
Valuing time over money is associated with greater happiness - brahmwg
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283619534_Valuing_time_over_money_is_associated_with_greater_happiness
======
roymurdock
I searched for the phrase "diminishing marginal returns" but could not find it
in the article which seems like a bit of an omission.

This is a fundamental economic concept - the more of something you have, the
less value you derive from each incremental unit.

So, based on personal preferences, once you reach a certain level of income
you will start to substitute away from labor (income) towards leisure/free
time (non-market activities such as hobbies, cooking, parenting, gaming,
chilling).

The study data shows this pretty clearly (if I'm reading it correctly) - in
Study 2b (wealthy people polled at a science museum) the median household
income was $100-149k and the "% Time Oriented" was 69%. In Study 4 (online
panel members who get free internet in exchange for survey participation) the
median household income was $75-85k and the "% Time Oriented" was 46%.

The implied result that upper middle class folk are able to spend more time on
leisure and are therefore happier on average than regular middle class folk
doesn't seem too groundbreaking.

~~~
danielam
I think you meant "diminishing marginal utility". The law of diminishing
marginal returns concerns employees not goods consumed.

Though not specifically relevant to your post, this "law" doesn't always hold.
Some goods have a utility threshold that must be crossed before they become
valuable or increase in utility (e.g., various medicines and antibiotics).
Money operates similarly, i.e., its utility does not _necessarily_ diminish,
much less in monotonic fashion. Assume that if I make N dollars, I may be able
to afford popcorn or I may be able to afford butter, but not both. Let's also
assume that I derive little satisfaction from popcorn or butter alone.
However, if I make N+1 dollars, I can afford both popcorn and butter from
which I derive a great deal of satisfaction. The addition $1 has greater
utility than the Nth dollar I had previously.

~~~
dpark
That is extremely flawed logic. You picked an arbitrary example to make your
point, but your point requires excluding other possible uses of the Nth dollar
to make any sense.

"Oh, with 15k I could buy a compact car that I wouldn't like much, but with
30k I could buy an entry level sports car that I would enjoy a lot. So the
second 15k has greater utility than the first 15k."

Does this make sense? Of course not. The first 15k can buy you reliable
transportation which is more valuable than the fun from a sports car. 15k can
also pay for a year of housing and food in many places, which has way greater
utility than the ability to drive like a jackass on the highway.

With your N dollars, you might not enjoy the popcorn without butter, but you
could also buy something else to eat, or some fuel, or any number of other
things that have more utility than butter on your popcorn.

Every dollar adds additional things that you could purchase. But each dollar
comes with declining utility. First you get necessities, then wants, then
luxuries. If you have insufficient dollars to buy popcorn with butter, you
probably need to spend your money on something now useful than popcorn anyway.
Popcorn is a want and you probably haven't met your necessities.

~~~
tamana
The dollar that pays of my payday loan, or gets me a security security deposit
at an apartment, has huge marginal value.

Growing from subsistence to investment has near infinite. Marginal utility.

~~~
raquo
You could just as well say that the cent that buys you a soda has a bigger
marginal utility than the previous one. Sure, maybe in the context of that one
transaction, but not in any general way.

~~~
encoderer
Except that paying off your proximate debt and securing a place to live is far
more important, from a Maslow sense, than buying a soda?

~~~
raquo
Doesn't matter, the principle is the same.

------
sjclemmy
When I was young and fresh out of college, I earned £8000 per annum and
attempted to support a non-working partner and a small child. The idea of time
vs money was irrelevant. I did not have enough money to live on. I would work
as much as possible to get more money, and it still wasn't enough to live on.

Fast forward to now where I have enough money not to bother about budgeting
day to day and there is still enough money in my account for savings, holidays
etc. whilst supporting a child (the same one!) at University and another
trainer obsessed teenager.

I think there is a threshold income - up to the point of the threshold more
money is required to support the life style one expects. After that threshold
is reached, options open up, and WHAT YOU SPEND YOUR TIME ON becomes a big
factor. Think minimum basic income.

So, time vs money is a rich persons dilemma.

Also, the idea that there is a trade off between more money and longer hours
is laughable. People on low incomes work long hours and still earn very
little. There is no choice. You simply must work long hours to tread water
financially.

EDIT: I increased my income pretty quickly after that so I haven't suffered as
much as the post suggests, but it was HARD work. The great thing about
bringing up kids in your 20s is that you have a lot of energy to do all the
things.

~~~
lr4444lr
But to be fair, and this won't be a popular comment, but I'm asking honestly,
why did you take on a non working partner and child fresh out of college? You
evidently have great character to overcome, and I don't know the UK system,
but these would be impossible burdens for most middle class Americans before
the age of at least 25, and likely put long term if not permanent damping
factors on their career growth to be able to get to where you are now.

~~~
sjclemmy
The pithy answer is 'life is complicated, confusing and difficult'.

The slightly longer answer is; I was young, I was (and still am) in love, it's
my child (and she's great btw. Aced all her exams, goes to a top University
/brag) I felt it was the right thing to do, and, time has borne that out.

I agree it has put a damping factor on my career, but, you know what? (and
this goes for a lot of commentary on HN) life is not just about making money
and having a good career.

~~~
fudgy73
Thanks for answering this.

------
thejacenxpress
Study 1: "Students participated in exchange for the chance to win one of three
prizes valued at $700."

Study 2a: "Two hundred and sixty UBC students participated in exchange for
entry into a lottery or for course credit (78% female)"

Study 2b: "In Study 2b, 518 adults were recruited from a science museum in
Vancouver, Canada"

Study 3a: "In Study 3a, 242 UBC students participated in exchange for course
credit or candy (74% female)"

Study 3b: " we were able to recruit a very large sample of UBC students, who
participated for course credit (N=2303; 76% female).

Study 4: " we recruited our sample through the GfK Knowledge Networks Survey
Panel. Panel members respond to an average of two online surveys per month and
receive small cash rewards and prizes for survey completion"

Make of it what you will

~~~
gk1
Whenever I see "in a study of N people..." I translate that to be "in a study
of N university students..."

~~~
mintplant
I noticed this a lot when reading through studies on visual working memory for
a paper. In one, the participants were the two lead authors and the grad
students in their lab.

------
orthoganol
I've shunned founding startups or working at startups for the last ~3 years,
and instead worked 15-20 hr/wk usually remotely.

Time is your greatest asset, personally and professionally. It's how you stay
abreast of the great opportunities of our time. You need that freedom to
explore things that pique your interest or move you. Founding a startup means
becoming mostly blind to the other great opportunities, which is why I'm so
reluctant to do a startup, unless I think it's "the one."

IMO, the opportunity cost of startup jobs is far more sinister than you think.
Only do it if you need the money or if you believe you're changing the world
in the greatest way you can.

~~~
jerguismi
Weird stance. Startups are not really about money. They are about greater
risk.

For a startup founder it is not unusual to spend a lot of time, and still make
zero money. And it is also possible to spend only couple of years, and make so
much money that you can leisurely work for couple of days a month, and go
surfing for the rest of the month. And do that same thing for the rest of your
life.

As an employee you will surely make some money always, and only spend certain
amount of time. As a freelancer/contractor typically your risk is a bit
greater (you might not get good gigs or something), but as a reward you can
earn more money for less time.

So it is not about whether you value your time or money. It is about your risk
appetite. It is not that uncommon to do this kind of "lifestyle business"
thingie where the primary goal is freedom and time, not necessarily money.

~~~
coldtea
> _So it is not about whether you value your time or money. It is about your
> risk appetite. It is not that uncommon to do this kind of "lifestyle
> business" thingie where the primary goal is freedom and time, not
> necessarily money._

Why the condescending tone for those businesses?

The main motivation behind startup is making loads of money. Similar to casino
players, hoping to the big payoff. There's more risk of course, but that's not
the motivation -- else startup founders would be as likely to be daredevils
like Evel Knievel.

Startups don't care much about the actual business aspects (actually making
money from what they do) as much as getting VCs to pour money in and then
exit.

OTOH, the motivation between lifestyle business is not just freedom and time,
but also the product. A custom motorcycle shop or some company making a
software tool like BBEdit, for example, with extremely passionate people
putting tons of hours into what they do, are "lifestyle businesses". Where in
a "startup proper" a founder can be just as happy to sell their to some giant
company that while close their main product (acquihires and tech
acquisitions).

~~~
msellout
> Why the condescending tone for those businesses?

I didn't read his tone as condescending.

> Similar to casino players ... don't care much about the actual business
> aspects

That's quite the generalization. Is it possible you've over-fit to a few
observations?

------
jasonkester
This approach certainly worked out well for me.

From way back in the "paying dues" phase, trading away stock options in favor
of extra vacation time, and taking leaves of unpaid absence. On to my
contracting days, working short gigs to maximize "bench" time and spending
several months a year traveling abroad. Building SaaS products during some of
that downtime and growing them in the background so that eventually they would
let me step away from the day jobs entirely.

It has paid off two-fold, with both a better quality of life during the
process, and a nice early "retirement", leaving lots of time to spend with the
kids from here on out.

5 stars, would recommend. Don't chase money, chase free time.

------
finstell
Money is nothing if you have it. Money is everything if you don't have it.

~~~
camelNotation
People say that and it seems true to some extent, but financially, people
rarely fall into the categories of "limitless wealth" and "not a penny to my
name." It's almost like a false dichotomy is being implied by this statement,
claiming that if you don't prioritize money, you will be left penniless and
ruined. That simply isn't true. There are a wide range of conditions between
wealth and poverty and studies like this show that you do not need to be
closer to rich than poor to be happy.

~~~
JimboOmega
I think studies have shown that past a relatively low (by SV standards) level
of income ($75kish I think) the relationship between money and happiness
breaks down.

The argument can definitely be made that the happiness difference between
"comfortable and independent" and "Zuckerberg" is not all that great.

~~~
jkyle
> I think studies have shown that past a relatively low (by SV standards)
> level of income ($75kish I think) the relationship between money and
> happiness breaks down.

This is true. But while that is low by SV standards, the $75k threshold from
the study is targeted to "median america" cost of living.

If you adjust for cost of living and for purchasing power over the 6 years
since the study was conducted, you end up with quite a bit more for areas like
San Francisco. In fact, you'd probably be looking at more like 175-185k. [1]

1\.
[http://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/commentaries/Happi...](http://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/commentaries/Happiness-
Benchmark.php#ixzz37eM5xPxF)

------
manachar
I wonder if this is behind the greater happiness of people with incomes over
75K per year. They actually have enough money to pay for goods and services
that save them time.

~~~
eterm
Indeed it's easier to value time over money if you have a lot of money and
your time is highly valued.

~~~
lomnakkus
... but it should be noted that there's a leveling-off as well. Once you're
basically living comfortably and have the requisite free time, more money
alone doesn't actually make you any happier.

(Too tired to look up the research references, but I'm pretty sure there are
some pretty solid findings out there on e.g. lottery winners, wealthy people,
etc.)

~~~
evanpw
You have to distinguish between happiness as emotional well-being (i.e., do
you have more happy or sad moments on an average day), vs happiness as life
satisfaction (i.e., how happy are you with how your life is going in general).

There's some evidence that the former measure plateaus at some income level,
but there's also significant evidence that the latter doesn't:
[http://www.pnas.org/content/107/38/16489.full](http://www.pnas.org/content/107/38/16489.full)

~~~
lomnakkus
That's _very_ intriguing, thanks!

------
brianpgordon
People might work really hard while they're young so that they can retire
early and be happy and secure later. Those people would look like they value
money more than their time, and probably aren't going to be very happy right
now, but in 30 years they're going to be much happier than people still
working full-time.

~~~
taurath
Or you'll find that all the time you put into your work has left you with
little hobbies and few relationships outside of your work. You'll also have
been honing only the skills necessary to succeed in the workplace, not be
happy in your life. What happens is you retire and then you find you're not
really good at anything else, and your body is old and creaky and you just
don't have the energy to learn things as much anymore. Or, even worse, if you
didn't make quite as good investments as you thought you were or there is a
huge market downturn and now you have no skills or resources. It happens to a
lot of people.

~~~
tamana
Being old and creaky sucks _even more_ when you still have to work for your
hardscrabble life.

------
FreedomToCreate
I wonder where this puts founders. We sacrifice a lot of time and money
(missed vacations, family time as well as salaries) in the attempt to create
something we can call our own. I always debate if it worth it, but there just
this excitement associated with the unknown potential of what you are doing
that keeps me going...and happy. Sometimes though I do wish I could take that
family vacation, or purchase my own apartment.

~~~
camelNotation
Reality: You're going to die.

Good Idea: Take a vacation. Enjoy life.

~~~
bcook
What about the afterlife? Many believe the temporary sacrifices they make
while on Earth will benefit them for eternity in the afterlife.

Whatever makes you happy. :)

~~~
camelNotation
I believe in the afterlife and for that reason, I don't take my own advice. I
do what is virtuous, not what is always enjoyable. However, for someone like
the OP, it sounds like they don't care too much for philosophy or religion
since they're pulling their recommendations from scientific studies, so I
offered them something that might help with their general psychological
health. Hopefully one day they'll seek something deeper and not ask
existential questions to computer nerds.

------
rdudekul
Are people’s general orientations to prioritize time over money are associated
with greater happiness?

Would you choose a higher paying career that demands longer hours versus
making less money and having more free time?

From the downloaded text/pdf of the article: "thinking about money leads
people to value productivity and independence, thinking about time leads
people to prioritize social connections"

It looks like high quality social connections lead to happiness:
[http://www.ted.com/talks/robert_waldinger_what_makes_a_good_...](http://www.ted.com/talks/robert_waldinger_what_makes_a_good_life_lessons_from_the_longest_study_on_happiness)

Dry read but great paper.

------
wcummings
Because valuing time more than money is a luxury afforded primarily by people
with plenty of money.

~~~
notacoward
Very close to my reaction. _Having whichever you value_ is a big factor in
happiness. Rich people have money and crave time. The unemployed have time and
crave money. No surprise which of those is happier. The more interesting cases
are people who don't have a lot of either but give up time for money (most of
us) or give up money for time (ski bums, monks, bohemians of many kinds).
Which we pursue is a strong statement about which we value, and - again -
those who pursue time seem happier overall.

Personally, I've been much happier since I dropped to part time, giving up
(some) money for (some) time. I'll be even happier when I take that next step
toward full retirement.

~~~
TranquilMarmot
How did you make the decision to go part time instead of full time? Did you
have a sizable amount of cash saved up before choosing to do so, or did you do
the math, figure "I only need $X to live each month so I'll only work enough
hours to make that"? If that's the case, how are you saving money for
retirement? Or do you just want to live out your retirement as a ski bum, or a
monk?

~~~
notacoward
Instead of repeating myself, I'll just cite the blog post I wrote about this,
and hope the rest of HN doesn't mind.

[http://pl.atyp.us/2013-10-leaning-
out.html](http://pl.atyp.us/2013-10-leaning-out.html)

Things have changed only a bit since then. A couple of years' worth of still-
increasing income have brought me even closer to permanent financial security.
I'm still pretty unimpressed by where this industry is headed technically,
socially, and financially. I still want to finish one more Big Thing for pay,
maybe one more on my own, and then just dabble in whichever smaller projects
catch my fancy. I know, based on the responses to that blog post, that I'm far
from alone. I suspect that many people reading this will eventually end up in
the same place, whether they believe it now or not.

~~~
TranquilMarmot
Thanks for sharing, that was a nice read. Burning out on not just projects but
with code is something that resonates with me and I'm only two years into my
career! It's very kind of Red Hat to give you time off and let you switch to
part time.

I'm young blood, so I have hope for where the industry is headed technically
and financially (not so sure about socially...). Then again, I don't really
have a choice but to have hope otherwise my future doesn't look too bright :)

------
DrNuke
We live an average 70-80 years on a lucky rocky, watery ball among bazillions
gaseous, frozen or rocky balls into a dark void somewhat existing since a
dozen billion years. Money is nothing vs living our time happily or peacefully
at least.

~~~
elliotec
True, but I think a major point is that it can be much more difficult for
people to live happily and peacefully when they have less money.

It's easy for us to say money is nothing vs time, but less easy for the single
mom working at wal-mart 60hrs a week to feed the kids.

~~~
DrNuke
If the mom loves her kids, she will be happy as well.

~~~
TeMPOraL
It's not happiness. It's being trapped between two emotions - the joy of
having and caring for kids, and the despair caused by constant drudgery
without perspective. Some people manage to focus so hard on the former that
they forget about the latter, at least for a moment. But others can't.

------
Outdoorsman
Happiness is that for which a trap cannot be laid...

Time is more valuable for some--book lovers, hobbyists,daydreamers, etc...
Money is more valuable for others...earning it, the implied security of
holding it, etc...

It seems to me, based on experience, that the route to general happiness is to
eliminate as many things as possible that past experience has led you to
believe won't make you happy...

A life spent in contentment, interspersed with moments of joy (or, happiness)
is likely all that humans can resonably hope for...

------
SFjulie1
I should be very happy. Oh! I live in misery.

I have some bums I know that can testify the same: having time and no money
sux.

I have written Klines of codes in a lot of language, but writing big brother
software that impoverish people even if my boss gives me extra time for my
life balance makes me sad.

These studies focus on biased population that don't experience poverty, nor
seems to care about the others either by ignorance or by convenience (which is
worse).

I am ruined, anxious, not(happy) (which is different from unhappy) ... but I
still have the will to be able to help people suffering more than me... and
worst of all I cannot even donate my blood, I come from Europa in Canada.

But not being happy does not mean being down. I am superficially unhappy, I
will find a way to make things better for both me and people I meet.

Happyness is like rain, boring and cold. But it makes you enjoy the sun.

I am not happy and I am angry. It makes me feel as alive as when I wed with
the one I love. Being told that not being happy is negative, is the same as if
I was told to cut my balls because dick is so much more important.

Sorry, I like them both.

------
jqm
Within certain boundaries. I haven't seen very many happy unemployed homeless
people.

------
linuxhansl
Could not agree more. I always value time over money.

I've gone even further, I calculate almost everything in time now. If can safe
$100 by waiting in line or doing some other time intensive task... How much of
my time is that worth?

I came to about $100/h. I.e. if I need to spend more than one hour of my spare
time to safe $100, I won't do it. (Doesn't mean I make that much or whatever,
just that that's how I value my spare time)

For the people who work for me if there's a weekend chore (watch a software
release, off hours troubleshooting, etc), I always offer one-for-one time off
and only then financial compensation.

------
wyager
You can't "value time over money" per se. That's like saying "value dollars
over pounds". There's just a (not-necessarily-linear) marginal exchange rate
between the two.

~~~
delecti
I think there's an implied "marginal" before both time and money in that
statement.

You have a steady income of time, you can choose to spend some of that on
money, but past a certain point of wealth, the money ceases to be the most
valuable use of your incoming time.

------
logfromblammo
I don't quite understand how "valuing time over money" is meaningful. Time and
money have an exchange rate. If you want more time, you can generally forego
additional money to get it, and vice versa.

Perhaps it should have stated that being happier correlates with valuing an
additional minute of leisure time at a higher amount of money.

And that is as much as saying that people paid more for their work are
happier, which seems almost tautological.

------
jMyles
> Resource Orientation Measure (ROM) Across all studies, we assessed whether
> individuals prioritized having more time or having more money by presenting
> them with a bina ry choice. To help participants imagine these trade-offs
> concretely and to encourag e honest responding (Fisher, 1993), we asked
> participants to read a short paragraph des cribing two individuals who
> prioritize money or who prioritize time in their daily lives. The identities
> of the characters and the pronouns used in the vignettes were matched to the
> participant’s gender (Tina/Tom and Maggie/Michael); for participants who did
> not repor t identifying as either male or female, the names and pronouns
> used in the vignettes were d isplayed as gender neutral (Madison/Taylor).
> The choices were presented as fol lows: Tina values her time more than her
> money. She is willing to sacrifice h er money to have more time. For
> example, Tina would rather w ork fewer hours and make less money, than work
> more hours and make more mone y. Maggie values her money more than her time.
> She is willing to sacrifice he r time to have more money. For example,
> Maggie would rathe r work more hours and make more money, than work fewer
> hours and have mor e time. We chose a binary response format for pragmatic
> and theoretical reasons. Practically, there is an increased awareness about
> the importance of conducting research with large representative samples
> (Open Science Col laboration, 2015). Thus, it is necessary to design short
> measures that minimize pa rticipant burden while maximizing reliability
> (Nagy, 2002). Conceptually, we chose th is response format because we were
> interested in assessing people’s broad preferences related to prioritizing
> time over money, as opposed to assessing people’s domain-specific pr
> eferences.

A perhaps laudable measure in order to increase study coherence, but it
definitely limits the usefulness of this study in terms of making nuanced life
choices.

------
brightball
Makes complete sense. Time is the most constrained resource that exists.

------
pfarnsworth
The one thing is that you need to have a critical amount of money before you
can sacrifice money for time. Without that critical amount of money, biasing
towards either more time and spending more money, or money and spending more
time either will probably lead to a lot of unhappiness.

------
liberacy
A simple association doesn't tell you much.

One perfectly plausible explanation is that people who already have plenty of
money tend to value time over having a little bit more money. And people who
already have plenty of money are happier than people who are a bit short on
money.

------
jonsterling
Having enough money that you can value time over it is associated with greater
happiness.

------
d_t_w
Ask some poor people if valuing time over money makes them happy, then get
back to me.

------
zvrba
Right. I spend less than half of my income on neccessities (food, rent, etc.
-- this I split with my partner) and recently I've found myself telling people
that time is my most limited resource. So in the past couple of years I've
been very conscious about allocating my free time.

When I quit may last job I wanted to trade the notice period with unpaid
vacation, but it was no-go. :(

------
dschiptsov
I often pass by many places on the roadside where people are making money
their whole lives, visiting, perhaps, few times some holy places according to
their religion. They are wealthier than me, but I will never exchange
lifestyle with them.

Money is not happiness. Experiences are.

BTW, long lasting happiness is a myth, a wrong concept. Joy, which children
are bursting with, is the real one.

------
eibrahim
It's easy for us developers to say that because we make good money and I enjoy
it. I try to use it for good but I always value time over money. I didn't
think that way when I was in college and barely making rent. So yes, when you
have money, time is important. When you don't have it, then it becomes your
number one focus.

------
sandworm101
The OP only addresses money as a resource. That can work when talking about
average people, average employees. But if you want to talk about elites, money
becomes only a yardstick, a metric rather than a resource.

Certain people do not value money directly. They value having more money than
other. They value relative wealth. This is why a billionaire will fight for
that extra 100k from a contractor or may cut wages on a whim. This drive for
relative disparity occurs on the large scale (say a billionaire going after
casino workers) the medium scale (athlete A wanting to be paid more than
athlete B regardless of number) and too at smallest scales (wanting to be the
highest paid in the office).

This is human nature. The danger occurs when a powerful person, unable to
meaningfully increase their wealth due to the law of diminished returns,
decides to attack those with less.

------
devit
Those that value time over money more are clearly likely to be richer (or even
just feel richer), so the conclusion seems pretty obvious, unless they
controlled for that.

------
cbsmith
Classic causation <-> correlation problem.

It turns out that if you are happy, you are disproportionately likely to have
time as a scarcer resource than money...

------
oneJob
Let us define the Identity Property of Being as 'being at one with oneself'.

Given that: time = money

...and that 'Time is All We Have'. [1]

...we can write: time/time = money/money

Which is equivalent to: (time)(money) = (money)(time)

Dividing everything by money^2 give us: time/money = time/money

Since we know that: time = money

...we can write: time/money = money/money

Which is: time/money = 1

So, we have shown that valuing time over money results in the Identity
Property of Being.

[1] [https://youtu.be/IAqgvotGrsg](https://youtu.be/IAqgvotGrsg)

------
narrator
So higher interest rates mean greater happiness? The interest rate is
essentially what you will exchange your time for.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Interest is what you exchange _your money 's_ time for, not _your_ time. That
difference matters here.

~~~
narrator
That argument is kind of like how in asset forfeiture cases they don't charge
a person with the crime, they charge the person's bag of hundred dollar bills
with a crime.

------
edpichler
About time and life, I read this year and strongly recommend the book: "The
Shortness of Life" of Sêneca.

------
tobbyb
I think its a bit sad that its only when we start getting older and have had
time for introspection and reflection that we realise that the only thing we
have of value is time.

We are dying from the time we are born and our bodies are changing everyday.
They will not be the same, its when you get sick and realise just how valuable
even feeling normal and healthy is that your appreciate the sense of normalcy.
If it affects your mobility, sense of well being, physical state, your quality
of life and quality of of your time drops never mind your wealth. A lot of
people don't have that luxury of recuperating or feeling normal. I think its
not money but our health that can make us really unhappy.

We have on average a 'journey' of 60 years in this beautiful planet to make
the most of the time we have, to make it meaningful and I think what
ultimately makes it meaningful is filling it with experiences, learning and
people.

What you have done with the time and not necessarily money could be a good
indicator of overall well being. Though money can more easily enable access to
new experiences every experience is different and has merit irrespective of
wealth. Learning new things, new sports, new skills are more valuable than
anything else as that time has been used and you will not get it back, but you
have something to show for it that anyone else can only get not with money,
but spending the time to do it. For instance losing weight or learning a new
skill. 10 months down the line you have achieved that and are much happier for
it and no amount of wealth can buy this for you or anyone else.

I am generalizing and they are exceptions but when you think about it our
deepest and happiest moments are social, about other people; our family,
friends and interactions with other people. This has the potential to make us
very happy and fulfilled or very unhappy irrespective of wealth and it's
experiences with loved ones; parents, siblings. family, kids, relationships
that make up our happiest moments.

Everything we associate with happiness in terms of money it seems is often
only meaningful or valuable in a social context, and it is always related to
it in some way. With the exception of some personal goals that give a sense of
achievement in itself, a large proportion of achieving our goals in isolation
is meaningless, its only when its widely acknowledged that it becomes
meaningful and valuable.

This is not to say money is unimportant as it can be a source of stress and
limit our ability to have experiences, It's an economic system that drives our
progress and is intimately connected with all aspects of our life. But a
wealthy individual has experiences as does a not so wealthy individual. I
don't think you can objectively say the wealthy person is happier, I think its
the person who has had diverse experiences with his or her time and a fulling
social context that perhaps is 'happier' as these are unique experiences that
give happiness.

We have to except the desperately poor from this as access to basics like
healthcare, food, sanitation, education can completely change one's
perspective of life and make the time we have meaningless which is why social
security and basic income is essential to dignify human existence.

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Kovah
If I could buy additional time, let's say $20 per hour... I would be a damn
poor guy..

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groutexpectatio
in this thread: people who don't understand economics

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SteveWatson
Broken link

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spectrum1234
But I thought time IS money ?????

