far from up on the research, and I've heard conflicting versions of what research supports. But, this article seems to be treating the relationship as clearly causal but modest. From the first paragraph: "Scientists have studied the relationship between money and happiness for decades and their conclusion is clear: Money buys happiness, but it buys less than most people think (Aknin, Norton, & Dunn, 2009; Diener & Biswas-Diener, 2002; Frey & Stutzer, 2000). The correlation between income and happiness is positive but modest.."
circlefavshape 12y ago
My understanding of the research is that there is a point at which more money doesn't increase your emotional happiness (i.e. the amount of joy minus the amount of sorrow in your life), but that point is considerably higher than not-starving-and-not-homeless. I think you have misread The Happiness Hypothesis

jacquesm 12y ago

> Choosing between a dentist or ballet class for your 5 year old is not pleasant. That's simple: dentist. Of course the 5 year old will definitely not agree with that choice but health comes first no matter what.

ceejayoz 12y ago
You can probably skip one of a five year old's twice-annual dental checkups, given that they've still got baby teeth and likely to just get a clean. More of a choice than one might think, especially if you've got a kid who truly loves ballet. Whatever the choice made, it sucks to have to make it.