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The following post was originally published on www.odemagazine.com.
Feeling the squeeze in the wake of the downturn? Take comfort from the fact more money won’t necessarily buy you happiness. Studies have for years shown that cash has only a small effect on our wellbeing. Experts, what’s more, are beginning to figure out why. According to a new paper by academics in Belgium, Canada and the U.K., “the emotional benefits that money gives with one hand (i.e., access to pleasurable experiences), it takes away with the other by undercutting the ability to relish the small delights of daily living.” Money, in other words, makes the everyday things harder to savor.
The wealthier among more than 300 participants in the paper’s first study, for instance, said they found it harder to savor a range of scenarios, from completing an important task to spending a romantic weekend away. (Savoring might mean thinking about the event before and after, or telling your friends about it.) Moreover, those participants shown an image of a stack of cash on their questionnaires scored lower in their ability to savor, suggesting the mere thought of wealth also plays havoc with our sense of relish. And when the researchers did some clever number crunching, they figured out that the emotional benefits of having lots of money are undermined by the negative effect money has on our ability to enjoy the more mundane: controlling for savoring ability, the authors found, strengthened the link between wealth and happiness.
Consider chocolate. In a second, smaller study, researchers measured how much time participants—some of whom were shown a picture of money beforehand—spent eating chocolates, as well as how much they looked like they were enjoying them. The result: Those exposed to the image of cash not only spent less time eating the chocolate, they also showed less sign of enjoying it.
Hard though that may be to swallow, the evidence chimes with an idea advanced a few years ago by Daniel Gilbert, a Harvard psychologist. In his book Stumbling on Happiness, Gilbert suggested that experiencing the finer things in life could actually hamper your enjoyment of chocolates, cold beer or sunsets. Once you know what you can get, his “experience-stretching hypothesis” dictated, what you already have won’t make you as happy. If that’s enough to put you off your chocolates, feel free to share them with the rest of us.
What’s your take on the link between wealth and happiness?
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I once told a family member that when it comes to money, it’s neither good to have too little nor too much. Too little makes life unquestionably difficult, especially if one cannot afford basic needs. Too much, however, can breed anxiety, not to mention greed: should I donate more? Is it invested properly? Is my valuable property protected? Often, “to have more is to have more to fear.” Consider all the $500,000+ houses in “good” neighborhoods that have alarm systems!
I have experience living with incomes below, at, and above average. To have an above-average income is good primarily because it gives a person options, but even a below-average income has occasional rewards: some of the best meals I’ve cooked were when I couldn’t afford a trip to the grocery store and had to use what I already had in the kitchen! At least I HAD food in the kitchen. . .
Anything consumed in abundance is not good whether it is food or money. In Indian veda’s and olden stories, there used to believe about a liquid food called Amirtham, which will give them everlasting life and bliss. But they cautioned, even Amirtham which is considered good becomes poison if it is taken in abundance. Same goes with money as well. If you have just enough to take care you and your souroundings, you would feel good about it but as soon as it goes beyond a consumption limit everything goes bizzark.
As other person commented, even if you have more money you don’t feel secure enough to live and danger is always around you. Money really matter but to an extent that it can satisfy your need and wants and better be a enabler of dream not a destroyer of life. One’s well being is totally dependent on the state of mind, if you keep the mind and thoughts stable, you will be in good and happy. As soon as it mind starts to loose its state, it all goes loose.
I guess that’s enough of philopshy
I have been poor, struggling middle class, and now, fortunately, upper middle class. In all cases it was the quality of my relationships that made me happy or unhappy. An accumulation of “things” never made me happy.
I blew through about $150,000 as a teenager, after receiving it as a settlement from a lawsuit. Yes, my father was supposed to keep it from me, but he didn’t. I can tell you that being “rich” for the short period of time that I was, was more stressful than times when I haven’t been able to afford groceries.
If you have everything you need, you’re not “living life”, you’re just sailing through it.
I was poor as a child…have worked very hard to make it to upper middle class. Due to the economic down turn I am now struggling. I have lost $250K and am for the frist time in my life $100K in dept.
My answer to the question. No money does not buy happiness it buys you freedom to make better choices.
My late partner, in all his wisdom (a very successful man said, ” Rich or Poor…It is better to have MONEY!”)
No truer words have ever been spoken.