More money doesn’t equal more happiness
May 22, 2007
Stress for Success


Can money buy happiness? Are wealth and happiness even connected?

If they are connected, according to data from the 2000 U.S. Census, psychologist David G. Myers, of Hope College in Holland, Michigan, should have found that Americans are three times happier than fifty years ago because our buying power has tripled since 1950.

But when Myers compared University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center surveys, which has surveyed Americans’ level of happiness in most years since 1957, he found greater affluence has not made us happier. The percentage of Americans who described themselves as "very happy" has remained surprisingly consistent, at about one third.

In fact, putting your energy into extrinsic attempts to find happiness will largely be disappointing. Anything external to yourself, like your job, home, car, or your appearance cannot make you happy for any length of time.

Interestingly, our hereditary past may explain why.

Traits that get passed on from one generation to the next are the ones that helped our ancestors survive so they could produce yet another generation. One such trait is called habituation, which means becoming accustomed to the status quo. This is hugely helpful when you’re faced with adverse conditions, such as a chronic disease or, in the case of many Floridians, living with increasing growth and congestion. After awhile, you adapt to the unpleasantness.

Habituation also applies to the positive events in our lives. No matter how wonderful the event at first, like winning a multi-million-dollar lottery, if it becomes a constant, you habituate to it.

Another trait we’ve inherited from our ancestors is to notice the negative more quickly than the positive since negative events may prove to be life-threatening. In other words, our human tendency is to take our positive experiences for granted and to focus more on the stressors of life. Bummer.

But Madison Avenue tries to convince you otherwise. It wants you to believe that if you’d just buy one more luxury you’d be happier.

Putting your happiness eggs in the buy-everything-you-want-basket, however, makes your contentment very vulnerable. Extrinsic happiness depends upon something outside of yourself; and that may not always be there. So, if your happiness is dependent upon your youthful appearance, for example, what happens as you age? Your happiness plummets, unless you find another way to enhance your appearance. Besides, you’ll habituate to each new surgery or expenditure so it no longer, in itself, makes you happy.

You’re much more likely to find true and lasting happiness if you express your positive traits, strengths and talents, such as kindness, service to others, gratitude, creativity, etc, in your work and in your personal life. All of these are considered intrinsic (natural to yourself) traits. Therefore, if what makes you happy is to help other people, any aging stress becomes irrelevant. Expressing your natural, internal traits and strengths is a constant in your life regardless of what happens outside yourself and is a much more reliable source of happiness.

So what else can truly increase your happiness? That’s our topic for next week.

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., of InterAction Associates, is a trainer and a Stress Coach. E-mail her at www.jackieferguson.com with your questions or for information about her workshops on this and other topics and to invite her to speak to your organization.