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Sofya Meshechkova
Most people strive towards gaining a higher income and almost all people strive towards being a happy person. The assumption often is that the former leads to the latter. But is this true? Does being wealthier really make you happier? The answer is somewhere in between and to answer these questions we must start by asking ourselves, “What is happiness?”.
Happiness is defined differently by each individual. Oxford Languages describes it as ‘experiencing more pleasure and less pain’ which is rather basic and vague, yet in its simplicity it is perfectly accurate.
Of course, money allows us to have necessities such as a roof over our head and food; these are qualities that are taken for granted so rather than promising happiness, it makes sure that you are not ‘unhappy’. However, using money, we can also purchase material needs for pleasure. As they release a high amount of dopamine into our bloodstream, they give us satisfaction and motivate us to keep going. A good comparison is that money for humans is like fuel to a car: the more we have, the further we can go. However, there is a catch…
New things are only temporarily new. There is always something newer around the corner and planned obsolescence makes sure that this is always the case.
Planned obsolescence is a scheme that designs products with an artificially limited useful life or a purposely grail design, specifically created so that the consumer purchases a replacement quicker. This means that soon after a purchase, you stop feeling its newness and are looking forward to the time when you are able to buy the fresher version of the same product.
Similarly, in contrast, there will always be a person with more money. Often people buy accessories to boost their status to lift their own social ground above a certain class of people. As a result, it becomes a never ending game revolving around chasing short term fulfilment. Certain research suggests that having money and happiness is not proportional to each other meaning that having more money does not necessarily mean more happiness.
Past studies have shown that when people make over $75000 American dollars annually their rise in satisfaction after a rise in income starts to diminish. This could be explained by the fact that $75000 annually is enough for people to stop worrying about basic needs and focus on non-material sources of happiness. Although recent research suggests that there is still a strong positive correlation between income and happiness after $75000, it is worth noting that higher income comes at a cost.
Gaining a higher income is often associated with working more or holding a higher position at your place of work. This often means that a particular individual has to sacrifice time and mental health. Spending more time at work also comes with a hefty opportunity cost. It might be spending more time with your family and friends, pursuing your hobby and generally, doing things outside of your work which spiritually enrichen your life - these are the things that boost your dopamine levels and lead to long-lasting satisfaction.
On the other hand, being career-oriented can give a different type of fulfilment that is incomparable to anything else. Loving your job, willing to spend more time working, augmenting the number of job-related commitments that you have, so that a higher income will unlikely to sabotage your long term happiness.
Money does make us happy until we start missing out on other fruitful parts of our life, unless, of course, the source of money itself is your key to long-term happiness.
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