
Residents in faster places tend to report feeling somewhat happier - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/blog/money-doesnt-buy-happiness-but-time-just-might-do-it?utm_source=tss&utm_medium=desktop&utm_campaign=linkfrom
======
yason
Happiness is a metric of internal success.

Money is a metric of external success.

If money (i.e. the external, material success) played no part and it was all
about time you could just retire to a cabin in the forest to have all the time
and none of the money till the day you die. That's because you already have
time and you get more every day.

But happiness and money aren't necessary orthogonal. If you're unhappy then
money can't make you happy but if you're happy, money can amplify that and
make you more happy.

Money first gives you more options to do what you want but ultimately it gives
you power. And power gives you leverage to change the world: first your own
world and then the whole world. In other words, with money, you can do more
and you're happier for that.

However, that doesn't work if you don't know what you want and you only want
things to become happy.

You first need to be happy with what you have in order to be in the position
where you can want more. Then you can use money the right way, almost as a
beam of power to change things around. But in order to be equipped to do that
you need to be on clear yourself: you already need to be happy not because of
money, and you can no longer need the money to validate yourself at that
point. You must have had accepted who you are because if you haven't, you
can't be happy either.

~~~
PSeitz
>Money first gives you more options to do what you want but ultimately it
gives you power. And power gives you leverage to change the world: first your
own world and then the whole world. In other words, with money, you can do
more and you're happier for that.

That's not how happiness works. You don't become happier because you can do
something or change something with money.

~~~
gaastonsr
He commented that money DOESN'T give you happiness. It amplifies it once you
are happy because it gives you options.

~~~
PSeitz
Therefore I wrote "become happier"

------
graeme
Money, to an extent, buys time. That's the main reason I pursue it.

The issue is that most people seem to leverage their money to the hilt. They
earn $10,000 more, they spend ~$10,000 more. I can see money making you _less_
happy in that situation, because you now face more downside risk if the money
goes away.

Whereas if you earn $10,000 and only spend $0-$1,000 more, then you have
options, including the option to not do anything to earn money at some point
in the future.

The above is a version of the Mustachian philosophy, but you don't need to cut
spending to a bare minimum to pursue time. Nassim Taleb argues for "fuck you
money", and has written skeptically of the "money doesn't lead to happiness"
idea. For him, self-ownership and independence of money is the key. The main
purpose of money is not to spend most of it, to have a reserve.

People often ask how my business is going by asking if it keeps me "busy".
They're using the wrong metrics.

~~~
grecy
> _Money, to an extent, buys time_

I think spending money is the wrong way to go about getting the things you
want out of life.

Earning money is very inefficient - You have all your costs of education, of
finding a job, of getting to work and the biggest one - the taxes you pay.

Then spending money is inefficient too, because whenever you spend money
someone is making a profit, taking their bit off the top.

So rather than using the inefficient money-as-a-middle-man I think you're much
better off to just go straight to what you want - time in this case.

Just go to work less, have less money, and you'll magically have more time -
and in fact it will be more time that if you tried to earn/spend money to
"buy" that time.

~~~
withdavidli
There are assumptions here.

>Earning money is very inefficient - You have all your costs of education, of
finding a job, of getting to work and the biggest one - the taxes you pay.

In the states you're forced to attend school until a certain age, you can also
skip grades if you're ahead of the pack. Finishing high school / college might
relate to long term potential income, but that's statistics. For instance, I
was selling online gold for a few months and easily made what my first full-
time job was in half the time.

>Just go to work less, have less money, and you'll magically have more time -
and in fact it will be more time that if you tried to earn/spend money to
"buy" that time.

While this is likely to be true, think about what money affords. It's the
ability to have experiences easier, with less stress financially. Seeing
plays, movies, traveling, dining at famous restaurants. This will depend on
what a person wants to do with their time and what they enjoy, but money makes
some of these experiences accessible or cuts down on time needed. Think about
traveling to certain countries. People have made trips never using planes, but
the time it takes is magnitudes longer (again, maybe some people rather boat
the entire way).

~~~
mcguire
I seem to recall that other studies of happiness that experiences matter more
than things; to generalize, that experiences matter.

My discontent with working full-time is not that I don't have _free time_ ,
but that I don't have time _to do things_.

------
mm_throw2015
I don't agree that more time == more happiness.

I grew up poor, so it was pounded into my head from an early age that you
should acquire money to free yourself from the hassles and stress of poverty.
So, by virtue of hard work and a lot of luck, I did so.

Now, I 'work' about 5 hours a week from home for an insane salary. I sleep in
every day, and have no real schedule to keep. I want for nothing material, but
I struggle to fill my time so that I don't get bored. There are only so many
books you can read, so many musical instruments you can become proficient at,
etc, before keeping yourself busy becomes a job in and of itself. All my
friends work typical 9-5 jobs, so I can't just call someone up and ask them to
meet for lunch/drinks somewhere. I thank my lucky stars for my wife's company,
otherwise the isolation would be too much to bear.

I've been doing this for years, and what I've learned is that for me,
happiness == other people. Not time, not possessions, not fast cars, people.
Specifically, people that I like (of course). Because people bring continual
novelty to my life, and that is what my brain craves.

Now if I could only start a business with people that I admire. Too bad no one
else has any free time.

~~~
Devthrowaway80
Have you considered getting involved with charity work of some variety? I
enjoy playing instruments and reading and so on as well, but it can be
extremely rewarding to take the focus off yourself and try to help another
person out.

I've volunteered a few hours here and there to answer phones for a group
related to addiction. On one shift, I had somebody reach out for help at an
extremely low point in her life - she was so upset that she could barely
speak. It only took me maybe half an hour to arrange for her to get help, but
that experience has really stuck with me.

If you came from a low-income background, why not try mentoring some
disadvantaged kids? Point them in the right direction, be an example to aspire
to, teach them a few things. You might wind up changing somebody's life for
the better.

~~~
mm_throw2015
Thanks, this is a great suggestion and one that I've put off for far too long.
Giving back definitely does good things for everyone involved.

------
crimsonalucard
There's really no point in thinking of the question of happiness from this
perspective. Everyone tries to logically plan out a path to contentment,
happiness and satisfaction whether it be through making a lot of money or
other means. The reality is... we're not biologically programmed to ever reach
that state.

As humans we're creatures of natural selection. Our physical bodies are
competitive machines built through eons of evolution. For the same reason our
minds have also been honed into competitive machines, designed to never feel
satisfied and to always aggressively seek and want more. There is no
competitive advantage to a mind that is perfectly content or happy, that is
why you will rarely find a person who has truly reached this state.

Simply being aware of this fact will also not lead to happiness. Too many
people feel the solution is as simple as changing their state of mind. Simply
changing your life philosophy and telling yourself to want less and to lead a
simple life is not a viable solution. In the end doing this is just trying to
force your mind to deny fundamental biological imperatives. It's like telling
yourself to not be hungry. It is imho fundamentally impossible to remove your
desire for money if all your peers are making 10 times more money then you.

The last sentence in the previous paragraph is the key to happiness. Your
biological drive to compete is actually tied to the people/environment around
you. Your environment and culture dictates not only your drive to compete but
the nature of the competition itself. In the corporate world people compete
for money, in the military, they compete for ranks. As a result, the key to
happiness is really simple. If you're not happy, change your environment.

Move to an environment where people don't compete as much. By being in a
culture that is not that competitive your drive to be compete will also fall
proportionally. Changing your environment changes your nature. You cannot live
in a competitive environment and change your nature through sheer willpower
alone, you have to change your environment and that in turn will change your
nature; and possibly increase your capacity to be happy.

The perfect example everyone can relate to is the shift from student life to
corporate life. As the nature and intensity of the competition from student to
employee metamorphosed into another form, your capacity to feel satisfied and
happy also dropped significantly (at least it does for most people).

------
powertower
> Among individuals in a society, busyness—or the feeling of busyness—seems to
> be an important factor in well-being.

Busyness keeps your mind off things you'd rather not deal with.

When things slow down, you are forced to look at yourself, which often shows
you just how insignificant and miserable you really are, and how repetitive,
ultimately pointless, and totally egotistical everything in your life is/was
(not to mention all the mistakes you've made and all the opportunities you let
go).

But when you are constantly _preoccupied_ with work, entertainment,
ideologies, conflicts/resolutions, problems/solutions, identity building,
validation, success, social status, drugs/sex/food, going out, having lots of
options and avenues, etc, you tend to feel otherwise - as you are operating in
a mode that is somewhat oblivious to the mess your inner core really is.

------
jotux
"If money doesn't make you happy, then you probably aren't spending it right"

[http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~dtg/DUNN%20GILBERT%20&%20WILSON%...](http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~dtg/DUNN%20GILBERT%20&%20WILSON%20\(2011\).pdf)

------
Swizec
I think money is a tool. Tools don't make you happy by themselves, it's about
how you use them.

If you're using money to buy more and more stuff that you don't need, then no,
it won't make you happy.

But if you're using money to off-load tasks you don't like, so you have more
time to spend on things you do like ... well then. Money can suddenly make you
happy.

Yes, it's about time. Sort of. But time is a finite resource. You only get so
much. Money, however, is a renewable resource. Which means you get to leverage
it against the finite resource.

But while this is painfully obvious to me, I have always had a hard time
explaining the concept to others.

------
lettergram
I know I enjoy making a large salary, then I can (for example) hire a maid to
clean my apartment, saving my time. That's _more-or-less_ my rational for
money improving happiness.

------
salmonellaeater
The article doesn't mention anything about age. Age predicts happiness[1] as
well as walking speed. I suspect it predicts economic performance, although I
don't have any references. It's certainly common for young people to migrate
to large cities with strong economies to find work [2].

Were there controls for the average age of residents? The original paper[3]
doesn't mention controls or age at all. This seems like a major issue to me.

1\.
[http://www.euro.centre.org/data/1207216181_14636.pdf](http://www.euro.centre.org/data/1207216181_14636.pdf)

2\. Interactive US map here:
[http://www.netmigration.wisc.edu/](http://www.netmigration.wisc.edu/)

3\.
[http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.389...](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.389.6823&rep=rep1&type=pdf)

------
wallflower
The classic dissonance lies in self-selection.

If you are a maximizer, you tend to want to live in a place like the City that
has the best of everything. By definition, if you are searching for global
maximums (at least in that city), you will be missing out. You can never be
(always) at the best restaurant/party/social scene/conference/park. However,
if you are willing to be more chillaxe and relax your guidelines, you can be
more happy. A party at a chill lounge with friends. A picnic in the park
surrounded by people of all ages having fun.

Likewise, people who tend to move to the suburbs tend to maximize for their
kids, rather than themselves. It is ok to go to Chuck E. Cheese or T.G.I.
Fridays' on a Friday night (or the modern equivalent) since there are limited
options. It is ok for the kid to start crying in public. You are where you are
now.

------
aaron695
> Perhaps the higher reported rates of happiness simply reflect the fact that
> faster places have more robust economies. But the relationship between
> income and reported happiness is far from obvious. According to the
> “Easterlin paradox” (named after economist Richard Easterlin), once people
> have enough money to meet their basic needs, having more money is not
> necessarily correlated with higher self-reported happiness.

This is pretty thoroughly debunked. I don't think there is any debate on this.

Even lighter interpretations that it taps out at quite high figures ($80,000+)
I'm pretty sure are also found incorrect.

Last I saw happiness slows a fair bit around $80,000 but still continues to
increase with wage.

Places that are faster also allow more experiences. Experiences are known to
be linked to happiness. Throw in better economies I think this is more
logical.

------
Red_Tarsius
Money buys time buys happiness, especially when it's a byproduct of the value
you give to the world.

------
mcguire
" _...also had more robust economies (as measured by GDP per capita, average
purchasing power, and average caloric intake)..._ "

Wait, what? What has caloric intake to do with a robust economy?

~~~
gregstoll
I assume it's a measure of the amount of malnutrition.

------
bizarref00l
But, I've always been told that "Time is Money".
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Is_Money](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Is_Money)

------
PhoenixWright
_Levine’s work raises the intriguing possibility that an individual’s feelings
about their use of time contribute as much or more to their happiness as does
economics._

This seems like common sense. I know I wouldn't mind working or even not
having as much financial freedom as I'd like as long as I found my work
fulfilling and important. The problem is most jobs are unfulfilling and
pointless. That's why you see a deluge of applicants for jobs at Google and
Facebook while others go the startup route.

Here's where money comes into the picture. If you don't want to move to SV or
start a company you don't have any other option than to trade your time for
money. The key is to minimize that amount of time.

------
dschiptsov
Money does buy happiness - just spent them on someone else.

It is not a _mutual_ recursion, not of a single process.) You will get
happiness in a feedback loop.

~~~
dschiptsov

       ,$s/is\ not/is/g

------
zackmorris
The three levels of hacker mastery

F.U. Money

F.U. Time

F.U. Zen

------
pyrrhotech
money === time. If I had 20 million dollars, I could spend all day doing
whatever I wanted to without having a care in the world. If anything is
happiness, that is happiness. The distinction is meaningless.

~~~
PSeitz
I sense javascript here. Happiness is a feeling, not an action or a plan.

~~~
pyrrhotech
I think it's a state of being. Pleasure and pain are temporary feelings.
Perhaps it's achieved differently by different people. I don't care how other
people achieve it or even if it's irrelevant to their goals. To me, happiness
is freedom from stress and control of my own time. It really is that simple,
and money buys it. Others may not be like that, but I am. As someone who
nearly has enough money to live the rest of my life without stress or need of
a job of any kind, I can say I have gotten happier and happier every day that
I've gotten closer. In the next year or two I should be totally free and happy
to live the rest of my life without a worry in the world. Perhaps in 5 years
I'll report back on how I'm doing.

