What Makes You Happy?

What makes you happy? What makes you really happy?

This is not a question I explore very often. Perhaps that is a mistake. This blog is focused on doing the “right thing,” primarily in an attempt to avoid pain. Can money buy happiness? I suppose we all know the answer is, “Yes, but.”

I remember a moment on Hawaii (the Big Island). I was sitting on the porch of a Kona Coffee store, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. I heard the sound of rain from a passing shower, as I watched the small dark clouds blow past. It was a transcendental moment. I was at peace with the world. Hawaiian vacations don’t come cheap, but the moment and even the coffee sample were free. Whoops, sounds too much like those Mastercard commercials from a few years back.

Two recent surveys, one by Gallup and one by Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton of Princeton University both found there is a strong correlation between money and happiness up to an income of about $75,000 a year. Beyond that number there is no correlation between money and happiness. Although, something called
“life satisfaction” continues to increase with wealth. This apparently, “reflects whether people are obtaining their values and goals in a long-term and big-picture sense,” it also seems to include the satisfaction derived from comparing one’s own condition with that of others.

It has also been observed, that people are happiest when there is a close correlation between their expectations and reality. If my expectations were a job at the mill and a wife from the trailer park down the road, I might be happier than if I believed I was going to be a star in the NFL and instead ended up in the aforementioned mill and trailer park. I think this also effects incremental satisfaction with some of our purchases. I expect to own a reasonably interesting car in good working order. At one time in my life, my definition of such a car would include a used Volkswagen without a radio or air conditioning.

It turns out that what really makes us happy is social capital and mastery. If our connections with friends and family are in good order and we view ourselves as competent in our chosen field of endeavor, we tend to be happier than if our relationships are in chaos and we face failure in our career.

This example comes from “But Will it make you Happy?” A New York Times article by Stephanie Rosenbloom. “For the last four years, Roko Belic, a Los Angeles filmmaker, has been traveling the world making a documentary called “Happy.” Since beginning work on the film, he has moved to a beach in Malibu from his house in the San Francisco suburbs.

San Francisco was nice, but he couldn’t surf there.

“I moved to a trailer park,” says Mr. Belic, “which is the first real community that I’v lived in in my life.” Now he surfs three to four times a week. “It definitely has made me happier,” he says. “The things we are trained to think make us happy, like have a new car every couple of years and buying the latest fashions, don’t make us happy.”

Mr. Belic says his documentary shows that "the one single trait that's common among every single person who is happy is strong relationships."

Romans 14

[17] For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.
[18] For he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God, and approved of men.
[19] Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another.