That’s great for you. Many have a higher bar for that wealth cap though to satiate their level of “happiness”. Perhaps even your kid.
I seem to remember seeing a study that showed it is about at 70K* per year where additional dollars don’t produce much additional happiness.
*in the US, at least
I remember that study. Definitely doesn’t apply to me. I remember making 70k. Was miserable compared to now.
You’d need to control for number of kids, geographic area, etc. 70k is definitely too low for NJ with kids imo…
Yeah, I’m sure it was an average.
Here’s one article that mentions the study
This says that more recent research shows there may be an uptick again at 8M (depending on how you got it). I’m not sure I trust their methodology though.
You don’t even know what my bar is or what my salary is, you’re seem to be simply pushing back on the idea that I can be content without being insanely rich.
Of course, I’m also of the opinion that happiness is not a circumstance, it is inherent. There will always be things that permit unhappiness, if allowed to. Choosing to exercise happiness is what I believe in. Some of the most joyful people have nothing to their name and have suffered incredible loss and grief. I wish I could go back in time with this mindset and choose happiness when I made $50k a year. I bet I would have been able to achieve it. I simply didn’t believe it was an option for me until I made $x a year.
Debt, insecurity, scarcity can certainly add to stress, and thus unhappiness. That doesn’t mean happiness is out of reach.
Pretty sure I did the opposite of that. I said, if it works for you, great, but many people in the world will be higher at a higher level than actuary income. I assume you make actuary income, so, less than 500k a year.
I agree with this as well. But as it stands now, I’m stuck in a first world country, in one of the highest COL cities, and am also pretty materialistic. I understand that materialism might not make you happy, but it does make me happy. It makes a lot of people happy. You can argue that they’re not truly happy, but that’s treading into No True Scotsman land.
Depending on how you are defining many, I fundamentally disagree with this notion.
Okay, do you disagree that many people in the world want to be richer than they currently are? And that they think they’ll be happier with more money, even if you disagree.
I’m sure there are many people in this world who think they’ll be happier with more money, and I also believe almost all of them would be wrong. A person who is not happy today is not going to be happy tomorrow with a larger bank account. They would be a lot of things that are probably better off about their lives, but if happiness is a purposeful pursuit, and I believe that it is, the destination does not magically appear with more money.
And, perhaps, it makes true contentment that much more difficult. Someone will always have more than you. As you rise through the ranks of society, the next level becomes harder and harder to reach.
At what point would YOU say, “I now have enough, no more”? For many people, there is no “enough.” How can you be happy when you feel envious of someone else, or bitter about your own circumstances, or always thinking about how to gather more for yourself?
And, to quite a wise philosopher, “The more money we come across, the more problems we see.”
Anyway this topic is veering away from the OP, so if mods want to create a new thread and remove some of these, feel free.
OK, back on the topic of child-rearing questions from the childless CS.
Answer: don’t have kids, CS.
But, to answer this post: depends on what you mean by “succeed.” We’re all going to die, so that’s the ultimate (literally!) failure.
None if this is correct, so, why would you lie to your non-existent children?
I aim to please!