This article doesn’t appear to define happiness. The closest I see is:
In her 2007 book The How of Happiness, positive psychology researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky elaborates, describing happiness as “the experience of joy, contentment, or positive well-being, combined with a sense that one’s life is good, meaningful, and worthwhile.”
I really liked this video. Gave me insight that flow state is one of the routes to happiness, or at least contentment.
But after taking all that into account, is there any meaningful difference in how happy you can be with $250k per year vs $750k, or $750m? And do you really need a high income to get most of the benefits from those habits and behaviors? I’m pretty sure you’re going to run into diminishing returns real quick on both, assuming it were possible to usefully measure this stuff, which it probably isn’t.
250k to 750k absolutely there can be a difference. Besides not having to worry about the standard stuff like healthcare, food and housing the biggest difference I’ve noticed is we can pay people to do anything we don’t want to do. As a lazy person who hates doing house stuff that is a wondeful thing.
Once you’re in the millions and higher I doubt there is much of a difference besides being able to retire and fuck around doing whatever you want.
Just read a few articles there. Good site. Thanks for the recommendation.
Any articles in particular that you got something out of?
There a huge diff between 250K and 750K and 750K and 750MM.
Maybe I’m naive, but I do think my happiness would increase substantially with each of those jumps. There would be diminishing returns, but probably not as much as you think. And yes it’s probably that with mo money, comes mo problems, but I think I can navigate that. Again, I could just be naive.
And you’re right, measuring it is damn near impossible.
I think there’s a massive difference between 250k to 750k for a lot of people. At least that’s the impression I get from seeing my colleagues and myself, who all work in this kind of range. Hell, 250k to 500k would be a big deal for me.
There are obviously diminishing returns to increased income because as income goes up people will use it on the things they most value first. But diminishing returns are not zero returns.
You’re basically defining happiness as more stuff at that point. Financial security for yourself and your family are already well within reach at the 90th income percentile. A meaningful life can be pursued so long as you’re not working 80 hours a week doing something else. Personal relationships aren’t getting any better with more money. Those are the things generally considered necessary to have a happy and fulfilled life. More stuff isn’t.
Thinking you will be significantly happier with a bigger house and a nicer car and more expensive vacations doesn’t mean you will be. My observations of the world suggest there is at best no correlation, and quite probably a negative one. People who have convinced themselves that they need more stuff to be happy frequently seem quite miserable pursing it.
Man I must be a garbage human but I can’t imagine a universe where being filthy rich is anything but utterly orgiastically amazing. Do only what I want when I want where I want forever? Sign me up, sir.
My personal relationships would absolutely get better with money, and it would take a lot of money before the marginal benefits started to decrease.
Most of my favourite people are in other countries. I would be much happier if I could just spend my time visiting them or going on holidays with them.
I’m just going to paraphrase something I said a few months back and leave it at that. If you can’t make a happy and fulfilling life for yourself in the 90th income percentile of a fully developed nation, more money isn’t going to get you there.
As I understand it, personal relationships are the biggest downside of a sudden increase in wealth (ie lottery winner).
People suddenly see you as an ATM rather than a friend, and will treat you differently whether you give them some coin or not. Or they’ll resent you for jetsetting while they have a major problem that could be fixed by money, which is quite often in most people’s lives.
Thats $90k.
This is one of those topics where everyone knows enough to have strong opinions, but not many people are taking the time to engage with the data.
I agree, admittedly anecdotally. The high earners I know have just found 1000 new stupid grievances with their lives. They are definitely more stressed and agitated living an arbitrarily fabricated life. They live a better ‘material quality’ life but who cares?
Who does the data support? Because it’s one of those topics where each side has loads of academics etc on it.
I was thinking household, but still. Would you be comfortable saying people who earn less than $90k a year can’t afford a happy and meaningful life? Approach it from the other direction. Where is the cutoff?
Sure. But the best discussion is going to be had if its informed by that data rather than ignoring it.
The difference in vacation quality and retirement timing for 250k vs 750k is incredibly immense.
Also in a city like Boston is a huge difference in housing options. 250k is barely enough for a 2bd