Does Money Buy Happiness

A recent research study found that people are happy even in more impoverished areas. More importantly, people are more content in these places than in more affluent areas in the same countries. In other words, "happiness is not in principle related to economic outcome." More critical to happiness are feeling safe, spending time in nature, and living in a supportive community.

McGill University. (2021, February 8).

Transcript

Welcome to the happiness podcast.

I'm Dr.

Robert Puff.

We've all heard it said perhaps countless times that money can't buy happiness.

But how many of us,

I wonder,

Really believe that?

And I think this comes out in many ways throughout our day.

We see someone having a nicer car than we do and we think if I had that I'd be happy.

We hear on the news how someone won a hundred million dollars in the lotto and we think if I won that I'd be happy.

We see on social media one of our friends purchasing a new home that's just beautiful and we think wow if I had that all would be well.

And yet we keep hearing that money doesn't buy happiness.

So what's the truth?

Does it or doesn't it?

Well believe it or not scientists can actually investigate this question and see if there are any answers.

And what they recently found is happiness really does come for free.

What they found was that in societies where people don't have a lot of money they can still have very high levels of happiness.

This published paper was recorded in 2021 with the collaboration of McGill University and the University of Barcelona.

So here's what they did.

They spent time interviewing people in the Solomon Islands and Bangladesh but particularly people that were living in poor more rural regions.

And they interviewed 678 people between the ages of the mid 20s and early 50s.

They interviewed people in regards to what constitute happiness for them and also they got a sense of their passing moods,

Their lifestyle,

Fishing activities,

Household incomes,

And levels of market integration.

And in both these countries they compared them to their counterparts people who lived in larger metropolitan cities and were doing much better financially.

And they found two main things.

The people that were living in urban areas and making a lot more money reported lower levels of happiness.

And yet the people that were living in more impoverished areas with less income reported higher levels of happiness and they really enjoyed spending time with their families and being in nature which they felt contributed to their levels of happiness.

The researchers concluded that actually in these poor countries where people in the urban areas were getting ahead financially it may actually be detrimental to their levels of happiness.

Which supports the concept that happiness is not principally related to economic output.

When people feel safe,

They are comfortable,

And they get to spend time with a strong community and family.

They are happy regardless whether they're making a lot of money or not.

And very interestingly they found that though most of the world really compares themselves on social media to their peers which can cause unhappiness in these more rural areas that tended not to be the case.

So what can we learn from this study?

I think there's a lot here.

Well first off these people weren't starving.

They weren't living on the streets.

They weren't barely getting by.

They lived in the rural community where their basic needs were easily met.

And the main thing they had was a sense of community and nature which they spent a lot of time in.

These two factors seem to really add to the level of overall reported happiness.

Acquiring more things,

Wanting more things,

Wishing for more things.

They weren't really prevalent there.

What they were doing is living their lives well and finding satisfaction and happiness in a more rustic yet very supportive community.

Can you imagine the choices we would make differently if we really believed this?

It's not that we wouldn't necessarily want to go to university and find a good job that would support us and our family.

It's just the emphasis would be on not the things but family and friends.

A sense of community.

People that we reach out to,

Spend time with,

Laugh with,

Play with,

And support us during difficult times.

And then having free time to be in nature,

To enjoy life,

To just saunter through life and say life is good.

If we made this our emphasis,

Again it's not that we wouldn't achieve things but we would do it at a slower pace.

We would do it where we're not waiting until someday I'll get there.

We'll get there all along the way.

We will reach out to our friends and spend time with them.

We will find times to read a book,

To go for a walk in a park,

To watch the sunsets in life.

Those will be how we'll shift.

And if we do that all along the way then we'll find that happiness is here right now.

And if I achieve things,

Particularly monetary things,

It really won't make any difference and it could potentially cause me harm.

But I want to say something about wealth or earning things or making money.

In and of itself it does not cause us harm.

I've worked with a lot of people that do exceptionally well and they are happy people.

Wealth doesn't make us unhappy in and of itself.

What makes us unhappy is sacrificing for that wealth,

Sacrificing for those things,

Or getting attached to those things and being fearful of losing them.

But we don't need them.

And if we really believe that we don't need those things to be happy,

We don't need to keep those things to be happy,

Can you imagine the different choices we would make in life?

We would do our work because we enjoyed it.

We would take vacations because they're wonderful.

We would spend time with family and friends because it makes our hearts sing.

We would spend time in nature,

Do things to just be at peace with the world and the universe because that brings us joy.

And all the stuff,

All the things,

All the monetary things that we can pursue,

Though we may still go after them in order to be safe and feel comfortable,

That won't be our abiding focus.

Instead we'll make our focus on living well now,

Realizing that the monetary gains that I may get in the future based on what I'm doing now will kind of be irrelevant.

They won't make me unhappy.

They just won't make me happy.

So instead we focus on enjoying the journey of life.

I believe that's the message of this study.

Now our minds are very tricky.

What we often do is we say,

Okay I'm gonna work really hard for a while and then I'll start living.

But that's a catch because we can do that for ages and when we get there,

One,

We don't know if we'll even be at a place where we can enjoy life because we're so exhausted and have all these health problems and collateral damage from everyone that we've lost in our life or that we've hurt because we're not there because we're working all the time.

But we may not even reach our goal.

We can spend all this time,

All this energy,

All this sacrifice for this financial goal and then bang!

It's gone.

One lawsuit,

One bad choice and it's all gone.

And now we wasted those years to get here and we got here and we didn't even make it.

How sad.

One of my favorite stories that I ever heard that really illustrates this point is about a man who fishes.

He has a small boat.

He goes out in the ocean.

He fishes for a while,

Comes back,

Has enough fish to eat and he's just sitting at the beach enjoying his fish and enjoying the beautiful nature around him.

And this rich man sees him and says,

What are you doing?

Did you know if you kept fishing all day long you could make a lot more money because you'd come back and not only just eat your fish,

You could sell the extra that you had from working all day.

And then when you made enough money from that,

You could buy more boats so you could hire people to help you catch even more fish.

And then you'd have so much money that you'd reach a point where you could relax and sit and enjoy yourself all day long.

And if you worked really hard you might be able to do that in 10,

20 years from now.

And the fisherman looked at him,

Asconced and said,

That's what I'm doing now.

Why would I do all that?

There's deep wisdom there.

We need to realize that this is life and stop waiting for the monetary things to change before we start living.

Right now the world is going through very difficult financial times.

But that doesn't mean we have to suffer emotionally.

We still have our friends and if we don't work as much we have more free time to enjoy life.

There's always something beautiful that we can be with.

We really don't need that much to be happy.

We need people in our lives that we can laugh with,

Play with,

Have fun with.

And we need to spend time just soaking up life.

Really enjoying the beauty all around us.

Those are the two main things that we need.

And they're available to any of us in all times of our life.

No matter what.

We have to work towards it.

We have to make it our priority.

But if we do make that our focus,

Then the things in life don't really matter.

If we're older and we're living in a retirement community,

Then we have our friends to spend time with and activities we can do with them.

If we're younger and having a hard time getting by financially,

Perhaps we'll sell everything and get a van converted into a livable space and travel and explore.

Working part-time when we need money.

But mostly just really savoring life and enjoying all the beauty around us.

There are so many people doing this and they're having such a lovely life.

It isn't perfect,

But they're doing things that they love instead of acquiring things to be happy.

Monetary gains in the long run don't make any difference.

They're not what's gonna bring us happiness.

And if we realize that,

We'll say,

What am I going to do today to find joy and happiness in my life?

Not what will I do in the future?

What can I gain in the future?

But right now,

Can I call up a friend and go for a walk with them?

Can I make a dinner for my friends and have them over?

Can I go outside and watch those beautiful sunsets every day?

Can I build a small fire and read a book by it?

These are the type of things that are gonna bring us happiness.

They're so simple.

They're so available to any of us.

We just have to be careful not to compare ourselves to others.

Not to wish we had more because they have more.

Thinking that that will bring us happiness.

Happiness is right here right now.

All we have to do is connect with the present moment.

Be still and be happy.

Life truly is a beautiful adventure available to any of us.

We really can be happy with very little.

But we have to focus on the things that do bring us happiness and put our energy towards them.

When we do that,

We will find that happiness will be around us all the time.

And we will find that life truly is a beautiful adventure one day at a time,

One breath at a time.

Thank you for joining me on the happiness podcast.

Until next time,

Accept what is,

Love what is.

Reviews

Palestra excepcional. Tudo o que precisamos de ouvir em qualquer fase da vida. ❤️

Thanks Dr Puff for the reminder!

Wonderful wisdom like always. Thank you

This makes perfect sense. The simple things that make us happy are the best

Thank you 🙏