That study is old, but I still suspect there’s a grain of truth that the financial cutoff is lower than many would suspect.
A rough off-the-cuff calculation is that $75k is roughly double the median US income. If the same rough estimate is applied to SV, that’s about $110k. I bet that’s much much lower than many SV/HN would suspect for a happiness threshold. If you can’t find a way to be happy on double the median income, it implies the system is rigged to make an awfully lot of people miserable.
The problem is often not that happiness isn’t possible, but that we compare ourselves to our peer group to calibrate our expectations. As Roosevelt said, comparison is the thief of joy.
A rough off-the-cuff calculation is that $75k is roughly double the median US income. If the same rough estimate is applied to SV, that’s about $110k. I bet that’s much much lower than many SV/HN would suspect for a happiness threshold. If you can’t find a way to be happy on double the median income, it implies the system is rigged to make an awfully lot of people miserable.
The problem is often not that happiness isn’t possible, but that we compare ourselves to our peer group to calibrate our expectations. As Roosevelt said, comparison is the thief of joy.