Buying Happiness

A New Standard

Is the stress of buying happiness worth it? As we work harder, are we happier? As we purchase more, are we happier? As we raise our living standard, are we happier?

A Wall Street Journal article speaks about how today 30-year-old men are worse off than their fathers were at 30. “The study suggests that absolute mobility — the rate at which an entire generation’s lot improves relative to previous generations — has declined.”

The idea of a standard of living was created by corporate leaders to be the carrot that would keep workers working despite having everything they needed. At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution it became apparent that man’s needs were being met, so why would he want to work more, why would he want more? The answer was to manufacture a new need, a need to raise his standard of living, to climb the economic ladder.

A New Trend

The old standard may be changing; I suspect we’ve finally maxed out. Not only have we long surpassed our survival needs, we are now surpassing our resources of time and energy to enjoy the amenities of modern life. The silence of the past is now what we strive for. How many restaurants have you seen which had a sign that said “no cell phones” or, in some cases “no perfume”? We are over-stimulated with the pleasures of life and overworked trying to achieve a higher standard of living

Society has peaked – we can’t handle any more. Now, for many the greatest pleasure is escaping our success. Instinctually, we first think of fleeing our environments. That can help. I moved to northern Idaho from Scottsdale, AZ, to escape the Los Angelization of Phoenix. I can tell you, even living in a beautiful location surround by forests, lakes and moose that virtually come to my door – societal stress still exists. Sandpoint, Idaho has cell phones, high-speed internet and more of us ex-urbanites.

Inner Escape

It is true that people are more relaxed here in Sandpoint, and I would say happier, yet they are often still stressed out by many of the same things they thought they were escaping. When that realization hits them, they experience a slight depression. Then, if they are brave, these folks begin to address the psychological/physiological causes of their stress.

Teaching our conditioned (or you may say addicted) minds and bodies to slow down initially can take some work. The return on this investment is greater than the return from investing more of our resources to gathering more stuff, or doing more.