The wealth → happiness current data is changed every year. Last study had a monotonic positive relationship between wealth and happiness to $60K/y. Will Wilkinson had this a while back.
Parenthood also has a complex relationship with happiness. In general, it appears to decrease young folks happiness, and increase older folks happiness, as of the last thing I read. Read Will Wilkinson and Bryan Caplan here.
The Kahneman TED video: ( http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_kahneman_the_riddle_of_experience_vs_memory.html ) on happiness, suggesting that experienced happiness and remembered happiness are effectively ENTIRELY different things is an important caveat here. I actually think it’s probably the most important thing to be known about happiness.
You also don’t address very well (and probably shouldn’t in a how-to) the serious methodological difficulty of happiness research. Rating happiness on a Likert scale is a weak way to rate happiness, and one prone to intra- and inter- personal comparisons with ones self and reference group...whether or not one has a buzzer.
For instance, my move from Chicago to California has allowed a great deal more outdoor/sun time, which increases happiness...but after a couple years, I’ll have forgotten the reference group of Chicago, and will rate my daily happiness based on my current baseline, not my current Chicago-including reference. .
Commuting really really sucks. Least happy part of almost everyone’s day, who does it. Minimizing commute is a not-inconsequential path towards increased happiness.
I avoid this problem by biking as much as possible. Granted, this wouldn’t work if I lived in the suburbs an hour’s drive from work, but since I live about a 15-minute drive, that works out to a 35-minute bike ride. Multiply that by two for every day I work, add whatever extra minutes I spend going to friend’s houses or grocery shopping, and that’s a lot of outdoor aerobic exercise, which improves my mood hugely. And I arrive at work awake and pumped even for 6 am shifts.
True—I hate to drive, but altering one’s commute can actually make it fun. I listened to a helluva lot of atheist-v-theist debates from Luke’s site while driving in my car. I’ve also considered taking the bus so I can read more. The bus would increase my time by 3x but I think would contribute to improved orderliness in my schedule and devouring more knowledge.
So… a boring annoying commute provokes thoughts of self-harm, but I think there are definite ways one can make the commute enjoyable—mainly by making it 1) interesting and 2) productive. Listening to some educating audio does both.
Since I started listening to interesting and/or entertaining things, I really enjoy my commute. I usually get through two books each month (I have an Audible subscription) and several podcasts, along with other talks etc. that I stumble across on the interwebs.
Last time I moved home I made sure my new place wouldn’t be too close to work (either by walking, or cycling). Granted, there’s probably other ways I could achieve the same result, but this is nice way of combining regular mild exercises with learning that also means I get to save money on rent by not living right in the middle of the city.
Last time I moved home I made sure my new place wouldn’t be too close to work… (emphasis mine)
Well that’s unusual! Looks like you’ve found a great use for your commute as well. Now that MN is warming up, I’m hoping to get out the road bicycle and get to work that way. I’ll have to look for something like Audible, as well. I think I could “read” more if I listened during so called idle time. On the other hand, I find it quite more effective if I take notes on the books I read. I think that would be harder without text in front of me.
We hate commuting. It correlates with an increased risk of obesity, divorce, neck pain, stress, worry, and sleeplessness. It makes us eat worse and exercise less.
The wealth/happiness mapping has the disadvantage of being easily politicized, since it bears directly on the utilitarian calculations informing optimal tax rates. I only know of one nation that explicitly claims to optimize happiness, but I’d be surprised if all the drivers of variability in the data were entirely unbiased; certainly somerelatedmetrics seem to be intended primarily as normative rather than descriptive.
Like Luke, I was UNhappy for a long, long time. Then it hit me one day and I’ve never been unhappy for very long since. Here’s my thoughts on happiness: http://j.mp/RQrYNa
Great post. Several quibbles:
The wealth → happiness current data is changed every year. Last study had a monotonic positive relationship between wealth and happiness to $60K/y. Will Wilkinson had this a while back.
Parenthood also has a complex relationship with happiness. In general, it appears to decrease young folks happiness, and increase older folks happiness, as of the last thing I read. Read Will Wilkinson and Bryan Caplan here.
The Kahneman TED video: ( http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_kahneman_the_riddle_of_experience_vs_memory.html ) on happiness, suggesting that experienced happiness and remembered happiness are effectively ENTIRELY different things is an important caveat here. I actually think it’s probably the most important thing to be known about happiness.
You also don’t address very well (and probably shouldn’t in a how-to) the serious methodological difficulty of happiness research. Rating happiness on a Likert scale is a weak way to rate happiness, and one prone to intra- and inter- personal comparisons with ones self and reference group...whether or not one has a buzzer.
For instance, my move from Chicago to California has allowed a great deal more outdoor/sun time, which increases happiness...but after a couple years, I’ll have forgotten the reference group of Chicago, and will rate my daily happiness based on my current baseline, not my current Chicago-including reference. .
1 more bit to remember:
Commuting really really sucks. Least happy part of almost everyone’s day, who does it. Minimizing commute is a not-inconsequential path towards increased happiness.
I avoid this problem by biking as much as possible. Granted, this wouldn’t work if I lived in the suburbs an hour’s drive from work, but since I live about a 15-minute drive, that works out to a 35-minute bike ride. Multiply that by two for every day I work, add whatever extra minutes I spend going to friend’s houses or grocery shopping, and that’s a lot of outdoor aerobic exercise, which improves my mood hugely. And I arrive at work awake and pumped even for 6 am shifts.
True—I hate to drive, but altering one’s commute can actually make it fun. I listened to a helluva lot of atheist-v-theist debates from Luke’s site while driving in my car. I’ve also considered taking the bus so I can read more. The bus would increase my time by 3x but I think would contribute to improved orderliness in my schedule and devouring more knowledge.
So… a boring annoying commute provokes thoughts of self-harm, but I think there are definite ways one can make the commute enjoyable—mainly by making it 1) interesting and 2) productive. Listening to some educating audio does both.
Since I started listening to interesting and/or entertaining things, I really enjoy my commute. I usually get through two books each month (I have an Audible subscription) and several podcasts, along with other talks etc. that I stumble across on the interwebs.
Last time I moved home I made sure my new place wouldn’t be too close to work (either by walking, or cycling). Granted, there’s probably other ways I could achieve the same result, but this is nice way of combining regular mild exercises with learning that also means I get to save money on rent by not living right in the middle of the city.
Well that’s unusual! Looks like you’ve found a great use for your commute as well. Now that MN is warming up, I’m hoping to get out the road bicycle and get to work that way. I’ll have to look for something like Audible, as well. I think I could “read” more if I listened during so called idle time. On the other hand, I find it quite more effective if I take notes on the books I read. I think that would be harder without text in front of me.
Here’s a good roundup of the research on this.
Yeah, you’re right that the experienced/remembered happiness thing should be included. I’ve added it.
The wealth/happiness mapping has the disadvantage of being easily politicized, since it bears directly on the utilitarian calculations informing optimal tax rates. I only know of one nation that explicitly claims to optimize happiness, but I’d be surprised if all the drivers of variability in the data were entirely unbiased; certainly some related metrics seem to be intended primarily as normative rather than descriptive.
Ditto the Kahneman TED talk. Very insightful.
Like Luke, I was UNhappy for a long, long time. Then it hit me one day and I’ve never been unhappy for very long since. Here’s my thoughts on happiness: http://j.mp/RQrYNa
new link: http://dorianinnes.com/how-to-be-happy-in-1-step/
This link is broken too.
Archive.org copy: https://web.archive.org/web/20131005121009/http://dorianinnes.com/how-to-be-happy-in-1-step/