Some sagely advice from Wall Street Journal's financial columnist,
Jonathan Clements...This might sound odd coming from a personal-finance columnist. But the fact is, while it is comforting to be financially secure, money is no measure of self-worth, no guarantee of happiness -- and no reason to be impressed.
Having enough money is important, but having heaps of it doesn't guarantee happiness. Instead, what matters is doing something that you enjoy and that gives you a sense of purpose -- and I don't want my children to be deterred from doing just that.
... and an article in
Newsweek:
"Psychologists have spent decades studying the relation between wealth and happiness," writes Harvard University psychologist Daniel Gilbert in his best-selling "Stumbling on Happiness," "and they have generally concluded that wealth increases human happiness when it lifts people out of abject poverty and into the middle class but that it does little to increase happiness thereafter."
2 comments:
Good to see some of this commentary on happiness in the business press. The field of Positive Psychology and the topic authentic happiness have received considerable attention from Prof. Martin Seligman at University of Pennsylvania. Try http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/ for a good overview, self-surveys. Net: Most of have a concept of happiness and ability to know when we feel happy or not. Few have a real understanding of what causes that state of mind and what we can and cannot do to affect it.
Your other poster's mention of martin seligman was great. i don't know why more people don't pay attention to what he has to say about optimism/pessimism and depression.
the happiest people i know have a combined income of about 80,000 dollars. they work at somewhat menial jobs rather than the high power jobs that they'd both be capable of.
both their children graduated from public high school and financed themselves through college and now have jobs and support themselves. the interesting thing about this couple is that they've lived through two job lay-offs, cancer, and the woman's father hung himself when she was 11. the man grew up in a state of neglectful poverty. and i think that their experiences, rather than defeating them, taught them to focus on what was really important in life and not money. they both said that their aim was never to be rich, but their aim was to enjoy life with each other.
i'm more envious of them than anyone i know with money and the stuff that money buys.
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