Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal: The Money to be Happy ($50,000)

Thursday, April 19, 2012

The Money to be Happy ($50,000)

Time Magazine "MoneyLand" (TIME.com); Wisdom Quarterly

A landmark 2010 Princeton University study showed that money really can buy happiness -- up to a very specific point. The researchers (including Nobelist [Emeritus Professor of Psychology] Daniel Kahneman) found that up to about $75,000, annual income closely correlates with emotional well-being. Beyond that threshold, however, more income doesn’t translate into more happiness. On average, an American earning $575,000 isn’t likely to be any happier than one making $75,000. Well, forget $75,000. A new poll by the Marist [not Marxist] Institute for Public Opinion suggests that as little as $50,000 brings genuine happiness. According to the survey... More

The Future to Come
Ashley Wells (COMMENTARY)

I'll be happy when the dollar folds. The Fed is sure to sink it after milking it for all it's worth. The only thing is, if it is not being replaced by the "Amero" it once planned and minted, or returning to the gold standard, or rare earth minerals, or the Krugerrand, what will be forced on Americans and the world?

And has Prof. Kahneman calculated how many real "monetary units" it takes to feel emotionally well? I live on none, I live on far more than a family of three, and either way I have been happy and miserable. The real thing that matters financially is one's standing among presumed peers.

I would HATE to have a million dollars -- I really would -- if I thought everyone around me had a hundred million. That's reality. That's social psychology. That's me in a nutshell. Maybe I should be in a nuthouse.

I would be happy if I didn't have to work. I don't have to work now. I've been out of work, and I didn't cease to exist. So I can both be and not work. What I can't stand is the comparison to others. But that's not my mom doing that to me. That's me doing it.

Fifty thousand, fifty million, dollars? We don't need no stinking dollars -- not to be happy anyway. Happiness is free. Happiness is a lot easier "poor" than "rich." Yet, we are afraid of both poles, so we have defined theoretical-happiness (functional "emotional well being") as being comfortable members of the middle class.

So everyone is in the middle class. We are afraid to death of falling into "poverty," which we never look up because we'd realize that most of us are already there. And we are constantly lusting after getting "rich," without ever bothering to define that either.

When asked, "Why do we want to be rich?" We answer, "To be happy!"

If that were true we'd start being happy now. Happiness is available NOW. We can still chase that paper. But no one should chase it thinking there is happiness on the other end, or wait to be happy only when and if we get there. Be happy along the way. Why? Because there is no way to happiness. "Happiness is the way."