I read this article on TIME some time ago and I thought it was one of the most important insights in life that I’ve ever had. Basically the gist of it is that there was a huge survey done among 136,000 people from different ethnic and economic backgrounds in 132 different countries all over the world on whether money makes them happy and this is what they found.
“Yes, money makes you happy — we see the effect of income on life satisfaction is very strong and virtually ubiquitous and universal around the world… But it makes you more satisfied than it makes you feel good. Positive feelings are less affected by money and more affected by the things people are doing day to day.”
The second part of that paragraph was what really made sense to me. When you think about it, it’s really true. Money does make you happy but it takes more of a satisfaction joy rather than really really make you feel happy! The things that make you really happy? What you do each day and the people around you.
That’s why you see people leaving really high paying jobs for lower paying ones because once they reach a certain threshold of having “enough money”, they find that it’s more important to do things that they like rather than things that pay well. So why are so many of us chasing money all the time? Is it because all sorts of different things in society “manufactures” that desire to need lots of money? Or do we not know yet, that having a lot of money doesn’t really make you as happy as you think.
I think of the things that really make me happy. It’s not really how much money I earn… I’ve always been this happy. What has made me even more happy today is the friends I have at work and on weekends.
The family I have and the girlfriend.
What makes you happy? Is it money? Or is it something else?
Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space