WEBVTT - Money and Happiness 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.000 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:13.080 Works dot com. Hey, you're welcome to stuff to Blow 0:00:13.119 --> 0:00:15.440 your mind. My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Julie. 0:00:15.600 --> 0:00:17.800 Live in the Dream, Douglas. You are You're You're living 0:00:17.800 --> 0:00:23.960 the dream, the American Dream. Yeah. I have a roast 0:00:23.960 --> 0:00:26.520 in the oven. I have my apron on right now, 0:00:27.280 --> 0:00:31.920 I have my new Ford Etfel outside. And uh, you 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:36.560 know two and a half lovely children. And you you 0:00:36.680 --> 0:00:39.760 probably arrived on a on a boat as an immigrant 0:00:39.800 --> 0:00:42.200 and just fell off the boat right into a pile 0:00:42.200 --> 0:00:46.000 of money. Right well, I'm second generation, right yeah. And 0:00:46.000 --> 0:00:49.840 and hard scrabble worked for it. Really wanted that hard 0:00:49.840 --> 0:00:54.120 scrabble life, the professional scrabble circuit. That's an entirely different 0:00:54.160 --> 0:00:57.240 podcast episode. It's hard to make a living on that, 0:00:57.280 --> 0:01:00.080 but but it does exist, and it's fascinating. From what 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:04.720 I understand. It's about as lucrative as entering into like 0:01:04.800 --> 0:01:09.120 the Toddler beauty pageant circuit. Yeah, I think it. It 0:01:09.160 --> 0:01:12.800 may be as comfortable to that, but but but slightly 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:15.840 less crazy. Slightly. I refer to this idea of this 0:01:15.959 --> 0:01:20.959 nineties like ideal of the American dream, where you know, 0:01:21.000 --> 0:01:23.399 you had the perfect lawn, you had just bought a 0:01:23.440 --> 0:01:26.520 house in a car, and everything was okay because you 0:01:26.600 --> 0:01:29.919 had those things right and and if you weren't happy, 0:01:30.360 --> 0:01:33.520 it was achievable if you could only work hard enough 0:01:33.720 --> 0:01:36.440 to buy these things. It was all about work hard 0:01:36.840 --> 0:01:39.440 by the things that will give you the life that 0:01:40.120 --> 0:01:43.280 is happiness. But does it really work like that? Does 0:01:43.400 --> 0:01:47.520 money really buy happiness? Well, that's the big question, isn't it. 0:01:47.560 --> 0:01:51.840 And it's certainly I threw this question out on Facebook yesterday. 0:01:52.200 --> 0:01:53.840 I did a little blog post, and I found that 0:01:53.880 --> 0:01:57.960 a lot of people just you know, instantly say no, 0:01:58.080 --> 0:02:01.200 of course, that money didn't buy you happiness. Because that's 0:02:01.240 --> 0:02:06.360 become an increasingly popular, uh, little bit of wisdom to 0:02:06.440 --> 0:02:09.080 keep around in your head, especially as we live in 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:12.720 a world that is so fascinated with the lives of 0:02:12.960 --> 0:02:16.880 celebrities and the wealthy and so you know, ruled over 0:02:17.000 --> 0:02:21.640 by by that class of people. It's comforting to remind yourself, Oh, 0:02:21.840 --> 0:02:24.120 they have all this money, they live this grand life, 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:26.959 but they're not really happy, and therefore I can feel 0:02:26.960 --> 0:02:30.200 a little better about not having what they have. Ironically, 0:02:30.280 --> 0:02:34.880 I feel like Oprah actually brought this idea to the masses. Yeah, right, 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:37.720 because she does a lot of self you know, introstruction 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:41.160 and work with her audience on what is happiness and 0:02:41.160 --> 0:02:42.520 so on and so forth. So I feel like she 0:02:42.639 --> 0:02:46.480 seeded this for a lot of people. Yeah, I think so. 0:02:46.639 --> 0:02:50.160 And but it is such a tricky issue because if 0:02:50.200 --> 0:02:53.120 you hear, because because we respond both ways to it, right, 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:56.320 even some level, you hear a rich person or a 0:02:56.360 --> 0:03:00.800 celebrity complain about their life. On one level, you have 0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:02.960 that voice that says, oh, well, money doesn't buy happiness. 0:03:03.000 --> 0:03:05.079 There you go. But on the other side, there's a 0:03:05.160 --> 0:03:07.040 voice that you want to say, oh, shut up, you 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:09.560 own an airplane. If you own an airplane, you don't 0:03:09.560 --> 0:03:11.960 have the right to complain about your life. Like we 0:03:11.960 --> 0:03:14.120 we kind of we kind of feel it both ways. 0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:16.480 But found up in the is a little bit of 0:03:16.680 --> 0:03:19.800 envy and this idea again that if if you just 0:03:19.880 --> 0:03:22.799 had access to their money, you would spend it right 0:03:23.280 --> 0:03:24.639 and you would do it in ways in which you 0:03:24.680 --> 0:03:27.160 would be happy exactly. I mean, we think that even 0:03:27.200 --> 0:03:29.880 as we we stare right in the face of studies 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:31.840 that say, of you know, the people that that win 0:03:31.880 --> 0:03:35.320 the lottery um are either either it doesn't improve their 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:37.960 lives or makes them less happy. We we always think, 0:03:38.200 --> 0:03:40.880 but if I want they won the lottery, I'd know 0:03:40.880 --> 0:03:43.440 how to spend it. I would use it appropriately and 0:03:43.560 --> 0:03:45.840 actually improve my life. I would be the exception of 0:03:45.880 --> 0:03:48.520 the rule. So those are the types of things we're 0:03:48.520 --> 0:03:51.160 going to explore today. But before we do that, we 0:03:51.160 --> 0:03:55.160 should probably say that when it comes to happiness and wealth, 0:03:55.600 --> 0:03:59.920 there is a major impact made when you are below 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:03.680 with the poverty line. That's right. The World Health Organization 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:06.760 is called poverty quote the world's biggest killer and the 0:04:06.800 --> 0:04:09.800 greatest cause of ill health and suffering because when you 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:13.360 look at poverty, living below the poverty line in this 0:04:13.440 --> 0:04:17.359 world brings increase risks of violence, infectious disease, chronic disease, 0:04:17.600 --> 0:04:22.120 mental health problems, sleep disorders, and chronic stress. And in 0:04:22.160 --> 0:04:26.320 many cases we're talking about an individual's financial inability to 0:04:26.520 --> 0:04:29.120 meet their own basic needs or the basic needs of 0:04:29.160 --> 0:04:31.839 their dependence. Yeah, and we were starting about basic needs. 0:04:31.839 --> 0:04:35.760 We're talking about biological needs eating, right, Um, these are 0:04:35.760 --> 0:04:38.480 things that we have to use to survive. So if 0:04:38.480 --> 0:04:40.839 you can't meet that need, it's terrible, right, of course, 0:04:40.839 --> 0:04:44.719 you would be very unhappy. The thing, though, is that 0:04:44.920 --> 0:04:48.279 once you can meet those basic needs, and once you 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:51.320 can rise above that poverty level, it may not be like, 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:53.599 oh hey, it's it's smooth sailing from here on out. 0:04:53.600 --> 0:04:56.840 But the effects of money begin to taper off. And 0:04:57.279 --> 0:04:59.560 this is actually from a House to Works article that 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:02.520 we of on happiness and money, and it says that 0:05:02.560 --> 0:05:05.719 homeless people in Calcutta, for instance, score a mere two 0:05:05.760 --> 0:05:10.040 point nine on a seven point scale of happiness, while 0:05:10.200 --> 0:05:15.760 multimillionaires in the United States rank around five point eight. However, 0:05:16.560 --> 0:05:20.160 if you look at the Inuits in Greenland and Masai 0:05:20.279 --> 0:05:25.920 ranchers in Kenya, they are just as happy as those 0:05:26.200 --> 0:05:30.560 high society Americans, scoring around a five. So again, here's 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:33.520 that those effects of money tapering off. Yeah, it seems 0:05:33.520 --> 0:05:36.039 to be diminishing returns. It's kind of like, uh, like 0:05:36.080 --> 0:05:38.320 when you're when you're really hungry and you you dig 0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:41.920 into that delicious meal. You know, that first bite is amazing, 0:05:41.960 --> 0:05:43.960 and then as you begin to fill up, it becomes lesser. 0:05:44.040 --> 0:05:46.719 I think I've seen sea studies that say that like 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:48.800 the seventh bite, after you take the seventh bite of 0:05:48.920 --> 0:05:51.480 something and then you're just you're just eating. You're not 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:54.920 enjoying the food at all. In your you're in you're 0:05:54.960 --> 0:05:56.960 beginning to get even, you know, even closer to that 0:05:57.040 --> 0:05:59.040 level where you're not even hungry anymore. It's just pure 0:05:59.080 --> 0:06:02.880 recreational eating without any actual value to you as an organism. 0:06:02.920 --> 0:06:04.680 And if you think about it, to your your brain 0:06:04.720 --> 0:06:07.960 really can sustain that anyway, because that first bite is 0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:11.120 really um sort of the bells and whistles of the 0:06:11.200 --> 0:06:14.480 dopamine in your system saying, oh, a reward. But if 0:06:14.480 --> 0:06:16.479 every single bite was like that, you would never put 0:06:16.480 --> 0:06:19.000 your fork down. Yeah. And in this we're getting into, 0:06:19.200 --> 0:06:21.400 you know, kind of the complex notion of happiness that 0:06:21.400 --> 0:06:24.719 we've touched on before. What what is happiness? We're talking 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:27.880 in this podcast about about potentially buying happiness, but that 0:06:27.960 --> 0:06:31.240 in itself is elusive. Is a happiness? That moment that 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:36.280 you bite into that meal is happiness? The knowledge that 0:06:36.360 --> 0:06:40.880 you created a recipe for that meal? Is it? Is happiness? 0:06:40.880 --> 0:06:43.800 A moment in time? Is it an overarching theme that 0:06:43.920 --> 0:06:49.080 covers a grand uh length of time? Well? And is 0:06:49.120 --> 0:06:53.599 happiness forkful after forkful really sustainable even if it's been 0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:57.280 bought on a silver spoon? Right? And So in order 0:06:57.320 --> 0:06:59.960 to really get to this answer, we have to start 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:05.800 looking at meaning versus happiness because they're bound up in 0:07:05.880 --> 0:07:09.040 each other. There's no way to to to talk about 0:07:09.120 --> 0:07:13.000 one without the other, really right, So happiness we can 0:07:13.160 --> 0:07:15.080 you know, as elucid as the term is, we can 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:17.560 say you can still say things like, ah, well this 0:07:17.640 --> 0:07:21.200 neal makes me happy. Uh, this gadget makes me happy. 0:07:21.320 --> 0:07:25.800 My family makes me happy. Uh, this trip makes me happy. Uh, 0:07:25.880 --> 0:07:28.840 this pill makes me happy. But can you can you 0:07:29.000 --> 0:07:31.360 plug in the word meaning in all those cases, this 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:34.440 gadget gives my life meaning, this pill gives my life meaning. 0:07:34.840 --> 0:07:37.240 This uh, my family gives my life meaning. To to 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:41.600 what degree to these statements match up with each term? Yeah, 0:07:41.640 --> 0:07:43.520 And so you have to start looking at this idea 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:47.080 of happiness or well being. And for some economists, well 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:50.640 being is seen as a rising when benefits outweigh cost. 0:07:51.440 --> 0:07:55.320 For the centers for disease control and prevention, they've just 0:07:55.360 --> 0:07:59.920 find it as requiring good living conditions and positive relationship. 0:08:01.000 --> 0:08:04.640 For spiritualists, you see that it's a pleasurable state that 0:08:04.760 --> 0:08:07.480 is the sum of the positive and negative thoughts and 0:08:07.600 --> 0:08:10.800 feelings that arise when we reflect on our lives. When 0:08:10.840 --> 0:08:13.440 we reflect on our lives, because that's when the meaning 0:08:13.520 --> 0:08:16.520 part comes in. Yeah, and I think that goes beyond 0:08:16.560 --> 0:08:19.360 spiritualists too and gets into areas of philosophy and even 0:08:19.440 --> 0:08:22.600 psychology as well. But uh, but yeah, you start thinking 0:08:22.600 --> 0:08:24.400 it's it's more about those moments in life when you 0:08:24.440 --> 0:08:27.480 really reflect and ask yourself, what's the point of all 0:08:27.520 --> 0:08:30.760 of this, what's what's what's the meaning? Why am I here? 0:08:30.880 --> 0:08:33.840 What am I doing? And and that's where the meaning, 0:08:34.520 --> 0:08:37.360 that's where the meaning comes into play as opposed to 0:08:37.400 --> 0:08:41.880 the happiness, unless you're adhering to kind of a hedonistic philosophy, 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:45.959 in which case the worm kind of uh turns back 0:08:46.000 --> 0:08:49.120 on itself. But if you think about it this way, happiness, 0:08:49.160 --> 0:08:51.840 as we have discussed before, is ephemeral, it's leading at 0:08:51.840 --> 0:08:54.719 the moment to moment thing. But meaning gives you context, 0:08:55.400 --> 0:08:58.520 It gives you a sort of richness of that bite 0:08:58.559 --> 0:09:02.240 of happiness. I think most people would think that meaning 0:09:02.679 --> 0:09:06.720 is just nested within happiness, when in fact, it is 0:09:06.840 --> 0:09:11.160 happiness that is nested within meaning. It's really sort of 0:09:11.200 --> 0:09:13.720 a byproduct of it. Right, Like for instance, when I 0:09:13.800 --> 0:09:15.720 when I say name somebody who has led who has 0:09:15.800 --> 0:09:18.679 led a meaningful life? Like what are some of the 0:09:18.880 --> 0:09:22.600 iconic examples exactly Gandhi or you know, or or a 0:09:22.600 --> 0:09:25.400 mother Teresa type figure. These are the the individuals that 0:09:25.720 --> 0:09:28.480 come to mind. But you don't necessarily think, oh, Gandhi 0:09:28.559 --> 0:09:30.920 he was he was a happy guy. I mean, and 0:09:31.040 --> 0:09:33.240 I don't think of Gandhi is an unhappy guy. But 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:36.720 you don't necessarily attach the happiness onto his meaningfulness. You 0:09:36.760 --> 0:09:40.439 think more, uh, more about struggle. You think more about 0:09:40.960 --> 0:09:44.160 about putting yourself second and putting happiness second to a 0:09:44.280 --> 0:09:46.680 cause and to the you know, the betterment of the 0:09:46.679 --> 0:09:49.240 world itself. Although you look at someone like the Dalai 0:09:49.360 --> 0:09:52.640 Lama and you see perhaps he has both. Yes, indeed, 0:09:52.640 --> 0:09:54.760 here's a man who is a meaningful life uh and 0:09:54.920 --> 0:09:58.200 does seem to be rather jolly. Yeah, So keep that 0:09:58.320 --> 0:10:01.520 example in your mind. Us as we go through these 0:10:01.520 --> 0:10:05.400 sort of scales of wealth to happiness and scales of 0:10:05.480 --> 0:10:09.040 wealth to meaningness. And we're gonna do this by taking 0:10:09.040 --> 0:10:12.679 an example of a study by Shigihiro Oishi, who is 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:16.160 from the University of Virginia psychologists and Ed Deaner a 0:10:16.320 --> 0:10:20.920 University of Illinois psychologists. They conducted a study to better 0:10:21.000 --> 0:10:25.120 understand how wealth would influence both happiness and meaningfulness. And 0:10:25.160 --> 0:10:29.040 they examine the reli relationship between a country's wealth and 0:10:29.080 --> 0:10:31.640 the well being of its citizens. That we're talking about 0:10:31.760 --> 0:10:35.640 thousands of people, um and these people completing an annual 0:10:35.679 --> 0:10:40.240 Gallop survey in one hundred and thirty two countries, And 0:10:40.240 --> 0:10:43.920 so they would report how happy they were and whether 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:46.440 or not that their life had some sort of purpose 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:50.319 or meaning. And then they would look at a scale 0:10:50.400 --> 0:10:53.800 from zero, which would be the worst possible life, to ten, 0:10:53.920 --> 0:10:57.480 which is the best possible life. And that's where they 0:10:57.640 --> 0:11:01.040 got masses of data and takes eased out this idea 0:11:01.080 --> 0:11:03.480 of happiness and wealth, and so in the scale, we 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:07.400 would easily imagine that a ten would be an almost 0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:11.600 unattainable level of happiness, like no mortal human could contain. 0:11:11.640 --> 0:11:14.280 That if you reached a ten, you would sprout golden 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:19.920 wings and ascend into the cosmos right whereas a zero 0:11:20.200 --> 0:11:23.960 you your life would be so miserable that how could 0:11:23.960 --> 0:11:26.000 you You You would just pop into non existence. There'd be 0:11:26.040 --> 0:11:28.680 no way you could continue because your life would be 0:11:28.760 --> 0:11:31.680 such um, such such a pool of suffering. So what 0:11:31.720 --> 0:11:35.560 did they find? Overall, people from wealthier countries were generally 0:11:35.679 --> 0:11:39.240 happier than those from poorer countries. Now again, think about 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:41.520 the ephemeral effects of happiness moment to moment, and so 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:44.040 I want and so forth. And to reach an average 0:11:44.160 --> 0:11:47.600 life satisfaction score of four out of ten, people needed 0:11:47.640 --> 0:11:50.920 to earn about seven hundred dollars a year. For a 0:11:51.040 --> 0:11:54.520 score of five, they needed to earn three thousand dollars 0:11:54.600 --> 0:11:57.000 a year, and for a score of six, they needed 0:11:57.040 --> 0:11:59.920 to earn an average of sixteen thousand dollars per year. 0:12:00.240 --> 0:12:02.400 For a seven, it's pretty good on the scale, right, 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:06.600 they needed to earn an average of sixty four dollars 0:12:06.640 --> 0:12:11.280 a year. So all right, yes, we see that there's 0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:16.520 an idea of more happiness in wealthier countries here, but 0:12:16.600 --> 0:12:19.600 what about meaningfulness? Well, and not only let you say, 0:12:19.600 --> 0:12:21.760 not only this the wealthy country, but here we see 0:12:21.760 --> 0:12:28.280 the actual income level influencing happiness. Because it's easy to say, like, okay, 0:12:28.320 --> 0:12:32.360 a rich country, obviously they're gonna arguably have have a 0:12:32.360 --> 0:12:34.800 better support system in place, They're going to have better 0:12:34.880 --> 0:12:38.760 resources for for everyone. Um, it's going to be safer. 0:12:39.440 --> 0:12:40.600 You know, you can go down the list of all 0:12:40.840 --> 0:12:43.440 the positive benefits there. But but what I like about 0:12:43.440 --> 0:12:46.080 the cities that also and what is more problematic about 0:12:46.120 --> 0:12:47.800 the study, especially to the whole money camp by the 0:12:47.880 --> 0:12:50.680 happiness thing, is that it says that you actually see 0:12:50.679 --> 0:12:53.720 the lineup of the money that's coming into the life 0:12:53.800 --> 0:12:57.040 and the happiness enjoyed in that life. Indeed, right, but 0:12:57.160 --> 0:12:59.640 it tells a good story of that. So the other 0:12:59.720 --> 0:13:02.920 story is that they found is that between nine five 0:13:03.320 --> 0:13:10.319 and of respondents from poverty stricken Sierra Leone, Togo, Kyrgyzstan, 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:15.720 Chad and Ethiopia reported leading meaningful lives on that scale. 0:13:16.240 --> 0:13:19.960 Now only two thirds of the respondents and wealthy countries 0:13:20.000 --> 0:13:23.440 like Japan, France and Spain believe that their lives had meaning. 0:13:24.360 --> 0:13:26.959 So what is happiness without meaning? Here? Well, I think 0:13:27.000 --> 0:13:29.320 we can we can probably all point to moments in 0:13:29.360 --> 0:13:31.360 our own life where we can say, well, that was 0:13:31.400 --> 0:13:35.040 a moment that was happy, but was it meaningful? You know? Um? 0:13:35.080 --> 0:13:39.360 And maybe more than moments, maybe whole decades of our lives, 0:13:39.360 --> 0:13:40.880 we can look back and say, well I had a 0:13:40.880 --> 0:13:44.640 lot of fun, but did it mean anything? Um and uh. 0:13:44.679 --> 0:13:47.640 And not to say that that meaning and and fun, 0:13:48.400 --> 0:13:50.480 not to say that meaning and happiness can't line up, 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:54.840 but or that they're mutually exclusive, but but you can 0:13:54.880 --> 0:13:57.360 well imagine someone setting in a you know, say a 0:13:57.400 --> 0:14:01.560 fancy penthouse, Uh, you know, kick back, enjoying, say some 0:14:01.640 --> 0:14:04.360 sort of video game on the latest system, the largest screen, 0:14:04.440 --> 0:14:09.240 the coolest sound system, and uh, is it a meaningful experience? Though? 0:14:09.280 --> 0:14:11.440 Is it something that they can look back, that they 0:14:11.440 --> 0:14:13.920 can have that that moment of reflection and say, what 0:14:14.080 --> 0:14:16.520 is my life about? Why? Why do I exist? What's 0:14:16.559 --> 0:14:20.560 the purpose of everything? And I would argue that it's 0:14:20.600 --> 0:14:24.280 it's hard to say that enjoying an awesome video game 0:14:24.320 --> 0:14:26.400 on an awesome couch in front of an awesome television 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:30.840 set lines up with that that sort of existential reason 0:14:30.880 --> 0:14:33.120 to be right. And we've talked about this, that's the 0:14:33.160 --> 0:14:35.440 problem of consciousness. Why are we here? What are we doing? 0:14:36.120 --> 0:14:40.120 So the question then becomes why would people in poverty 0:14:40.200 --> 0:14:43.240 stricken countries have more meaning or feel that their lives 0:14:43.320 --> 0:14:46.640 had more meaning? And Adam Altar, who wrote a New 0:14:46.720 --> 0:14:50.840 Yorker piece on this, says, perhaps because poverty strips people 0:14:50.840 --> 0:14:54.200 of happiness and the short term when those terms ding 0:14:54.280 --> 0:14:56.840 ning ning that we've been talking so much about, Perhaps 0:14:56.960 --> 0:14:59.720 because of that, it forces them to take the long 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:03.240 you to focus on the relationships they have with their children, 0:15:03.400 --> 0:15:07.400 their gods, and their friends, which become more meaningful over time. 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:10.800 And indeed, you could you could probably argue that they're 0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:14.040 they're they're forced to depend upon those social structures more. 0:15:14.120 --> 0:15:18.320 You know, they're they're less financially self reliant, and therefore 0:15:18.400 --> 0:15:21.920 it's more of a community situation as opposed to the 0:15:21.920 --> 0:15:24.720 you know, the lone individual standing in line to get 0:15:24.720 --> 0:15:26.920 the latest gadget and then taking it home to enjoy 0:15:27.360 --> 0:15:30.840 in their in their cavernous den, which we'll talk about 0:15:30.880 --> 0:15:33.200 in a moment, but just in case you're wondering if 0:15:33.240 --> 0:15:35.760 there are any other studies that maybe are more Western 0:15:35.840 --> 0:15:40.720 centric will Indeed there are. There's one by psychologist Roy Baumeister, 0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:44.400 who we've talked about before in the context of willpower. Yes, 0:15:44.440 --> 0:15:47.880 all those chocolate cake experiments where you would attempt somebody 0:15:47.880 --> 0:15:50.000 with a chocolate retreat and see what could effect it 0:15:50.040 --> 0:15:52.800 would have on your your willpower. Yes, all those interesting 0:15:52.840 --> 0:15:56.480 experiments where you would you would see to what extent 0:15:56.680 --> 0:16:00.680 various stimuli would have on your ability to exist the 0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:04.200 temptation of delicious chocolate cake. Yeah, as you said before, 0:16:04.320 --> 0:16:05.840 he's that guy in the street corner with a lab 0:16:05.880 --> 0:16:10.160 coat and a chocolate cake, Beware Beware of Roy biomaster Um. 0:16:10.200 --> 0:16:13.200 But he and a team of researchers asked four Americans 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:15.680 between the ages of eighteen and seventy eight about whether 0:16:15.880 --> 0:16:19.840 they felt happy and or meaningful when it comes to 0:16:19.920 --> 0:16:22.120 their life. Did they have meaning in their life? And 0:16:22.200 --> 0:16:24.720 he found that people were happy when their needs and 0:16:24.720 --> 0:16:28.400 desires were met in the present, but that this immediate 0:16:28.640 --> 0:16:32.920 fulfillment was largely the relevant to meaningfulness, and that the 0:16:33.000 --> 0:16:36.520 respondents derived meaning from considering the whole of their lives, 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:39.600 including the past, in the future, and happiness was generally 0:16:39.600 --> 0:16:41.960 a reflection of how they felt in the present alone. 0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:46.440 So Yes, the happier people, they were more likely to 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:49.840 report that they lead easy lives, that they were in 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:51.800 good health, and to feel good much of the time. 0:16:51.840 --> 0:16:54.880 They could buy whatever they wanted without any financial stream um. 0:16:55.040 --> 0:16:57.440 But people who felt that their lives were more meaningful, 0:16:57.440 --> 0:17:01.000 on the other hand, were likelier to have experience fulfilling 0:17:01.120 --> 0:17:04.800 social relationships, engaged in acts of charity, taking care of 0:17:04.800 --> 0:17:09.399 the children, thought about struggles and challenges, challenges including you know, 0:17:10.359 --> 0:17:14.040 the act of prayer in this as well as other 0:17:14.400 --> 0:17:19.600 more community centered activities. So yes, you have this big 0:17:19.680 --> 0:17:23.639 study from Shikhiro Oishi and at dinner, but you also 0:17:23.680 --> 0:17:28.159 have Balmeister's smaller, us centric one, which is mirroring the 0:17:28.200 --> 0:17:31.800 same effects of meaningfulness versus happiness. I like that you 0:17:31.840 --> 0:17:34.040 mentioned struggle earlier, and it brings us back to this 0:17:34.119 --> 0:17:37.760 idea of a meaningfulness being tied up with the story 0:17:37.960 --> 0:17:41.000 of our lives and sort of the story shaped nature 0:17:41.359 --> 0:17:44.639 of our own self awareness. Uh So at the end 0:17:44.640 --> 0:17:46.600 of the day, you have to you have to place 0:17:46.680 --> 0:17:51.320 yourself within a story and think also about the kind 0:17:51.320 --> 0:17:54.040 of stories we actually engage with. The kind of stories 0:17:54.080 --> 0:17:55.920 you would pay to see the movie theater or reading 0:17:55.920 --> 0:17:59.440 a book. They're generally the stories of struggle. I mean, 0:17:59.440 --> 0:18:02.120 it's the base of the basic plot line, the rise 0:18:02.160 --> 0:18:05.000 and fall the Uh you don't want to see a 0:18:05.080 --> 0:18:08.240 movie about about a man or a woman who had 0:18:08.359 --> 0:18:12.240 everything uh they ever wanted, right, Um, you want to 0:18:12.280 --> 0:18:15.160 see the movie about someone who lost everything and then 0:18:15.440 --> 0:18:17.720 figured out what was important in their life, or someone 0:18:17.760 --> 0:18:22.720 who rose from nothing to to achieve something. So these 0:18:22.720 --> 0:18:25.400 are the archetypes that we have to fit our our 0:18:25.440 --> 0:18:28.680 own lives in in order to find me At least, 0:18:29.560 --> 0:18:31.480 I agree, because I think we are so much the 0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:35.040 storytelling brain. That's how that's how we operate. We have 0:18:35.160 --> 0:18:37.399 to have that story in order to make sense of 0:18:37.440 --> 0:18:40.040 our lives and move forward. And I even think about 0:18:40.080 --> 0:18:44.480 the fictional movie The Matrix, in which the storyline there 0:18:44.720 --> 0:18:49.480 was that the alien overlords at some point had tinkered 0:18:49.520 --> 0:18:52.800 around and made the human lives very easy. They had 0:18:52.840 --> 0:18:56.760 no challenges and in essence, they had no meaning. So 0:18:56.840 --> 0:18:59.600 what happened is that all the humans died off because 0:18:59.680 --> 0:19:02.440 of course they were harnessing their their bodies energy right 0:19:03.000 --> 0:19:06.840 um in those little pods, and so they had to 0:19:07.080 --> 0:19:10.520 put into the stories of the humans lives some sort 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:14.280 of challenge obstacle in order to get to that idea 0:19:14.400 --> 0:19:17.200 of why am I here? What? What is the point 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:20.280 of being alive? Indeed, yes, I think that's that's an 0:19:20.280 --> 0:19:22.920 excellent example of it, just the idea that a life 0:19:22.920 --> 0:19:25.159 without struggle is not really a life. Struggles are the 0:19:25.200 --> 0:19:27.720 things that define our existence. To give us that story 0:19:27.880 --> 0:19:31.200 and ultimly give us meaning. Alright, Uh, on that note, 0:19:31.240 --> 0:19:33.800 we should probably take a break, and when we get back, 0:19:33.840 --> 0:19:36.760 we're going to talk about like you've got some change, 0:19:36.800 --> 0:19:38.920 you burning a hole in your pocket, and you want 0:19:38.960 --> 0:19:40.840 to spend it and to try to be happier. Let 0:19:40.880 --> 0:19:42.680 me talk about the ways in which you might be 0:19:42.720 --> 0:19:50.119 able to do that. All right, we're back putting a 0:19:50.119 --> 0:19:53.600 price tag on happiness, all right. So of course Forbes 0:19:53.680 --> 0:19:56.280 has some some articles on this, right because Forbes is 0:19:56.480 --> 0:20:00.680 very interested in in economics and um how to pursue 0:20:00.800 --> 0:20:03.679 that in in the best way that you can. And 0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:06.440 one of the articles talks with Elizabeth Dunn, who is 0:20:06.440 --> 0:20:08.920 a co author of the book Happy Money, The Science 0:20:08.960 --> 0:20:13.439 of Smarter Spending, and she talks about one of the 0:20:13.480 --> 0:20:17.040 ways that has the most impact with money and happiness 0:20:17.240 --> 0:20:22.679 is to purchase experiences, not things. Yes, buying an experience 0:20:22.720 --> 0:20:26.400 as opposed to a material instead of simply going and 0:20:26.480 --> 0:20:28.959 even waiting in line to buy that new gadget at 0:20:29.000 --> 0:20:33.520 the store. It's about taking a trip to an exciting location, 0:20:33.640 --> 0:20:36.040 or even even not that exciting a location, but but 0:20:36.359 --> 0:20:40.080 taking a little adventure, right Or going to a concert, 0:20:40.720 --> 0:20:43.880 checking out a new musical actor, an old favorite, going 0:20:43.920 --> 0:20:46.600 to a play, that sort of thing. And she cites 0:20:46.680 --> 0:20:49.800 in August two thousand and fourteen study called Waiting for 0:20:49.960 --> 0:20:55.600 More low anticipatory consumption of experiential and material purchases, which 0:20:55.640 --> 0:20:58.560 tracked about a hundred college students in twenty two hundred 0:20:58.680 --> 0:21:02.240 randomly selected adults to see how they felt about material 0:21:02.280 --> 0:21:06.000 goods and experiences, and they found that participants were excited 0:21:06.040 --> 0:21:08.399 about both the thing and the experience, but they were 0:21:08.440 --> 0:21:13.600 overall more positive about the experience. Moreover, material purchases were 0:21:13.600 --> 0:21:17.800 more likely to be tinged with feelings of impatience. So 0:21:18.080 --> 0:21:20.239 I think you had already mentioned before, like sitting in 0:21:20.320 --> 0:21:23.879 line for something. Here's a good example. You're in line 0:21:23.920 --> 0:21:28.720 for the newest gadget. Do you feel collaborative and easy 0:21:28.760 --> 0:21:31.760 going with your fellow line waiters or do you feel 0:21:31.840 --> 0:21:36.359 kind of like itchy and competitive? Yeah, I would I 0:21:36.359 --> 0:21:39.840 would imagine it tends more towards the competitive side. Now. Certainly, 0:21:39.880 --> 0:21:44.480 as we were discussing earlier, really savvy companies such as 0:21:44.520 --> 0:21:49.400 Apple has tried to make it more of a community, right, 0:21:49.560 --> 0:21:52.520 more but more almost a religion where you're not in 0:21:52.600 --> 0:21:57.440 line with other consumers with whom you're competing, but rather 0:21:57.520 --> 0:22:00.720 you're you're gathered with like minded individual wolves who were 0:22:00.760 --> 0:22:04.160 there to to get another slice of the future, right, 0:22:04.200 --> 0:22:05.800 Because then you can kind of look at it as 0:22:05.840 --> 0:22:08.359 that line for the experience, right, So your in line 0:22:08.400 --> 0:22:12.240 for for a you know, a theater ticket or a tour, 0:22:12.640 --> 0:22:14.879 and all of a sudden you're talking with your fellow 0:22:14.920 --> 0:22:17.760 line waiters about how cool it's going to be. You're right, 0:22:17.800 --> 0:22:21.399 Apple has completely hacked into that because now we have 0:22:21.520 --> 0:22:24.360 people in line for the experience of Apple. And did 0:22:24.359 --> 0:22:26.919 you know that you can ask Serri her favorite color 0:22:26.960 --> 0:22:29.200 and she will tell you it's this blue green color 0:22:29.280 --> 0:22:32.159 that she can't quite articulate. So it's like waiting in 0:22:32.280 --> 0:22:34.720